Fresh meats are better than frozen

Commercial frozen diets start out as excellent dog foods.  But it's difficult to ensure that the food is handled properly along the entire distribution chain and that it spends less than four months in freezers.

How freezing damages meat

Freezing greatly extends the storage life of meat, because it reduces or halts most microbe growth.  However, it’s a drastic physical treatment that inevitably causes damage to the muscle tissue, and therefore diminishes meat quality in several ways.

When water freezes, ice crystals form and expand.  Since raw meat contains about 70% water, the expansion is significant. As the raw meat freezes, the ice crystals grow and can puncture the muscle and fat cells which accelerates the loss of taste and nutrition. The size of the ice crystals, and the amount of damage to the nutrients, depends, among other factors, on the freezing temperature.  Freezing at low temperatures creates smaller ice crystals, creating less damage to the meat, than freezing at typical household freezer temperatures.

The longer the meat is in the freezer, the greater the damage.  The ice crystals do not stop growing once the food is frozen; they tend to increase in size. As the crystals get larger, they puncture more cells, further decreasing nutrition and taste.  Frozen meats have limited shelf life in the freezer – from 3 - 4 months for ground meats, to one year for whole meats. When ground meats are mixed with ground vegetables, which are 90% water, more ice crystals grow, reducing shelf life even further.

Temperature fluctuations – from poor handling and frost-free freezers -- reduce nutrition and taste even more.  Once the frozen meat thaws, the ice crystals melt and the meat leaks “a fluid rich in salts, vitamins, proteins, and pigments.”  Refreezing this fluid, with the growth of ice crystals separate from the muscle cells, damages the nutrients – perhaps as much as high temperature or high pressure cooking.

Polyunsaturated fats – fatty acids with double bonds -- are particularly susceptible to damage from fluctuating temperatures, especially when mixed with water containing foods.  As the ice crystals grow, they put pressure on the double bonds.  The data I’ve seen suggest that most of the double bonds have enough flexibility to withstand the pressure of the ice crystals; but when thawed and then refrozen, the growth of the larger ice crystals tend to break the bonds.  This can change an important omega-3 fat, like DHA (which we usually get from fish) into a totally different type of fat.  Omega -3 fats have their first double bond on the third carbon atom.  Break that bond, and it’s no longer an omega-3 fatty acid.  DHA, with 6 double bonds, is particularly susceptible to damage.

The natural diet of dogs is high-protein, mineral-rich, and primarily fresh meat.  For the diet that’s closest to the ancestral diet, feed See Spot Live Longer™ Homemade Dinner Mixes with fresh meat. 

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