My name is Charlie. I love food.
I ran across a new food recently that interested me enough to give it a try. I'm extremely choosy about what I feed Charlie since I'm an amateur pet nutritionist and have self-trained myself on making homemade raw diets in the past for Charlie. I still make raw food for her occasionally, but it's really time-consuming and I've found healthy alternatives that I feel good about feeding her instead.
Plus, honestly, sometimes it's just easier to feed kibble. Although, again, I'm very picky about the brands I feed her.
Last summer I signed up for a subscription to Darwin's... a natural raw food diet that's frozen and shipped with dry ice via a scheduled subscription delivery service every couple of weeks depending on the size of your dog and its food needs. I loved that food and felt awesome about feeding it to Charlie. But it takes up almost all of my freezer space and it's not very convenient for traveling or camping, etc. So I canceled the subscription after a few months. I always have the option of starting it up again and canceling whenever I want - which is cool, but I wish I could just order it "as needed" rather than remembering to cancel the subscription every time I want to take a break from feeding that food.
Darwin's frozen raw food packets.
Charlie checking out Darwin's raw food meals.
Anyway, I also feed Charlie freeze-dried raw food like Sojos and Stella & Chewy's to mix up her kibble routine. So when I found the Simple Food Project, I wanted to try that out too.
I ordered the 3 lb. box because it stated that it made 10 lbs. of fresh food, which based on the price of the box (nearly $50 including shipping), was reasonable compared to the high-end kibble I usually buy. I also liked that you can sign up for regular shipments or just a one-time shipment - no subscription plan needed, no obligation.
Simple Food Project before rehydrating.
It was hard to tell how many meals I would actually get out of the 3 lb. box though. The instructions state that based on Charlie's weight, I should feed her approximately 2 cups per day (the same amount of kibble I feed her daily). So the "10 lbs." that this box would make - once water was added - is not actually equivalent to 10 lbs. of dry dog food (i.e. kibble).
Simple Food Project after rehydrating.
Once the food arrived, I kept track of how many cups were fed from the 3 lb. box, which of course was equal to the same amount of kibble I'd feed Charlie. I quickly realized this box of food wasn't the "good deal" I had originally thought it was.
Basically, a 3 lb. box of Simple Food Project food was double the cost of what I would feed for the same size bag of high-end kibble. My calculations show that the 3 lb. box equaled approximately 19 cups of food or 9 days worth of food for Charlie (same amount that I would get from her bags of kibble).
The cost per day of this food came out to a little over $5.00/day. Not terrible, but not totally affordable for most people either. And actually it was about the same cost of the Darwin's food, which in my opinion, was better quality.
I like the freeze-dried food option for traveling and camping and maybe as an occasional change to Charlie's normal diet. But if I'm going to spend that kind of money, I guess I'd prefer to buy Darwin's instead. I just feel that dogs fully digest the Darwin's food better than rehydrated food.
How do I know this? I look at Charlie's poop. When she's eating Darwin's, her poop is very compact & small and there are no food chunks in it. When I feed her rehydrated food, the poop size is bigger and there are small pieces of undigested food in it. This leads me to believe that she's not getting the full nutritional value out of rehydrated food because it zips through a dog's digestive system too quickly without fully rehydrating (even when I rehydrate it in the fridge for a full 24 hours).
Charlie loved both Darwin's and Simple Food Project food. Actually, Charlie loves ALL food, so her opinion probably doesn't matter much. Both require a little more work on my end - Darwin's needs to be thawed a day ahead of time and Simple Food Project needs to be rehydrated with water in the fridge a day ahead of time. Both also require using glass or metal bowls and washing the bowls daily (part of feeding a raw food diet), so extra dishes need to be done as well as using safe food handling practices.
So that's my two cents. I am by no means a certified pet nutritionist or veterinarian, so always consult with your own vet about your pet's nutritional needs since every pet is different. But this is my experience with this particular food and overall I will probably continue to use both to provide decent nutrition for Charlie and give her some variety in her food rotation.
** I did not receive any freebies in exchange for my opinions on this post. All items were purchased with my own money and all opinions are my own. Please make sure to consult a trained pet nutritionist or veterinarian in regards to your own pet's food and nutritional needs.**