Dangers of Feeding Kibble in the Morning and Raw at Night

You may be asking yourself right now, what’s the harm in feeding kibble in the morning and raw at night?

I’m going to tell you the two big dangers of feeding a diet of processed food and raw food whether you’re feeding kibble in the morning and raw at night or you’re feeding them both in the same meal. But first, let me put to bed a very silly theory being thrown around as if it’s a cold, hard fact.

Forget this Very Silly Theory

Silly Theory: It’s not a good idea to mix raw food and kibble in the same meal because kibble takes longer to digest and can cause digestive distress when mixed with raw.

Common Sense: Meats, bones, organs, eggs and bone broth are all digested at different rates. Bones don’t pass through the body as quickly as raw eggs. That’s just common sense.

It’s not the speed of digestion that’s the issue. It’s the highly processed, denatured, rancid kibble that’s being combined with food in its natural form that’s the problem!

I am very much against mixing raw and processed foods for two very important reasons that I’ll share below, but I’m not going to feed you (no pun intended) a ridiculous theory in order to make a point!

I’m a big fan of two things:

• Proven Facts
• Common Sense

And that’s what I promise to give you with every word I write.

So, let’s cover the two common sense dangers (backed by facts) of feeding kibble in the morning and raw at night, vice versa or both at the same time!

1. Undigested Bones

In feeding a raw diet made up of roughly 10% bone matter, you’re challenging your dog’s digestive system to break down, digest and utilize one of the toughest foods he can consume. In order to safely consume raw bones, your dog’s digestive system must be healthy. This means that his stomach bacteria must be strong and durable.

The last thing you want to happen is for undigested bone shards to pass through your dog’s digestive tract because they can cause damage to the intestines or rectum. 

When you feed a processed diet of canned food or kibble your dog’s digestive system is being weakened. Processed foods wreak havoc on the body whether you’re an herbivore, omnivore or carnivore.

Your dog’s body doesn’t see kibble as digestible. When your dog’s gut doesn’t recognize what they’ve eaten as digestible food their body instead interprets the presence of foods like highly processed meats or artificial ingredients as an “attacker.”

This sets off an inflammatory response in which the body fights these foods as if they were an infection.

Because the gut bacteria develop and die off very quickly this means that everything your dog eats will alter his good bacteria on a daily basis. I tell you this to iterate that you can either damage your dog’s digestive system by feeding a processed diet or you can improve and heal your dog’s digestive system by feeding a proper raw diet, and you cause this change in your dog’s gut with each and every meal you feed.

So, if you feed kibble in the morning and raw at night you are damaging your dog’s good gut bacteria by feeding kibble and it is then weakened and more susceptible to illness and disease, then you’re feeding raw foods that require a healthy digestive system to break them down.

You’re essentially playing roulette with your dog’s health.

In my eBook, I talk about how important a proper transition to raw is for your dog. When done correctly your dog is safe. When done wrong your dog can suffer painful and long-term consequences. The same rationale applies here.

2. Bad Bacteria

In the documentary Food, Inc. Joel Salatin talks about having his pasture-raised chickens—that are butchered in an open-air processing station—cultured to compare them to commercially raised chickens processed in plants.

The results showed that Joel’s chicken averaged 133 CFU (colony-forming unit: a unit used to estimate the number of viable bacteria or fungal cells in a sample) while the commercially raised and commercially processed chickens averaged 3,600 CFU. Joel adds “…those have been through 40 chlorine baths and ours haven’t seen any chlorine.”

Again, that’s 133 bacteria/fungal cells vs 3,600 bacteria/fungal cells, per sample.

While your carnivore has the ability to safely ingest and pass higher levels of harmful bacteria than you, it’s still important to take safety measures when feeding a raw diet. This includes never combining processed food with raw food.

Why, you ask? For the same reason that I mentioned above (and will give you more detailed info about, below). Your dog needs an ironclad digestive system to ward off and safely pass bacteria in raw animal products. When your dog’s immunity is weakened by processed food it loses its strength and your dog is more susceptible to illness and disease.

If you’re feeding Joel’s chicken or raising your own chickens in clean, natural environments then your dog is all the safer, but chances are you’re buying commercially raised and processed meats. Meats that average 3,600 bacterial/fungal cells per sample.

The last thing you want to do is weaken your dog’s immune system by feeding kibble in the morning and raw at night before feeding raw meats that contain any levels of bacteria, let alone unnaturally elevated levels.

But Can I Get Away with It?

You can always get away with something until you can’t.

My Great Uncle famously smoked a pack (or two) of cigarettes a day and ate biscuits and sausage every single morning. He was “the picture of health” until the day that he wasn’t. He died of major heart issues.

So yes, you can “get away” with anything, until the day you can’t.

I don’t take risks with my dogs. Their lives are too valuable to me.

Mixing kibble and raw is a risky move for the two reasons I’ve clarified above, and a risk I highly recommend you don’t take.

But It’s Cheaper for Me to Mix Raw and Kibble

No, it’s not.

I hate to break it to you, but if you haven’t cut your food costs by as much as 80% by switching to raw, you’re not taking advantage of all the resources available to you.

I’ve shared 101 ways for you to save money on raw feeding. These proven tips are what easily helped me dramatically cut raw feeding costs. Like I say in the post, if you do nothing else, do at least the first 5 things.

The Absence of Disease is not Health

Let’s talk more about gut bacteria.

Mixing raw and kibble will also cost you in the long run. Just because your dog looks and acts okay today, doesn’t mean he’s in optimal health. 

In 2016 Harvard Medical School published a piece on gut bacteria and health.

Here are several findings they shared about gut health:

“A study published online April 21, 2016, by Genome Medicine looked for a biomarker of the disease. Researchers were able to isolate certain bacteria that are high in rheumatoid arthritis patients but low in healthy individuals.

A study published online June 23, 2016, by Arthritis & Rheumatology, found that mice treated with the bacterium Prevotella histicola had less severe and less frequent symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and fewer inflammatory conditions associated with RA.

A study published online April 13, 2016, by PLOS ONE offered some evidence that a particular strain of the bacterium Lactobacillus johnsonii may protect against some cancers.

Research in the February 2016 Journal of Applied Microbiology found the bacterial strain Akkermansia muciniphila could prevent inflammation that contributes to fatty plaque buildup in arteries, causing heart disease. Scientists believe the effect was due to a protein that blocks communication between cells in the inner lining of the gut. As a result, fewer toxins from a poor diet could pass into the bloodstream, which in turn reduced inflammation.

In a study published online Nov. 5, 2015, by Science, University of Chicago researchers found that introducing a particular bacterial strain into the digestive tracts of mice with melanoma prompted their immune systems to attack tumor cells. The gains were comparable to treatment with anti-cancer drugs.”

While these studies were not done on carnivores, common sense tells us that gut bacteria is linked to health in all animals.

Before you take a big risk in feeding kibble in the morning and raw at night, consider all of these facts. I know you’re like me and want the best for your pets. We both want our dogs to live long, pain-free lives and we want them to grow old without illness. Let’s always do right by them!