Tucker’s Freeze Dried Dog Food Review

With an average score of 8.8/10, Tucker’s Freeze Dried dog food is considered a low risk food. It has average protein of 44% and average carbohydrates of 4%. This is an exceptionally low carbohydrate content, which is exactly what we expect to see in a freeze dried dog food. 

It’s worth noting that 3 recipes are higher in fat than protein, which affects the ingredient quality score. High fat diets can cause unwanted changes to gut balance and permeability, which can cause chronic inflammation in dogs. They can also indicate cheaper protein sources. 

The only other loss of points is due to the addition of vitamins and minerals. Tucker’s states they used science to determine that dogs do not need fruit or vegetable carbohydrates in their diets so their recipes have been formulated without produce, other than pumpkin. That requires the addition of synthetic vitamins and minerals to balance the foods to AAFCO standards. It’s always preferable to obtain nutrients from whole food ingredients.

Tucker’s Freeze Dried includes probiotics but they don’t guarantee the amount of CFU (colony forming units).

On the ingredient safety side, all of these recipes score 10/10, which is certainly noteworthy. They are minimally processed foods so they haven’t been heat-processed so nutrients aren’t lost through processing. These foods are formulated with very limited produce so that means there aren’t any high pesticide/herbicide or GMO ingredients.

The salmon used in these recipes is wild caught from the US. Wild caught fish is more nutritious and has a better fatty acid profile than farmed fish.

Tucker’s doesn’t provide the omega-6:omega-3 ratio in their foods. They are certainly not the only brand omitting this information, but it’s our hope that more brands will pay more attention to these fats since omega-6 fats are inflammatory and AAFCO allows a very high ratio of 30:1.