the Honest Kitchen DEHYDRATED WHOLE GRAIN DOG FOOD

With an average score of 6.5, The Honest Kitchen’s Dehydrated Whole Grain line is considered a moderate risk food. This food has a relatively large amount of carbohydrate, averaging about 43%. Foods that are rich in carbohydrate can increase insulin levels, increase the risk of obesity and cause unwanted changes to the gut microbiome.  

Like all Honest Kitchen foods, the ingredients are supplemented with more than 5 vitamins and minerals, which can indicate lower quality or incomplete ingredients. Vitamin and mineral excesses, especially vitamin D and copper can often result from added vitamin premixes, so it’s preferable that most or all vitamins and minerals come from real foods.  

Some of the foods in this line also lose ingredient quality points for added fish oil. While a source of EPA and DHA is a good addition, the species of fish should be named and not generic. The label also doesn’t state whether the fish is farmed or wild caught.    

The food is dehydrated, which is considered minimally processed compared to canned and kibble. Minimal or no processing is preferred since heating foods causes losses in some active enzymes, amino acids and phytonutrients. 

The food safety scores of this line are moderately low. Despite organic ingredients, which is certainly lower risk, they all contain conventional potatoes in the top 5 ingredients, which are known high pesticide/herbicide crops. The exception is the Fish & Oat recipe, which uses organic barley and oats. These foods do lose some additional points for other high pesticide ingredients, including peas and apples.   

It’s also worth noting the Honest Kitchen’s Whole Grain Dehydrated foods don’t reveal the omega6:omega-3 ratio, which is unfortunate since AAFCO allows a very inflammatory limit of 30:1. 

On the whole, adding organic ingredients is admirable. But when there are still non organic foods in the top 5 ingredients that are high pesticide crops, the food safety risk will be elevated. This food would score a lot higher if all the starches were organic.