I know I’m not the only one who struggles with deciding what to feed my dog these days, so thought I’d share a link I came across earlier today. Anyone used it or anything similar? I may give it a shot. Haven’t found a kibble I’m entirely happy with - my dog’s coat isn’t as shiny as I like, her stools are a little softer, and she’s a little itchier than I like. Nothing dramatic,
https://secure.balanceit.com/recipegenerator_ver4/index.php?rotator=EZ
A friend just told me about this app; she is working closely with an alternative therapies vet as well. She is quite excited about it because she has a dog with some issues that can be helped with diet (kidney function). You definitely need to make sure you use the recommended supplements. I’m not sure if she’s adding fruits and vegetables; when I talked to her recently she was preparing turkey and sweet potatoes. I’m not sure if the vet recommended adding other ingredients or not.
If you have an alternative therapies vet it would definitely be worth discussing the options. Obviously there are probably certain ingredients that will be more useful than others for each dog/medical issue, etc.
Oh, definitely agree about the supplement: I’ve already ordered it. I’ve never cooked for my dog partly because I’ve never been confident about meeting nutritional requirements. I really like the flexibility this app offers, since I’m interested in what foods work best for her. Hope your friend gets good results. Since we have no medical issues, I’m unlikely to involve my vet, and ideally this will help me find a kibble that works well for her.
My vet recommended it and it’s great but…it’s just selling the supplement. No matter what combo of ingredients you plug in it tells you that you have to add the supplement to make it “balanced”. I figure that’s sort of akin to human meal planning that must include xyz vitamin/mineral supplement in order to make it complete and healthy. Skeptical. It is not rocket science to feed ourselves or our dogs and the contents of a bottle isn’t required for a healthy diet.
It’s not as if kibble is the authority on dog nutrition. Kibble is a recent invention created for consumer convenience and in order to create a market for rejected sub-human-grade byproducts that otherwise would have been discarded. No one feeds their children solely Lucky Charms cereal because it’s fortified with vitamins and minerals. That would be nuts.
Just back from our National Speciality where we heard a talk by Dr. Lisa Freeman, DVM, PhD, DACVN, who is a board certified veterinary nutritionist and professor at Tufts Vet School. She does not work for and is not affiliated with any dog food company.
She gave an excellent presentation on DCM and nutrition, and recommended the website, petfoodology, run by the clinical nutrition service at Tufts. They are not selling anything, it is a great resource.
It’s certainly selling a supplement - no doubt about that - but the amount it specifies differs based on the other ingredients, and it makes it easy to adjust the diet to see what works for the dog. It also appears to have been created and be managed by a group of veterinary nutritionists, so my quack-o-meter isn’t going too crazy. 
I’ve read through a number of topics on their moderated forum, and they’re far from hard sell: if kibble is working for the dog, they recommend the owner continue to use it rather than cooking.
I’ve read through the material on the Tufts site (Lisa Freeman is a blast from the past: she designed a diet for my RER horse ages ago. She was fantastic to work with), and it’s very good.
ETA: Speaking of Tufts resources, just came across this in thinking about how to plan my diet experiment: https://vetnutrition.tufts.edu/2017/01/food-allergies/
Tufts suggests visiting balanceit.com to design a nutritionally balanced homemade diet for healthy dogs. https://vetnutrition.tufts.edu/2018/11/sensible-use-of-supplements/ Ok, now I feel better. 
(Except that I was looking for thoughts on the best carb to use…)
I switched my dogs to raw and use the raw dog app to calculate percentages.
I am a member of the FB group Raw Feeding Advice and Support. EVERYTHING you need to know is in the guidelines and members are AMAZINGLY helpful.
I do not feed fruits and vegetables and use NO supplements except krill oil because there are no suitable fish where I live. I primarily DIY and feed 8 different proteins and organs.
The changes in my dogs health and energy and coats are amazing! Highly recommend youcheck it out.
I recently switched to Answers Raw food and their raw goats milk and fish stock. Also looking at Dr. Judy Morgan’s site; she uses TCVM. Different conditions require different types of proteins based on their warming or cooling energies. It’s really fascinating stuff. It all applies to humans as well.
I’ve fed raw for many years, on my previous dog and now my current one. This dog is tiny and I don’t have the time or energy to hunt for different foods to DIY again so using Answers and following their recommendations for older dogs with aging kidneys.
Wish I cared about my own diet as much as my dog’s.
Ditto ponybaloney. Dogs eat way better than we do.
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