Pet Foods Ranked: What Matters More Than Raw or Dry?

Reading time: about 8 min

Some time ago I came across an old video in which Dr Karen Shaw Becker ranks pet foods from best to worst. What stayed with me most was not which food came first. She placed an unbalanced homemade diet last, whether raw or cooked. It is a useful reminder: carefully chosen ingredients and an attractive bowl do not necessarily mean that a pet is getting every nutrient it needs.

Fresh food and transparency about ingredients have always mattered to me. But I do not want one veterinarian’s historical ranking to replace an assessment of an individual diet. Let’s look at the reasoning behind Becker’s list and which questions it can genuinely help us ask when choosing food for our dogs or cats.

Two questions that still matter

Becker’s approach places value on food rich in protein and moisture with relatively little carbohydrate, while also emphasising nutritional balance. These are not the same thing. A wet food can be unbalanced, a dry food can be complete, and a very high-protein diet can be inappropriate for a particular animal.

For protein, the amino acid profile, digestibility, quantity and individual needs all matter. Lower carbohydrate content is Becker’s preference, but that alone cannot rank every dog or cat food according to its health effects. Different species and medical conditions have different needs. Crude protein percentages must also be compared on the same basis: figures on dry-food and canned-food labels cannot be compared directly when moisture levels differ so greatly.

Moisture deserves particular attention in cats. In a small crossover study by Buckley and colleagues, six healthy cats received foods with the same composition but different water contents. On the wettest diet, which contained 73.3% water, total fluid intake increased and the urine was more dilute. This supports the practical value of adding moisture to the diet. It does not prove that every cat eating dry food is chronically dehydrated or that dry food by itself causes kidney disease.

For that reason, I would not treat “at least 50% wet food” as a universal medical threshold. I do, however, agree with the integrative view that feeding cats at least some complete wet food can be an excellent way to increase water intake. The right proportion depends on the whole diet, how much the cat drinks and its health. Fresh water must always be available, even when the food is moist.

What did Becker’s historical ranking look like?

The order below reflects Becker’s earlier assessment. It is not the outcome of long-term comparative feeding trials, nor is it FendaF’s universal ranking of every food. What connects the first three options is above all a balanced recipe; the author assesses preparation methods separately.

1. Balanced homemade raw food.
2. Balanced commercially prepared raw food.
3. Balanced homemade cooked food.
4. Wet food made with human-food-grade ingredients.
5. Dry food made with human-food-grade ingredients.
6. “Super-premium” wet food.
7. “Super-premium” dry food.
8. Veterinarian-recommended wet food.
9. Veterinarian-recommended dry food.
10. Grocery-store wet food.
11. Grocery-store dry food.
12. Semi-moist food.
13. Unbalanced homemade food, raw or cooked.

The strength of the list is that it encourages us to ask questions about ingredients and balance. Its weakness is that it combines unlike criteria: processing method, marketing category, sales channel and a veterinarian’s recommendation are not the same kind of characteristic. “Super-premium” is not a nutrient analysis, and a veterinary recommendation is not an ingredient. Nor does a supermarket shelf prove that a complete food sold there must be worse than one in a specialist pet shop.

When considering a veterinary diet, I ask separately whether it serves a specific clinical purpose and what its composition is. Evidence supporting nutrition for one disease does not automatically settle every question of quality. Equally, an ingredient list that seems less appealing to us does not cancel a well-supported clinical benefit. A logo should not decide the issue for us in either direction.

An unbalanced diet can do harm before we notice it

I have heard stories about breeders telling new puppy owners not to give dry food and recommending homemade porridge instead. My question would be very specific: does that recipe meet the puppy’s needs for energy, amino acids, minerals and vitamins, and how has that been checked?

Serious errors in calcium and phosphorus can damage skeletal development relatively quickly in growing animals. An adult may conceal some deficiencies for longer. Still, we cannot promise one fixed timetable, such as harm appearing in every puppy within two to six months or life-threatening organ disease appearing in every adult within two to three years. The effect and its timing depend on which nutrient is missing or excessive, by how much, and on the animal itself. A glossy coat and good appetite alone are not proof that a diet is complete.

In a 2011 study, Dillitzer and colleagues evaluated 95 raw-food rations for adult dogs. Around 60% had at least one identified nutritional imbalance. This was not an assessment of all raw foods and did not show that every dog consuming one of those diets became ill. It showed that even with good intentions and varied ingredients, an important nutrient may still be missing. Our article on homemade raw food and common mistakes looks more closely at assessing a recipe.

A complete food is intended to meet the needs of the species and life stage specified on its label. A complementary food does not need to meet those needs on its own. The distinction also applies to raw and wet products: “100% meat” does not mean “everything required is present”. Checking whether a product is labelled complete or complementary is a good first step.

Semi-moist food is not the same as antifreeze

In Becker’s old list, semi-moist food was second to last, partly because of propylene glycol. This must not be confused with ethylene glycol, a substance that can cause life-threatening antifreeze poisoning. Similar names and partially overlapping uses do not mean equal toxicity.

There is nevertheless a genuine species-specific safety concern with propylene glycol. The FDA does not permit it as an ingredient in cat food in the United States because its safety for this use has not been established and cats’ red blood cells are sensitive to it. Risks in dogs and cats should not automatically be treated as identical. A food sold in a pouch is also not necessarily semi-moist or made with propylene glycol. Many pouches containing sauce or jelly are simply high-moisture wet foods. We need to judge the actual ingredients, the species and the applicable labelling rules, not the shape of the package.

Why I often combine complete food and fresh food

I still value adding fresh food and variety to my dogs’ diets. Combining commercially prepared food with raw food has suited my own dogs. That is my preference and experience, not a requirement that every pet must eat raw food to stay healthy. Balanced freshly cooked food can also be an option. With raw food, microbiological safety matters alongside nutrients.

In the past I suggested around 75% complete prepared food with up to 25% raw food. That cannot, however, be given as a universal guarantee that the raw part needs no balancing. First, we must know whether the percentage refers to weight or calories. Second, the effect depends on what is added and what is removed from the main diet. If a quarter of daily energy comes from meat alone, the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio can change, for example.

The WSAVA’s practical guideline for treats and nutritionally incomplete extras is up to 10% of daily calories. Even that limit does not make every addition automatically appropriate. Wanting a larger share of fresh food is not necessarily wrong, but then it makes sense to assess the complete mixed ration rather than rely on a percentage alone.

At FendaF you will find both Winner Plus wet foods and dry foods. Even within our own range, it is worth looking at the particular recipe and checking whether the product is complete or complementary. A manufacturer’s statement about ingredient quality does not replace evaluating the whole diet.

The main lesson I take from this old ranking is that the method of preparation never removes the need to ask “does this food provide everything needed?” and “is the diet genuinely balanced?”. Those questions are more useful than assigning every shop shelf a permanent position in a best-to-worst league table.

Sources

• Becker, K. S. (2010). 13 Pet Foods Ranked From Great to Disastrous.
• FEDIAF (2025). Nutritional Guidelines for Complete and Complementary Pet Food for Cats and Dogs.
• Buckley, C. M. F. jt (2011). Effect of dietary water intake on urinary output, specific gravity and relative supersaturation for calcium oxalate and struvite in the cat. British Journal of Nutrition.
• Dillitzer, N., Becker, N. ja Kienzle, E. (2011). Intake of minerals, trace elements and vitamins in bone and raw food rations in adult dogs. British Journal of Nutrition.
• FDA. Import Alert 72-06 — Cat food products due to the presence of propylene glycol.
• ATSDR. Ethylene Glycol and Propylene Glycol Toxicity — What is Propylene Glycol?.
• WSAVA Nutrition Committee (2024). Feeding treats to your dog.