Treat Tuesday: Real Meat Jerky Treats and Dog Food

These Real Meat Jerky Treats are the original product made by the folks at the Real Meat Company. These are slightly greasy, fairly stinky treats that are great for training. I do have to break them up into much smaller pieces, but they are wonderful for dogs with allergies and food sensitivities.

When I first saw Real Meat Dog Food on the shelf at a local store, my first thought was "So they've put the jerky treats in a bigger bag, then?" The dog food itself seemed a bit drier than I remembered the treats being, but I didn't have the chance to do a side-by-side comparison until now.

While they're both supposed to just be dried meat, the treats and dog food are actually pretty easy to tell apart.

The Real Meat Lamb Jerky Treats are softer and greasier than the Real Meat Lamb Dog Food. The are easy to bend and tear into smaller bits for training treats, and are stinkier than the dog food. Real Meat Air-Dried Dog Food is harder and stiffer, so it's more difficult to break into tiny training treats. It's a more pleasant product to handle because it is less greasy and stinky, but that also makes it a lower value treat.

The ingredients for the lamb treats are significantly less complex than those for the dog food. Treats don't have to meet nutritional requirements. The five ingredients in Real Meat Lamb Jerky Treats are: lamb, dried chicory root, vegetable glycerin, sea salt, and mixed tocopherols. These make for a shelf-stable product.

By contrast, the dog food includes organ meats, ground bone, pumpkin, parsley, rosemary, and all the vitamins a dog needs. It has both a higher protein content and a higher fat content than the jerky treats.

So is it worth buying the treats when you can buy a whole bag of dog food instead? Probably for some people. My dogs will happily work for the Real Meat Jerky Treats, but are pretty 'meh' about working for the actual food.

Food Friday: Real Meat Beef Dog Food

Real Meat Dog Food is an air-dried food made from beef, bones, and organs. It is produced in New Zealand from free-range grass-fed cows, and has all the nutritional awesomeness of raw meat, without the need for refrigeration or raw food handling precautions.

I found another air-dried dog food! I would be madly in love with this food if I hadn't found Ziwi Peak first. I was aware of Real Meat's jerky treats, and this is basically a giant bag of those. Only instead of just treats, it's actual dog food so I don't have to feel bad if all of Brisbane's calories come from training treats.

The Company

Real Meat's most widely available product is probably their 95% meat jerky treats. These are great for training, and available in several different proteins for dogs with allergies. They have lamb, and venison jerky treats, as well as the more common chicken and beef. They also make some really cute dog food seasonings made from several different meats. I've never seen these in a store before, but they all have chicken in them so I wouldn't be buying them anyway. 

Brisbane is allergic to chicken, turkey, duck, and eggs, so I appreciate that most of Real Meat's products are made with a single protein source. They don't feel the need to cram chicken or eggs into every recipe. I like that this company is family-owned, and their website says they put their investment into making really good food rather than advertising and marketing. It's a pretty incredible food, and a bit less expensive than Ziwi Peak.

The Food

Real Meat originally made three varieties of their food: beef, lamb, and chicken. Each is made from just that protein source, with a little parsley, rosemary, pumpkin, and vitamins. They have recently added a turkey food, and a turkey and venison food; both of these also contain ground beef bone. I really appreciate that their packaging and website aren't plastered with statements about nature, dogs being wolves, or their diet in the hypothetical wild. The food stands on its own, it doesn't need a bunch of hype. What little hype there is can be found in small print.

This is a pretty amazing food. Naturally Brisbane loves it, as Brisbane loves all things edible. Sisci also enjoys it. Ru...likes it, but it consistently makes him reverse sneeze. It's weird. Usually spicy food that does that to him. Dog Food Advisor gives all the Real Meat recipes five out of five stars.  

The Price

Real Meat Beef dog food is really, seriously dense. At 724 calories per cup, it's the most calorically dense food I've encountered after Ziwi Peak. This is great for 6-lb Ru, who needs to fit a ton of calories into his tiny body. Not so great for 40-lb Brisbane, who needs the same amount of calories as Ru and is the most efficient dog on the planet. A 2-lb bag of Real Meat beef cost around $24 and provides 4250 calories, so $0.56 per 100 calories. If I was to feed Brisbane only this food, it would cost me well under a dollar per day. Were I to use the company's recommendations, it would cost closer to $5 a day.

It's cheaper than Ziwi Peak, but Real Meat air-dried dog food just doesn't work as well for training treats. The food is made in much bigger chunks, so I have to break them up into much smaller pieces before I can use them. The dogs also just aren't quite as nuts for the Real Meat. I guess it's not stinky enough.