The raw feeding movement traces its modern popularity to the 1993 publication of Ian Billinghurst’s book Give Your Dog a Bone, which argued that dogs thrive on bones and raw meat reminiscent of an ancestral canine diet. Today the category encompasses home-prepared BARF recipes, prey-model regimens, commercial frozen and chilled complete diets, freeze-dried products, premixes combined with raw meat, and raw meaty bones. The review stresses that these categories are not interchangeable. They differ in nutrient formulation, ingredient traceability, pathogen-control procedures, storage requirements and owner handling, and studies that lump all raw diets into a single exposure may obscure important variation in risk.

On the nutritional front, the review finds that adequacy is genuinely product-specific. In one analytical study of 33 preprepared raw dog foods labelled as complete, every single product had at least three mineral values outside the FEDIAF reference range. Selenium fell below the minimum recommendation in all 33 products, zinc, manganese and copper were frequently below recommended intakes, 45.5 percent of products exceeded the maximum calcium recommendation, and 57.6 percent exceeded the maximum iodine value. The authors caution that these deviations identify quality-control concerns within the sampled products but do not by themselves establish clinical deficiency or toxicity in the dogs consuming them, and the findings should not be generalized to every commercial raw product on the market.

Home-prepared raw diets fare less well in the literature. Analyses of published recipes, drawn from a broader body of work on home-prepared diets, have identified frequent deficiencies in calcium, zinc, copper, vitamin D, vitamin E and choline. Ingredient rotation, a common owner strategy, does not guarantee nutritional completeness, because adequacy depends on quantitative formulation and nutrient bioavailability rather than variety alone. Puppies are especially vulnerable to inappropriate calcium and phosphorus concentrations, and excessive liver or unbalanced supplementation can produce vitamin and trace-mineral excesses. Professional guidance therefore supports formulation and periodic review by a veterinarian with advanced nutrition training, particularly for growth, disease management or long-term exclusive feeding.

Where raw diets do show consistent short-term effects is in digestibility and faecal characteristics. Controlled studies have repeatedly reported higher apparent total-tract digestibility of protein and fat in raw, mildly cooked or human-grade fresh diets compared with extruded kibble, along with smaller, firmer stools and reproducible changes in faecal microbiota and fermentation products. Yet the review urges technical caution in interpreting these numbers. The diets being compared rarely differ only in processing; they typically vary simultaneously in ingredients, fat, fibre, starch, moisture and energy density, so higher digestibility coefficients cannot be attributed to the absence of heat treatment alone. Human-grade mildly cooked diets can produce similar effects, and no universally accepted healthy canine microbiome signature exists against which these compositional differences could be judged beneficial or harmful. Crucially, long-term clinical superiority of raw feeding over nutritionally complete conventional diets has not been demonstrated.

The microbiological picture is where the evidence is strongest and most troubling. Because raw meat receives no thermal kill step, contamination can persist from slaughter through processing, transport and household handling. Surveillance studies across Europe and the Americas have repeatedly detected Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria monocytogenes, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, Yersinia enterocolitica and other enteric bacteria in commercial raw pet foods. The largest recent United Kingdom retail survey tested 380 frozen raw products collected between March 2023 and February 2024. In the dog-food subset, Salmonella was detected in 24.2 percent of samples, Campylobacter in 14.4 percent, culture-confirmed STEC in 13.4 percent and MRSA in roughly 10 percent, while ESBL- or AmpC-producing E. coli were found in 21.5 percent of the dog-food samples tested for that outcome. Across the full dataset, 28.7 percent of products exceeded statutory microbiological criteria.

The review is equally clear that freezing and freeze-drying are not reliable microbial kill steps. Viable bacteria have been recovered from commercial freeze-dried raw products, and available evidence indicates that drying may reduce rather than eradicate contamination. Parasites add another layer of concern, including Toxoplasma gondii, Sarcocystis species, Neospora caninum and, depending on geographic origin and offal source, Echinococcus. An Italian observational study found that dogs reported to consume raw meat regularly had nearly threefold higher odds of Toxoplasma seropositivity, supporting exposure plausibility even though raw meat cannot be confirmed as the sole source. Domestic freezers may not achieve validated time-temperature combinations uniformly, so parasite control requires source-specific rather than generic assumptions about freezing.

Dogs fed raw diets can shed enteric pathogens without showing any clinical signs, creating a household exposure pathway through food preparation, contaminated bowls and surfaces, faeces and close contact. Multiple observational studies have linked raw feeding to increased faecal carriage of Salmonella and antimicrobial-resistant E. coli, including third-generation cephalosporin-resistant and multidrug-resistant strains in United Kingdom dog populations. Whole-genome sequencing has identified closely related resistant Enterobacterales in companion animals and their household members, supporting recent sharing or a common source, although genomic relatedness alone cannot establish the direction of transmission. Documented human outbreaks underscore that severe outcomes are possible: a cluster of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 infections was linked to raw tripe pet food, and Canadian authorities investigated an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant Salmonella associated with raw pet food and cattle contact. The review notes, however, that outbreak reports establish possibility and severity rather than the population-level burden of raw-pet-food-associated human disease.

On the environmental side, the evidence is the least raw-diet-specific. Life-cycle assessments of pet food generally show that impacts are driven principally by the type and quantity of animal-derived ingredients, with ruminant and human-edible meat dominating land use and greenhouse-gas emissions. A recent United Kingdom analysis of 996 dog foods, including 34 raw products, estimated a greater than 65-fold range in greenhouse-gas intensity across products, with prime-meat content an important driver. Frozen products require cold-chain energy during distribution and home storage, whereas freeze-drying demands substantial manufacturing energy but reduces transport mass and avoids frozen storage, and few matched assessments have quantified these trade-offs. The authors conclude that a poultry or by-product-based raw food may compare favourably with a beef-rich premium kibble, so the raw format itself cannot be assumed intrinsically more impactful.

The review’s overarching message is that raw meat-based diets warrant product-specific and household-specific risk assessment rather than categorical judgement. For owners who choose to continue raw feeding, veterinary counselling should prioritize nutritionally complete formulation appropriate for life stage, manufacturer quality assurance, validated pathogen-reduction processes such as high-pressure processing that reduce but do not eliminate risk, uninterrupted cold chains, strict hygiene including bowl cleaning and handwashing, prompt faeces disposal, and explicit consideration of household vulnerability. Households containing infants, pregnant individuals, older adults or immunocompromised people face a lower margin of safety, and raw feeding may be inappropriate when their exposure cannot be reliably prevented. The authors call for adequately powered prospective cohorts, batch-level surveillance that distinguishes raw diet categories, whole-genome-sequencing source-attribution studies, validation of pathogen-reduction technologies, and matched life-cycle assessments before the long-term benefits and risks of raw feeding can be compared with high certainty.

Subject of Research: Nutritional adequacy, microbiological safety, antimicrobial resistance and environmental sustainability of raw meat-based diets for dogs within a One Health framework

Article Title: Raw meat based diets for dogs and their nutritional and One Health implications

Article References: Tufarelli, V., & Bozzo, G. (2026). Raw meat based diets for dogs and their nutritional and One Health implications. Discover Animals, 3(1), Article 84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44338-026-00249-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44338-026-00249-0

Keywords: raw meat-based diets, dog nutrition, One Health, Salmonella, antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic pathogens, pet food safety, BARF diet, foodborne illness, life cycle assessment, Toxoplasma gondii, veterinary nutrition