The Best Freeze-Dried Dog Food

(Ad) Everyone has an opinion on which dog food is best for their pups, from raw-diet-only fans to those who swear by luxury kibble. Having a pet is a huge responsibility, and ensuring their diet is nutritious to help them live a long and healthy life isn’t always easy.  Plus, many dogs have medical needs, puppies need different food than senior dogs, and some good dogs are more finicky eaters. There is a new trend in dog food, however, that might help with your search: freeze-dried dog food.

Meet Get Joy

Tom Arrix founded Get Joy to transform health and wellness for dogs everywhere after his golden retriever, Cooper, was diagnosed with lymphoma. When Cooper got sick , Arrix made the switch from over-cooked kibble to a fresh-food diet for his pet.

He believes this shift eased Cooper into remission, adding nearly two more years to his life. “There is no doubt that fresh food is a dog and person’s medicine and the driver of wellness,” Tom explains.

After consulting with veterinary nutritionists and veterinarians – including vet oncologist and Get Joy advisor Dr. Kendra Pope – Arrix discovered three pillars of wellness for dogs’ health: nutrition, genetics, and environment. At Get Joy, the focus is on the most important and the most controllable pillar: nutrition. This commitment was born out of an ingrained passion to make a difference in our dogs’ lives.

This Get Joy commitment to pet health and nutrition comes from a deep-rooted passion for making a difference in dogs’ health. That’s something the major dog-food companies churning out highly processed kibble just can’t focus on in the same way.

“Every single customer who feeds their amazing dog Get Joy products is helping transform their own health and an industry,” Tom said. “The pet industry has been led too long by big industry, more concerned about creating mediocre products and profits ― rarely considering healthy outcomes.”

Get Joy saw a way to help other dog owners make the process of improving a dog’s diet easier. The passion for excellence is what led to freeze-dried dog food: this method kills bacteria while leaving ingredients mostly unchanged.  It’s the most convenient way to deliver nutrient-dense, real, fresh food right to your doorstep. Not only is it highly bioavailable dog food, but it’s rated No. 1 in digestion and gut health while being completely shelf stable.

What Makes Get Joy the Best Dog Food on the Market?

Get Joy’s fresh, freeze-dried dog food is unlike their competitors in three main ways.

1. They maintain a high level of bioavailability of proteins, minerals and vitamins due to their proprietary freeze-drying process, which involves minimal alteration so only water is removed. Bioavailability refers to how much of a nutrient is available to be absorbed and metabolized. Freeze-drying allows ingredients to maintain their structural integrity, which improves bioavailability. In other words, eating freeze-dried dog food can help your canine maximize the nutritional value and health benefits of the foods he or she eats.
2. They are committed to ensuring they have the best product on the market. Get Joy’s recipes include a tasty combination of probiotics, prebiotics and postbiotics because gut health is just as important for your pet as it is for you.

1. • Probiotics are live organisms, “specific strains of bacteria that directly add to the population of healthy microbes in your gut” (Mayo Clinic). The beneficial bacteria will help to keep your pet’s gut health elevated and aid in long-term intestinal health.
   • Prebiotics are what probiotics consume, like fiber. According to the Mayo Clinic, “ these act like fertilizers that stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut.” These nutrients can be found in many fruits and vegetables and are great for ensuring that the gut has food for healthy bacteria.
   • Postbiotics are the beneficial compounds that occur when probiotics eat prebiotics.  If you haven’t heard of these before, it’s probably because postbiotics are a relatively new area of study, but their benefits are becoming widely known. Studies show that postbiotics are linked with a stronger immune system, anti-inflammatory properties and improved digestion.

3. Get Joy has a 97% gelatinized ratio, meaning it is more digestible for your dog. Because Get Joy’s food is more digestible, it leads to firmer stools as well. It is important to make sure your dog is able to digest their food properly to avoid stomach issues, indigestion and to absorb all the nutrients that you’re paying for.

This dog food comparison table by brand shows the composition of Get Joy’s food and how it stacks up to competitors.

Brand	Protein	Fat	Fiber	% Gelatinized
Get Joy FRESH FREEZE DRIED™	32%	28%	3%	97%*
Spot & Tango Unkibble	27%	16%	3%	73%
Blue Buffalo Life Protection	22%	9%	10%	87%
Wellness Complete Health Adult	24%	12%	4%	73%
Merrick Classic Healthy Grains	26%	15%	3.5%	66%

* Comparative based on Guaranteed analysis reported for each brand.

% Gelatanized conducted by independent testing center using purchased product samples. 

Why Freeze-Dried?

There is nothing new about freeze-drying food. The process can be traced back to the Incas in the 13th century. Modern freeze-drying began in the late 1800s by Richard Altman, and since then, it has been used for military meals, astronaut’s missions, and for backpacking and survival foods. Freeze-drying ensures food is shelf-stable for long periods of time, yet the real value for your pet is in the nutritional properties that come from this technique.

Freeze-Dried Dog Food vs. Traditional Kibble

Start with empty ingredients, add scorching heat to zap out any remaining nutritional value, and what do you get? Stomach filler. Market it to dog owners, and now it’s kibble. This might seem like a simplified assessment, but a closer look at traditional kibble reveals that the reality is actually much grimmer.

High temperatures can extinguish foods’ nutritional value, but the opposite production process can yield the opposite result: Freezing ingredients can help retain nutritive merit. The freeze-drying process takes already frozen goods and places them in machines to lower the atmospheric pressure around them, thereby sublimating their water content. So you’re reaping the benefits of the whole foods instead of hurting them. 

That’s not to say that cooking is a bad thing. Applying heat to food can kill harmful bacteria and reduce waste by preventing spoilage – which ensures a longer, stable shelf life. The problem is most companies manufacture traditional kibble via extrusion: combining intense heat – think temperatures nearing 400 degrees Fahrenheit – and pushing the overheated ingredients through a die that creates a uniform shape. Steaming, baking, boiling and shaping; over and over in the production of one batch of traditional kibble. It makes the kibble pretty to look at, but not good for your dog.

This might not be so bad if the ingredients are corn, carrots and peas; though most traditional-kibble companies begin and end with low-grade components. Freeze-dried dog food usually offers ingredient transparency because it doesn’t have anything to hide, unlike traditional kibble, which is composed of synthetics, additives and fillers. That’s why you’ll see terms like ​“corn gluten meal, Green #50, poultry by-product” on commercial-kibble labels. Add high heat, and whatever beneficial qualities they may have had are now mostly cooked out. Freeze-dried dog food doesn’t undergo extrusion, so its nature-made structure remains intact: a pea will still look like a pea. You can actually see the ingredient list in the food you serve your dog.

 Hazardously high temperatures, like the ones used when cooking traditional kibble, can also have more nefarious effects than mere undernutrition. Well-done meats can possess heterocyclic amines – a class of mutagenic compounds – that are associated with an increased risk of cancer, according to the National Library of Medicine. These carcinogens can induce tumors in animals and humans alike.

If you’re a fine-dining connoisseur or grilling fanatic, you might be familiar with the Maillard reaction, which is the response between high heat and reducing proteins and sugars. Envision the crust of a pork roast: it’s crispy, colorful and flavorful partly due to its unmitigated exposure to high heat and fat. This is an example of the Maillard reaction. The lesser known association with the technique is its potential – in some cases – to create cancer-causing chemicals. Among these are furans and acrylamide, which can form when carbohydrates cook at ultra-high temperatures. We see the same occurrence in the production of traditional kibble.

Will one bowl of commercial kibble cause cancer in your dog? Probably not, just like the occasional fast-food burger won’t necessarily cause obesity in humans. However, if you’re pulling into the drive-thru every day, chances are your health will decline and your lifespan could take a hit.

Likewise, if you’re feeding your dog kibble every day, it’s more likely to result in deleterious consequences. Humans’ exposure to carcinogens in the cooking methods described above is lower compared to dogs because we have a wider-ranging diet, a study in the National Library of Medicine explains. We don’t eat the same foods every day. Dogs’ chronic dietary exposure to these carcinogens are what places them – and the puppies they birth – at greater risk of illness.

Instead of exposing your pup to those harmful agents, choosing freeze-dried dog food, treats and chews can promote healthful benefits. They offer ingredients found in nature, that you can pronounce, with succinct ingredient lists.

What’s in it for you other than a healthier, longer-living Fido? Fewer stops on potty walks.

Since freeze-dried dog food promotes bioavailability, it enables better digestion. Higher digestibility equals lower fecal output and contributes to firm fecal consistencies, a study reports. So you can “Get joy” on your dog walks with less bathroom breaks and less messiness.

As for the myth that kibble is good for dogs’ teeth: it’s not.