the Honest Kitchen ONE POT STEW COOKED DOG FOOD

With an average score of 7.1, The Honest Kitchen’s One Pot Stew line is their second highest scoring line and is rated as a low risk food line. This is mainly because the food is lower in carbohydrate. Larger amounts of starch or carbohydrate can increase insulin levels and cause unwanted changes to the gut microbiome. This food is calculated at 14% carbohydrate on a dry matter basis, with the exception of the Chicken with Sweet Potato, Spinach & Apples, which is calculated at 22% and the Turkey Stew with Quinoa, Carrots & Broccoli at 19%.  

Like all Honest Kitchen foods, the ingredients are supplemented with more than 5 vitamins and minerals, which indicates 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.   

The food is cooked, 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 decent, although high pesticide ingredients like apples, spinach and kale in the top 5 ingredients costs the foods some ingredient safety points. The Turkey Stew with Quinoa, Carrots & Broccoli and the Beef & Lamb with Green Beans & Sweep Potatoes are the two foods in this line that don’t lose ingredient safety points in the top 5, with resulting high scores.  Points are deducted for foods that appear on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list for high pesticide use or are known genetically modified crops.  

The Honest Kitchen’s One Pot Stews contain salmon oil, which is preferable to generic fish oil as a source of EPA/DHA. However it doesn’t specify whether the salmon is farmed or wild caught. The food also doesn’t reveal the omega6:omega-3 ratio, which is unfortunate since AAFCO allows a very inflammatory limit of 30:1. 

Overall, if you’re faithful to The Honest Kitchen, then the One Pot Stew is The Honest Kitchen’s second highest scoring food and does meet our low risk criteria.