How the SodaPup Bowl Builder Works

The SodaPup Bowl Builder helps you plan a home-prepared meal for your dog. It sizes the portions to your dog's weight and life stage, grades the recipe against AAFCO nutrient profiles, and suggests whole-food additions to close any gaps. This page explains exactly how it works, what it's built on, and where its limits are.

The four steps

1. Step 1Tell us about your dog: weight, age, life stage, breed and any food allergies.
2. Step 2Pick ingredients from 57 whole foods. You choose what goes in; the tool works out the amounts.
3. Step 3Get a nutrition report card with a letter grade, portion sizes and suggested additions.
4. Step 4See it served in a SodaPup eBowl or eTray, email yourself the recipe, and share it to the gallery.

How calories are estimated

The Bowl Builder starts from your dog's Resting Energy Requirement (RER), the standard veterinary estimate of the energy a dog needs at rest, then multiplies it by a life-stage factor to get daily Maintenance Energy Requirement (MER).

These factors are averages. Activity level, neuter status, breed and metabolism all shift real needs, so watch your dog's weight and body condition for the first few weeks and adjust portions up or down.

What the recipe is graded against

Recipes are measured against the AAFCO dog food nutrient profiles, expressed per 1,000 kcal of metabolizable energy. That means a recipe is judged on nutrient density, so the result holds whether your dog eats 400 calories a day or 2,000.

The grade covers 23 nutrients, from protein and fat to calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, selenium, vitamins A, D, E and the B vitamins, choline and linoleic acid. It also checks the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio, which should fall between 1:1 and 2:1. Where AAFCO sets an upper limit (calcium, phosphorus, selenium, vitamins A and D), exceeding it counts against the recipe too.

How the grade works

Each nutrient is scored on how close the recipe comes to its target, weighted by importance, and combined into a score out of 100. That score maps to a letter grade from A+ to D-. A recipe passes when it scores 85 or higher with no nutrient over its safe maximum and no serious single-nutrient shortfall. A single major gap caps the grade even if everything else looks strong.

If a recipe falls short, the Bowl Builder suggests specific additions, such as eggshell powder or kelp for calcium, fish oil for fat, or liver for copper and vitamin A. You accept or decline each one. Every addition has a sensible ceiling, so the tool never piles on organ meat or supplements to chase a number, and ingredients that match your dog's allergies are never suggested.

Where the ingredient data comes from

Nutrient values for the 57 ingredients (23 proteins, 11 grains and starches, 13 fruits and vegetables, 3 fats and 7 supplements) come from USDA FoodData Central, with supplement values such as calcium carbonate from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Many ingredients carry preparation, cooking and bone-safety notes, and novel proteins such as duck, rabbit and venison are tagged as their own allergens so dogs with poultry or beef sensitivities still have options.

Serve it for enrichment

A balanced recipe covers what your dog eats. How you serve it can turn a two-minute meal into twenty minutes of sniffing, licking and problem-solving. That is the idea behind every SodaPup product and our SPICES enrichment framework.

Frequently asked questions