Last Updated: 04/06/2025
Best Natural Dog Food
What makes a pet food 'natural'? Learn what the benefits of a natural diet is for your dog.
Author: Dr Belinda Stancombe BVSc (Hons)
Reading Time: 26 minutes - medium read
The idea of natural nutrition for pets has well and truly taken off in the pet food industry. Pet owners are seeing the benefits of natural eating for themselves, and are starting to recognise the benefits for their furry family members too.
While home cooking your pet's food is a sure-fire way to ensure all ingredients are fresh, natural, and wholesome, it is notoriously difficult to ensure you are meeting all nutritional requirements. And let's be honest, cooking for your pet is also fairly costly and time consuming!
Thankfully, there are plenty of premium-quality, ready-made natural diets which take the hard work out for you. So what makes a pet food 'natural' anyway? And what actually are the benefits of natural nutrition?
What is a Natural Dog Food?
Natural pet foods are defined by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) as those made from only natural ingredients derived from plant, animal or mined sources with no chemical alterations or synthetic additives, including ingredients like artificial colours, flavours and preservatives.
Natural dog foods are available in dry, wet, and freeze dried or air dried formulations. Some popular natural dog food brands include Black Hawk, Open Farm, Ziwi Peak and K9 Natural.
What are the Benefits of Natural Dog Food?
Many high quality natural dog foods are formulated with a holistic approach to your dog's health, using wholesome, natural ingredients with known beneficial properties. Read on to discover some of the commonly seen benefits of natural dog foods.
1. High Meat Content
In general, natural pet foods tend to have meat or animal products as the first ingredient, which means it's the most prominent ingredient by weight. Most pet foods don't actually disclose how much of their recipes are comprised of meat. While dogs can derive protein from grain and vegetable sources, meat is a biologically appropriate protein source which is readily digested and absorbed.
Pet food labelling can be tricky; for instance, if a food is called 'Healthy Natural Salmon Food', to comply with AAFCO standards it must contain a minimum of 95% salmon after water is removed. Now compare this to pet foods which use the word with, for example 'Healthy Natural Food with Salmon'. As soon as that with appears, it means that the food only needs to contain a minimum of 3% of salmon with the bulk of the food likely to be made up by other cheaper protein sources, such as poultry meal. Now that's a bit fishy...
High quality natural pet foods contain a much higher meat content than other commercial pet foods, which may use other ingredients such as corn, wheat and soy to bolster the protein levels of their foods. While this protein may well be absorbed and digested by your pet, many pet owners feel feeding a diet with meat as the primary protein source just makes better sense.
Want to know more about reading pet food labels? Check out How to Read the Label on a Bag of Dog Food.
Best High Protein Diets for Dogs
2. More Grain Free Options
Natural food brands tend to produce a lot of grain free diet options. The reception of grain free pet food from the public has been overwhelmingly positive. While a grain-free diet isn't necessary for every pet, it may be beneficial for those with certain dietary intolerances and allergies.
While in many cases grains such as brown rice can make a valuable nutritional addition to pet foods, many pet parents choose to feed a grain free recipe for a variety of different reasons.
Whatever the motivation is for going grain free, it does pay to be wary of marketing promises and consider the suitability of the alternative carbohydrate sources which have been used in place of grains. In some cases nutritionally dense carbohydrates such as brown rice may be replaced with starchy carbohydrate sources of lower nutritional value like tapioca.
Quality natural pet food brands carefully consider the nutritional value of any carbohydrate sources used in grain free recipes and preferentially select slow release energy sources like sweet potato or chickpeas as an alternative.
To read more, take a look at our article on Exploring Grain Free Dog Food.
Best Grain-Free Natural Diets for Dogs
3. Quality Ingredients, not just Nutrients
Most commercial pet food, natural or otherwise, is formulated to meet international nutritional guidelines. These guidelines are generally focused on the macronutrients, (such as protein, fat, or carbohydrates), rather than the ingredients.
But ingredients do matter. High quality, less-processed ingredients contain necessary macronutrients as well as beneficial micronutrients, which are not included in pet food guidelines and are therefore often missing in cheaper, poor quality diets.
Valuable micronutrients to look out for include:
Omega Fatty Acids: Increased levels of the omega 3 fatty acid from marine sources such as green lipped mussel or oily fish can help to support healthy skin and a shiny coat as well as joint health and mobility, kidney, cardiovascular and brain health. Omega 3 fatty acids are now widely utilised in many prescription and veterinary therapeutic diets due to their array of health benefits. Omega fatty acids from other plant based sources such as flaxseeds can also provide some benefits for dogs however the affects tend to be less potent than those from marine sources. If you are looking for a natural food to help support healthy skin and a shiny coat, make sure you check out the ingredients to see where the omega fatty acids are coming from.
Antioxidants: Antioxidants are found in many natural ingredients, particularly fruits and vegetables including blueberries, cranberries, tomatoes, carrots and spinach. Antioxidants protect the body's cells from the destructive effects of free radicals, helping to support a healthy immune system and fight premature ageing.
Pre and Probiotics: These nutrients help support the microbiome or 'good' bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. The right balance of beneficial bacteria can help to improve digestion, help fight infection and strengthen the immune system.
4. Novel and Single Protein Recipes
Alongside how much meat is in a pet food, it's worth considering the number of different meat protein sources. While variety can be the spice of life, for some dogs certain protein sources may be a trigger for food sensitivities.
Premium natural food brands tend to keep to just one protein source per recipe - this limited ingredient approach helps to reduce the risk of any dietary sensitivities being triggered. Be wary of product labelling and always check the ingredients if you are avoiding certain proteins due to dietary sensitivities.
As well as offering single protein options, natural dog foods lead the way in novel protein sources. A novel protein source is a meat that a pet has not been exposed to previously. Food sensitivities and allergies develop over time with repeated exposure to certain protein sources, with meats found commonly in pet foods such as chicken and beef appearing as common triggers. For a dog with a sensitivity to one or more commonly used protein sources, feeding a novel protein source such as venison, fish, duck, insect or kangaroo may be helpful.
For more information, take a look at our article on Signs Your Dog May Have a Food Allergy.
Best Novel Protein Diets for Dogs
5. Complete and Balanced
These days, almost every commercially available natural food is created in line with AAFCO feeding guidelines. These guidelines specify base levels for all important macronutrients, to ensure your dog receives everything they need to survive.
If you aren't sure about the safety of a certain natural dog food brand, check the label - most will list whether they 'Meet AAFCO nutritional requirements'. If you find a diet that doesn't contain this disclaimer, or that is labelled 'for intermittent or occasional feeding' we recommend that you proceed with caution and ask your vet for their opinion.
For more information, take a look at our article on Premium Pet Food: Is it worth it?
6. Locally Produced
If you're exploring natural pet food, chances are you are the kind of globally conscious pet parent who wants to minimise their impact on the environment and support local industry. While we are lucky enough to be able to buy pet food from countries all around the world, it's worth considering the carbon footprint of imported pet foods which have to travel a long way to get here.
Buying locally made dog food doesn't just help to reduce the toll of long distance shipping on the environment, it also means your dog food is going to be fresher and tastier. Natural preservatives may not be as long lasting as artificial alternatives, which means that a locally made natural food that spends less of its life in a shipping container than an imported product, is likely to have a longer shelf life and arrive to you in fresher condition.
Australia has a range of top quality pet food manufacturing facilities which means there could well be a premium quality, Australian made natural food available to suit your dog's needs.
Best Australian Made Natural Diets For Dogs
7. Ethically Farmed and Sustainably Sourced
As a pet parent, no doubt, you're an animal lover. Pet lovers are more likely to select free range eggs and humanely raised meat when given the option - and one study also found that pet owners are more likely to be vegetarian or vegan.
It makes sense, therefore, that most pet owners will also select a pet food brand that ensures humane production animal welfare if given the choice. But until now, it has generally been difficult - if not impossible - to find a pet food company which prioritises or even mentions the welfare of meat production animals.
Natural pet food brands such as Open Farm, Ziwi Peak and K9 Natural source their ingredients from free range, grass fed farms, free from antibiotics and hormones.
Open Farm go one step further, sourcing their fish using only sustainable fishing practices and offer customers complete transparency in regards to ingredients by offering the option to trace the origin of any ingredient contained in their pet's diet via their website.
Best Ethically Sourced Diets For Dogs
Further Reading
Want to read more? Check out our other articles:
Just What Is In Your Pet's Food?
Premium Pet Food, Is It Worth It?
History
Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space and we update our articles when new information becomes available.
Fri Mar 14 2025
Edited by Dr Teagan Lever BVSc (Hons)Dr Belinda Stancombe BVSc (Hons)
Veterinarian
Dr Belinda graduated from The University of Queensland in 2009 and has worked as a Small Animal Veterinarian for over 10 years in South East Queensland. She also has experience as a telehealh consultant, providing veterinary advice for online customers.She has a special interest in animal behaviour, preventative health, the human-animal bond and internal medicine. Outside of work hours she is closely affiliated with a kitten rescue and is also a devoted carer of orphaned rescue kittens.
