Food Safety When Making Raw Food

It’s quite common for people to be wary of handling and feeding raw meat to their pets – and we completely understand!

Being aware of food safety is important, especially if you have young children, are pregnant, or someone in your household is immune compromised .

But for the vast majority of households, raw feeding can be – and usually is – completely safe.

In terms of protecting yourself and your family, we recommend practicing the exact same food safety that you would when handling meat for yourselves.

Always use separate utensils and chopping boards, wash your hands and wipe down all surfaces with a food safe spray.

If you’re concerned about your pet becoming unwell, there is even less reason to worry.

Dogs are designed to eat raw meat, and their physiology has measures in place to prevent them getting sick like we might if we ate the same food.

They have antibacterial qualities in their saliva through to their incredibly powerful stomachs, which are thought to be as much as 100 times more acidic than human stomachs during digestion, making them perfect for neutralising pathogens.

Food safety & salmonella

You may hear scary statistics about dogs shedding salmonella, but it’s important to look at these in context.

While it’s true that around 15% of household pets shed salmonella, this is regardless of what they are fed.

It’s also important to remember that not all salmonella is pathogenic, salmonella lives in the gut of dogs and cats and those 15% of pets that shed salmonella are clinically healthy.

And when we say they “shed” salmonella, this means that it’s in their waste.

We highly recommend that you avoid getting up close and personal with your pet’s poo for any reason!

When we look at salmonella in food, the top 3 causes of salmonella outbreaks in Australia in 2016 were mung beans, bagged salad and bakery products, meanwhile salmonella is the leading cause of recalls for dry dog food!

In reality, Australia has very strict regulations in place for the human supply chain, especially when it comes to meat (and rightly so), whereas the pet food industry and the pet meat supply chain is regulated independently and at a lower standard or, in some cases, not at all .

If you do fall into one of the higher risk categories or you’re still just not comfortable feeding raw, you can lightly cook your dog’s food, which will kill off any pathogens and retain almost all of the nutrients.

Just don’t overcook it as this may begin to deplete some heat sensitive nutrients, and remember that cooked food weighs less because water evaporates through heating, so always base your portions on the raw weights.

And check out our 4 week dog recipe program that will put your dog on the right health track