Hunde Meal Balancer for Dogs Review
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“Meal balancers” or “meal completers” can be an expensive way of feeding your dog, but they can also offer you confidence you’re ticking all the nutrient boxes – which isn’t a bad thing!
In this review we’ll look at the Essential Blend mix, but there’s a few other mixes available.
Hunde Essential Blend is a whole-food meal balancer for homemade raw or lightly cooked dog food.
It works like this – You simply add it to fresh meat.
For adult dogs, Hunde says it provides enough calcium to meet minimum requirements even without meaty bones, although they recommend bones for dental and behavioural benefits. You can’t argue with that, as raw meaty bones have to be the best solution for keeping your dog’s teeth clean.
Puppies still need meaty bones alongside the blend, which is worth doing with care until you’re confident your puppy can safely consume raw meaty bones.
What the marketing says
Hunde describes Essential Blend as its “signature meal-balancing essential”, designed to fill the common nutritional gaps in homemade dog food.
The interesting selling point is that it’s 100% whole food, rather than a list of isolated synthetic vitamins and minerals. It’s freeze-dried to preserve the nutrients in lamb and sardines, and the company says the formulation is based on NRC and AAFCO nutritional requirements.
The Hunde meal completers can also be used as a topper, which can be a great way of adding nutrition and variety, and given the ingredients should make any dog food more appealing to even the fussiest of dogs.
What the ingredients really say
Let’s skirt over the ingredients as they come, with the top ingredients being the most significant:
Freeze-dried lamb liver
Liver is one of the most nutritionally valuable ingredients you can give to your dog. It’s rich in vitamin A, copper, iron, B vitamins and other micronutrients, and an excellent way of naturally supplying nutrients which are worryingly missed when feeding muscle meat alone.
Liver needs to be fed in moderation, and never in excess, so make sure you’re careful not to overfeed a mix such as this.
Freeze-dried sardines
Sardines are a wonderful inclusion in your dog’s diet. They provide high-quality protein, omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA), vitamin D, calcium and several B vitamins. It’s great these nutrients are being provided from a whole food rather than isolated fish oil and vitamin supplements which you’ll find in other supplement mixes or meal balancers.
Freeze-dried lamb green tripe
Tripe stinks in it’s natural form, but as it’s super healthy for our dogs it’s great to see it in the ingredients of the Hunde meal balancers.
Green tripe is a source of protein, fat, as well as a range of naturally occurring micronutrients.
Tripe is highly palatable for many dogs, and highly beneficial. I wish more Australian dogs could benefit from it, so it’s great to see it added here.
Organic seaweed calcium (Lithothamnion sp.)
This is essentially a natural calcium source, providing the calcium needed to balance the phosphorus-rich meat. It’s an important jobs of a meal balancer because feeding muscle meat alone can result in a seriously inappropriate calcium-to-phosphorus ratio, although I would always argue raw meaty bones for the real win.
Organic hemp seeds
Hemp seeds are a useful source of essential fatty acids, protein, fibre and minerals, including magnesium and phosphorus.
Ascophyllum nodosum
This is a type of brown seaweed.
It’s particularly interesting as a source of iodine and various naturally occurring minerals and compounds. Seaweed can be a useful way of supplying iodine, although this is an ingredient where quantity matters because too much iodine isn’t desirable either.
Organic wheatgrass powder
Don’t you feel like you’re in a health food store!?
Wheatgrass is great for dogs as it is for us. Although I see dogs as primarily carnivore, wheatgrass provides plant-based micronutrients, antioxidants and phytonutrients. I wouldn’t call it an essential ingredient for dogs, but in a small quantity it’s a reasonable way of adding nutrition.
Turmeric & ginger
Both provide naturally occurring bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. They’re not nutritional necessities, but they’re sensible additions in modest amounts.
Ingredients
The ingredients of Hunde Essential Blend for Dogs:
Freeze-dried lamb liver, freeze-dried sardines, freeze-dried lamb green tripe, organic seaweed calcium (Lithothamnium sp.), organic hemp seeds, Ascophyllum nodosum, organic wheatgrass powder, turmeric, ginger.
An overall summary of Hunde Essential Blend
It’s nice to see Hunde opting for a whole-food style of mix, and anyone aware of the wonderful benefits of freeze drying in foods such as Frontier Pets will appreciate this.
I’d emphasise the quality of your dog’s diet including a meal balancer is very much a result of their diet as a whole. Meal balancers offer simplicity and assurances, but can be more costly and aren’t a magic solution.
The Hunde meal completers are definitely a convenient option, and a good one at that. Feeding a mix such as this alongside some quality animal meats (and I would recommend raw meaty bones or something appropriate for dental health) and you’re onto a winner.
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