We believe important questions to ask when choosing a pet food company are:

Determined to prove the health benefits of our veterinary-formulated recipes but unwilling to conduct feeding trials using caged laboratory animals, we worked with two major universities to create more robust, yet more humane feeding trials. It remains the largest-scale humane feeding trial ever conducted by a pet food company at an independent university. 

Rather than simply adhering to AAFCO's bare minimum for testing, which requires only four blood parameters be tested over six months in just six dogs, we tested the recipes over the course of a year, looking at complete blood counts (CBC) and full internal organ chemistry (CHEM) panels in a total of 30 dogs. The data led to a research poster and an abstract that was published in the Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition and presented at the 2014 AAVN/ACVIM veterinary conference in Tennessee. The data showed that not only were the recipes beneficial for long-term feeding, but they also promoted healthy functioning of the immune system in dogs. In-depth, independent research studies are currently underway to dive deeper into this observed result. 

The data of these studies were independently published in a peer-reviewed journal by the University of Illinois research team. This study measured the actual true digestibility of our six daily diets. No fresh pet food company has proven digestibility and until this was published, no digestibility science existed in human-grade fresh pet food. The results of this study showed that our food is up to 40% more digestible when compared to similar studies that looked into kibble. The article is published in Translational Animal Science [DOI: 10.1093/tas/txz175].  

The most recent study also conducted by the University of Illinois Department of Animal Sciences under Kelly Swanson, Ph.D., professor of animal and nutritional sciences, is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Animal Science. The data shows that dogs who ate JustFoodforDogs fresh whole food absorbed more nutrients and consumed a larger volume of food (as-fed) than when on a diet of processed kibble. Additionally, the dogs fed a fresh whole food diet produced up to 66% less poop than when eating premium kibble and up to 41% less feces when fed a feed-grade fresh processed brand. 

This latest research demonstrates that by feeding pets fresh ingredients, less waste goes in and less waste goes out. Feeding kibble, a highly processed pellet often made from the leftover waste and unusable ingredients from the human food chain, has the opposite effect.  

Additionally, researchers at Western University of Health Sciences College of Veterinary Medicine and the University of California, Davis, conducted what they believe to be the first scientific research comparing both grain-containing and grain-free pet food with respect to mycotoxins. The study, published in the August issue of the journal Toxicology Communications, found that 75% of dry pet food, or kibble, contained a mycotoxin profile. Mycotoxins accumulate from moldy grains and ingredients commonly used to make dry kibble and low-grade levels have been linked to immunosuppression and chronic disease. Not surprisingly, JustFoodForDogs diets contained no mycotoxins whether or not they contained grains.

Currently, JustFoodForDogs diets are the subject of various ongoing research initiatives that are looking at the impact of whole food on health and wellness and chronic disease.