Nulo Freeze-Dried Raw: Beef Heart with Apples review

Both flavours reach our Outstanding band, and they get there together. The typical freeze dried food sits in that band too, so a pair that matches it is doing the format proud and not merely keeping up with it. Both labels read Outstanding for protein and processing, for nutritional balance and for transparency. Nearly every entry on the ingredient list is a recognisable whole food, and the first four lines of the beef are all beef.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef heart (51%), beef liver (12%), beef meat (10%), beef kidney (10%), dried egg, dried apple (4%), minerals, beet pulp, dried sweet potato, dried apple cider vinegar, dried spinach, dried parsley, dried kale, dried broccoli, dried carrot, sunflower oil, flaxseed, dried blueberries, salmon oil, inulin, dried seaweed, yeast product, dried chicory root, glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate, yucca schidigera extract, dried hawthorn leaf, dried dandelion root, green tea powder.

Organ meat leads both recipes, which is unusual even among raw foods. The beef opens with heart at 51%, then liver at 12%, meat at 10% and kidney at 10%, so more than four fifths of the pack is beef before anything else is counted. The turkey runs meat at 44%, heart at 21% and liver at 12%, with salmon at 8% behind them. Organs carry a density of vitamins and minerals that muscle meat on its own cannot match, and putting them at the head of a list rather than the tail is a deliberate decision.

Neither recipe keeps to one species, and that is worth saying plainly. Dried egg sits in both lists, salmon oil in both, and the turkey carries whole salmon besides. None of that troubles a dog with no particular sensitivities, and all three are quality inclusions in their own right, but a dog working through an elimination trial needs those lines read first.

The analysis describes two quite different bowls. The beef is the richer, with protein and fat both converting to 43.2% of dry matter and 502 kcal in every 100g. The turkey leans forward on protein at 53.7% of dry matter against 27.4% fat and 431 kcal. Moisture is not printed on either label. Those dry matter figures use the 5% a freeze dried food is assumed to hold.

The supporting cast is long and almost entirely whole food. Dried apple at 4% sits in the beef and dried strawberries at 4% in the turkey. Behind them come beet pulp, sweet potato, spinach, parsley, kale, broccoli, carrot, blueberries and seaweed in small amounts. Apple cider vinegar and inulin appear on both lists. The inulin is a prebiotic, and it feeds the bacteria of the large intestine. Seaweed brings iodine along with a wide range of trace minerals.

The additive panel is where this range separates itself from the pack. Taurine at 750 mg is printed on the panel, with biotin at 0.1 mg alongside it. There is a gut flora stabiliser too, a Bacillus culture, the sort of addition usually reserved for foods sold on digestion. Vitamin A at 7500 IU, vitamin D3 at 250 IU and vitamin E at 50 mg head the rest, with zinc at 15 mg and iron at 10 mg behind them. Tocopherols at 150 mg keep the fats stable.

Glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate come in through the ingredient list, so neither carries a figure of its own. They sit near the end of a long list, which places them in the trace range, and the honest reading is that they are a welcome inclusion rather than a measured joint dose.

Beef heart at 51% opens this list, with beef liver at 12%, beef meat at 10% and beef kidney at 10% behind it, and dried apple at 4% as the fruit. This is the richer pack, with fat converting to 43.2% of dry matter and 502 kcal in every 100g. Its added panel carries biotin alongside the taurine.

Both flavours come in 250 g and 500 g packs.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at roughly 167 grams a day on the Beef Heart recipe and 195 grams on the Turkey. That works from about 840 kcal a day, the standard 110 × bodyweight^0.75 maintenance estimate. Both labels are listed for puppies as well. A growing dog is fed to the shape it is making. Weigh against the growth curve your vet is working from, and adjust the amount as the weeks go by.