Confessions as a former raw pet food purist

I promoted raw dog food to thousands of people.

I told them kibble was garbage.
I told them vets didn’t know what they were talking about.
I told them they were hurting their dogs if they weren’t feeding raw.

I was wrong about almost all of it.

These are my confessions as a former raw pet food purist.

I drank raw milk every single day for six months.

Not because a doctor told me to. Because Instagram and a few friends told me to.

And I didn’t just drink it myself.

I tried to convince immunocompromised people in my own family to drink it too.

People whose bodies literally cannot afford to fight off the bacteria that raw milk can carry.

I thought I was helping them. I wasn’t.

I switched my dogs off of vet-formulated food and onto raw food because I thought I knew better.

My dogs were fine on kibble. Totally fine.

Healthy, happy, no issues.

But I convinced myself that “fine” wasn’t good enough.
That they needed raw.
That kibble was slowly hurting them.

So I switched them. Not because they had a problem. Because I had a belief.

They’re back on kibble now with some homemade food mixed in.

Still fine. Always were.

I used to say vets knew nothing about nutrition.

I said it publicly. I said it confidently. And I was wrong.

When I actually looked into veterinary education, I found out that nutrition isn’t just one class they take.

It’s built into biology, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology.
Many vets take college-level nutrition courses.
Some pursue additional certifications.

But I didn’t bother to look any of that up when I was in the rabbit hole.

I just repeated what other people in the rabbit hole were saying.

I thought vets only recommended Purina, Royal Canin, and Hill’s because they were paid off.

The “Big Kibble bought your vet” conspiracy. I believed it fully.

Then I actually started talking to vets.

And I realized that most of them recommend those brands because they trust the research, the safety testing, and the quality control behind them. Not because someone handed them a check.

You can disagree with their recommendations. But questioning their motives without evidence? That was on me.

I thought small brands were better and big brands were bad.

It felt right. Small brand equals more care, more attention to quality, more love in the bowl. Right?

But the reality is a lot of small brands don’t have the resources to hire board-certified nutritionists.

They can’t afford to do feeding trials.
They don’t always do digestibility testing.
Some of them are formulating recipes with software and hoping for the best.

Big doesn’t automatically mean good. But small doesn’t automatically mean better.

I just wanted it to.

I recommended brands that I would never touch today.

I promoted them because I believed in them at the time.

I’m not going to pretend I was being dishonest. I wasn’t.

But looking back with what I know now, I would never work with probably 75-80% of the brands we used to partner with.

Too much fear-based marketing. Not enough evidence behind their claims.

And those brands paid well.

Here’s something most people don’t realize about the pet food influencer world.

Raw food companies, boutique kibble brands, air-dried food companies. They pay a LOT for influencer marketing.

That’s where the brand deals are. That’s where the money flows.

You know who has never once approached us for a brand deal? Big kibble companies.

So when you see an influencer promoting a raw or boutique brand, I’m not saying they don’t believe in it. A lot of them do. I did.

But I am saying the financial incentive is FOR SURE there. And not many people talk about that.

We lost 70% of our income at the end of 2025 because we changed our beliefs.

When we went from holistic to evidence-based, the brand deals dried up. Almost overnight.

The companies that used to pay us didn’t want us anymore because we stopped saying what they needed us to say.

And the companies we now trust and recommend? They’re not out here writing influencer checks.

Seventy percent. That’s not a small hit.

But I’d rather make less money and be honest with you than make more money and keep promoting stuff I don’t believe in anymore.

(PS, this isn’t some “woe is me” post. I realize I’m an influencer and the privilege that comes with that.)

Here's where I actually land on the whole fresh vs. kibble thing.

Do I think fresh food is probably "healthier" for dogs?

Yeah. Maybe 10-20% healthier than a quality kibble. I think that's a reasonable take based on what we know right now.

But healthier doesn't automatically mean better.

Because "best" isn't just about nutrition. It's about what you can afford. What fits into your life. What you can do consistently without burning out.

A kibble that fits your budget and your dog does well on is a better choice than a raw diet you can't afford to do properly or a homemade recipe you can't keep up with.

Context matters. Dogs are individuals. And so are the people feeding them.

And here’s the confession I’m still working through.

When I was deep in the raw food world, I felt superior to kibble feeders.

I looked at people feeding Purina and genuinely thought I was doing better than them.
That I cared more.
That I was more informed.

I’m embarrassed by that now.

But if I’m being fully honest, I catch myself doing it in the other direction too.

Now that I follow the evidence, I sometimes feel superior to raw feeders. Like I’ve figured something out that they haven’t.

And I have to check myself on that quite often.

Because feeling like you know more than someone else is exactly how I ended in the Dunning-Kruger loop in the first place.

The whole point of what we do here is to help people feel smart. Not to make myself feel smarter than anyone.

I’m still working on that. Probably always will be.

If you feed raw, I'm not judging you.

I might disagree with some of the reasoning. And I just told you I'm still actively working through my own superiority thoughts about it.

But when I step outside of that and think with my good brain, I know that I am not better than anyone who loves their dog and is trying to give them the best life possible.

I get why people feed raw, and how could I fault someone for doing what they think is best?

That's all any of us are trying to do.

If you’ve ever been deep in a rabbit hole and started to feel like something was off, but you didn’t want to admit it because your whole identity was wrapped up in it, I get it. I lived it.

You’re not stupid for believing what you believed. I wasn’t either.

But at some point you have to ask yourself whether you’re following the evidence or following what you hope is true.

That question changed everything for me.

Bryce

PS - If you want to cook for your dog but you're not sure your recipes are actually covering everything, our Single-Protein Recipe Bundles were formulated by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist. No guessing.

Check them out here.