Raw vs Kibble for Dogs and Cats: Why Both Diets Leave an Omega-3 Gap (and How to Fill It)
Few topics in the pet world start an argument faster than raw versus kibble.
One camp says kibble is ultra-processed and stripped of life. The other says raw is a food-safety gamble that almost never balances. Spend an hour in a Facebook group and you will see both sides certain the other is harming their dog.
Here is the thing. This article is not going to tell you which one to feed. Both raw and kibble can be excellent ways to feed a dog or cat, and the best diet is usually the one you can do well and afford consistently. That decision is yours and your vet's.
What we are going to do instead is point at something both camps tend to miss. Whichever bowl you fill, there is a good chance your pet is short on one specific thing: marine omega-3. The reason is different for each diet, which is exactly why it gets overlooked. Let's walk through it.
What "complete and balanced" actually means in Australia
You have seen "complete and balanced" on the bag. It is worth knowing what sits behind those words here, because Australia does it a little differently from the United States.
Australia does not have its own pet food nutrition authority. There is no local equivalent of the American AAFCO or the European FEDIAF running feeding trials and setting nutrient profiles. What we have is AS 5812, the Australian Standard for the manufacturing and marketing of pet food, managed through the Pet Food Industry Association of Australia (PFIAA). By Australian government figures, around 97 to 98 percent of Australian pet food manufacturers by volume are PFIAA members.
Two things matter about AS 5812. First, it is voluntary, not law. Second, for the actual nutrient numbers behind a "complete and balanced" claim, AS 5812 points back to the AAFCO and FEDIAF profiles, because those are the bodies that do the underlying research.
So when an Australian food says complete and balanced, it generally means it has been formulated to meet the AAFCO or FEDIAF nutrient minimums, under a voluntary local standard. That is a reasonable baseline. It is not the same as "optimised for your individual pet", and as you will see, the omega-3 figure is one of the places where the baseline and the bowl in front of you can drift apart.
The kibble gap: fortified, but the omega-3 fades
Good kibble is formulated to hit those nutrient minimums, omega-3 included. On paper, a complete and balanced kibble is not deficient. So where is the gap?
Two places.
The first is oxidation. Omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) are fragile. They are highly unsaturated, which is the very thing that makes them useful, and also the thing that makes them react with oxygen, heat, and light. Extrusion, the high-temperature process that makes kibble, is hard on them to begin with, and the slow decline continues on the shelf and in the bag at home. One study of commercial dog foods stored over twelve months found that EPA and DHA content fell by up to 50 percent in economy dry foods, with higher storage temperatures making it worse. The number on the label is measured at manufacture. The amount in the bowl three months after the bag was opened, in an Australian summer, can be a good deal lower.
The second is the ratio. Even when total omega-3 meets the minimum, many kibbles carry far more omega-6 than omega-3, because the grains and seed oils common in dry food are omega-6 rich. The canine nutrition literature suggests that diets with an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio above roughly 24:1 show more inflammatory markers in the skin than diets nearer 5:1 to 10:1. Plenty of everyday kibble sits at the high end.
None of this makes kibble a bad choice. It means the omega-3 line on the label is the one most likely to under-deliver by the time your pet eats it.
The raw gap: the muscle-meat problem
Raw feeders often assume that because the food is fresh and unprocessed, the omega-3 is handled. Usually it is not, and the reason is the meat itself.
A typical raw ration built on the common ratios (around 80 percent muscle meat, 10 percent bone, 10 percent organs) is heavy in muscle meat. Muscle meat is rich in omega-6 and carries very little omega-3. How skewed the bowl ends up depends a lot on how the animal was raised. A 2010 review of beef fatty acids found grass-fed beef averaged an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of about 1.5 to 1, while grain-fed beef averaged 7.7 to 1. Most commodity meat is grain-finished, so unless the diet includes oily fish or genuinely pasture-raised meat, a muscle-meat bowl skews omega-6, the same direction as a grain-heavy kibble, just by a different route.
The part that makes this stick is conversion. You might assume the body can top up its own omega-3 from other fats, but dogs convert plant-based omega-3 (ALA) into the active EPA and DHA forms only weakly, and cats almost not at all. This is why the National Research Council sets direct dietary requirements for EPA and DHA rather than assuming the animal makes its own. A muscle-meat raw bowl that is low in marine omega-3 has no backup route to fall back on.
Formulating raw well across every nutrient is genuinely hard, which is a related but separate point: home recipe analyses routinely find gaps in nutrients like calcium and vitamin D. Omega-3, though, is the one that tends to survive even careful formulation, because the base material is still meat. It is the single most common fatty-acid gap a careful raw feeder still needs to close.
Why this hits cats even harder
Cats deserve their own paragraph here, because the omega-3 maths is sharper for them.
Cats are obligate carnivores. One consequence is that they convert plant-based omega-3 (the ALA in flaxseed and similar) into the active EPA and DHA forms at a rate close to zero. Dogs manage only a small fraction, somewhere under ten percent. Cats essentially do not do it at all.
That means a raw-fed cat on muscle meat, or a cat on a kibble whose omega-3 has quietly oxidised, has no plant backup route to fall back on. For cats, the omega-3 has to arrive ready-made, from a marine source. There is no other way in.
What both diets are actually missing, and how to fill it
Follow the two gaps to the end and they meet at the same place. Raw skews omega-6 from muscle meat. Kibble starts compliant but loses omega-3 to oxidation and often runs omega-6 heavy anyway. The shared shortfall is fresh, active, marine omega-3: EPA and DHA, and ideally ETA as well.
Three things make a difference here.
Marine, not plant. Given the conversion problem, flaxseed and other plant oils are a weak way to raise a dog's omega-3 status and close to useless for a cat. A 2023 study in dogs comparing krill, fish, and flaxseed found only the marine sources raised the blood omega-3 index meaningfully, with flaxseed producing no significant change at all. Fish, krill, green-lipped mussel, or whole oily fish are the sources that actually work.
Fresh and protected. Since the whole kibble problem is oxidation, it makes no sense to fix it with an omega-3 supplement that is itself going rancid. A marine oil with a built-in antioxidant, or one packaged to keep air out, holds its value. This is one quiet advantage of krill oil, which carries natural astaxanthin that helps keep the oil stable.
The right amount, added to what you already feed. This is the part that makes the supplement approach sensible rather than excessive. You are not replacing your pet's food. You are topping up the one nutrient that is most likely short, on top of a diet you have already chosen. Check your food's label for a stated EPA and DHA figure first. If it is low, absent, or you suspect it has faded, a marine omega-3 fills the gap.
How to actually do it without overthinking
A simple way to approach it, whichever bowl you fill:
Read the food first. If your kibble or commercial raw states a real EPA and DHA amount per serve and the bag is fresh, you may already be close. If the number is vague, missing, or the bag has been open a while, assume the omega-3 is the weak link.
Add a marine omega-3 source dosed to your pet's weight, not guessed by the spoonful, and dose dogs and cats differently, because their numbers are not the same.
For dogs, everyday EPA and DHA support is commonly put at roughly 50 to 100 mg per kilogram of body weight per day, with higher therapeutic doses (up to around 220 mg/kg) reserved for specific conditions under a vet's guidance, per Today's Veterinary Practice. A complete dog food may already supply the maintenance amount, which is why checking the label first matters. And more is not automatically better: a 2025 dose-response study in dogs found the highest intakes lowered the dogs' vitamin E (antioxidant) status by week eight, so there is a ceiling worth respecting.
For cats, the firmest numbers come from kidney studies, which used around 110 to 120 mg of combined EPA and DHA per kilogram per day for therapeutic support. Cat-specific wellness dosing is less standardised than it is for dogs, so for a healthy cat with no diagnosed condition a more modest amount makes sense. No safe upper limit has been formally established for cats, which is another reason to keep the dose conservative and confirm it with your vet.
Work up gradually either way. Loose stools mean you moved too fast, not that the product is wrong.
Watch the total. Some foods and some joint products already include marine omega-3. Read every label in the routine and add the EPA and DHA up, so you are filling the gap, not overshooting it.
And keep the perspective: this is one targeted addition to a diet you have already decided on. The raw versus kibble argument can stay as loud as it likes. The omega-3 gap sits quietly underneath both, and it is one of the easier things to fix.
About My Little Tails
My Little Tails started with a corgi named Kiki, diagnosed with congenital hip dysplasia at just eighteen months old. Surgery was considered too risky at her age, so we went looking for something gentler. The search led to New Zealand green-lipped mussel and Antarctic krill oil.
We make both, and the reason they suit this particular gap is that they are designed to go on top of whatever you already feed, raw or kibble.
Mega Krill Oil is our Antarctic krill softgel. It carries natural astaxanthin as a built-in antioxidant, which is the same reason it does not turn rancid quickly or smell fishy.
Mega Mussel is our New Zealand green-lipped mussel capsule. Alongside EPA and DHA it provides ETA, an omega-3 that fish and krill oil do not offer in any meaningful amount, plus naturally occurring glucosamine and chondroitin. The capsule opens so the powder can go straight onto raw or kibble.
Whichever way you feed, the idea is the same: check the label on the food you already use, then top up the omega-3 if it is short, at a sensible dose. If your cat or dog has a diagnosed health condition, or is on a prescription or therapeutic diet, talk to your vet before adding anything new.
References
Dillitzer, N., Becker, N., & Kienzle, E. (2011). Intake of minerals, trace elements and vitamins in bone and raw food rations in adult dogs. British Journal of Nutrition, 106(S1), S53-S56. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22005436/
Lindqvist, H. M., et al. (2023). Comparison of fish, krill and flaxseed as omega-3 sources to increase the omega-3 index in dogs. Veterinary Sciences, 10(2), 162. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9961762/
Pedrinelli, V., Gomes, M. O. S., & Carciofi, A. C. (2017). Analysis of recipes of home-prepared diets for dogs and cats published in Portuguese. Journal of Nutritional Science, 6, e33. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5672303/
Pet Food Industry Association of Australia (PFIAA). Pet food standards (AS 5812). https://pfiaa.com.au/pet-food-standards/
Balance of n-6 and n-3 fatty acids in canine, feline, and equine nutrition. PMC11161904. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11161904/ [author and year to be verified at publishing and matched to the citation used in O1]
Effect of stocking conditions on fatty acid composition and oxidation capacities of different class and type dog food. (2021). Italian Journal of Animal Science. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1828051X.2021.1939805 [authors to be verified and completed at publishing]
Today's Veterinary Practice. Fish oil dosing in pet diets and supplements. https://todaysveterinarypractice.com/nutrition/fish-oil-dosing-in-pet-diets-and-supplements/