Xylitol And Other Sugar Alcohols
Sugar substitutes can be deadly for pets, and new research shows that they aren’t doing you any favours, either. While sugar alcohols may have little or no calories, they can still have an effect on blood sugar. Xylitol causes a surge in your pet’s blood sugar and then a subsequent drop, which can result in hyperglycemia. Other complications can include seizures, liver failure, and even death.
While only xylitol is toxic to dogs, other sugar substitutes do nothing for your pet nutritionally. Their inclusion in the diet only feeds your dog’s sweet tooth, which can make him crave sugar. And truthfully, sugar substitutes will do the same for you. Recent studies link high sugar substitute intake with high blood sugar, a precursor to Type 2 Diabetes in humans, due to how these sugar substitutes alter normal gut flora. You and your pet would be better off enjoying whole food treats, such as fresh fruits and veggies.
Farmina Natural & Delicious Lamb & Ancestral Low
For a dog food with limited starch but plenty of protein, try this Farmina Natural & Delicious Lamb & Ancestral Low-Grain Formula Dry Food. This recipe features fresh lamb and dehydrated lamb as rich sources of protein with low-glycemic whole-grain carbohydrates for fiber and energy. It contains natural sources of glucosamine and chondroitin for joint support as well as a blend of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids for healthy skin and coat. Youll find dehydrated fruits and vegetables which act as natural sources for key nutrients as well as chelated minerals for optimal nutrient absorption. All in all, it provides 28% protein and 18% fat with nearly 3% fiber.
- Pros: Rich in protein, limited whole-grain carbohydrate content, supports joints and skin/coat, blend of omega fatty acids, chelated minerals, dried fruits and vegetables
- Cons: Not a grain-free recipe, expensive to feed as a staple diet
Pedigree Adult Complete Nutrition Dry Dog Food
The closest thing to a natural protein in Pedigree is chicken by-product meal. This ingredient isn’t great and can come from unwanted leftovers from a variety of sources.
Ground whole corn and corn gluten meal are also used. A variety of synthetic colors are also utilized, making this formula an unhealthy choice all around.
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Worst Dog Food Brands To Avoid
Now you know there are bad quality products. You are in the market for your pups food and now are completely unaware which ones to avoid. Well, these are the brands you should simply never feed to your fur child.
1. Pedigree: Easily one of the most recognized dog food brands in the entire world, it doesnt matter what part of the world you are in, you will find Pedigree. As soon as you get into the pet food aisle, you are greeted with bags after bags of Pedigree. Though it might be convenient, it is considered among the worse dog food by active dog owners. One reason behind it is that Pedigree utilizes all of the bad products that are just fillers, from Bone Meal to using soy and wheat, which hikes the overall amount of carbohydrates. While some people debate that corn and wheat are actually good for dogs, the widespread disapproval of Bone Meal cannot be ignored. Plus, these ingredients are not openly stated on the label and makes customer question the ethics of the brand. If these were not enough, Pedigree also has a consistent history of recalls, which just goes to show why this is among the worse brands of dog food.
These are among the worst dog food brands in the market, it is best if you invest in other brands, or better yet, start cooking meals for your pooch yourself. It is safer and gives you a better idea of how much nutrition you are providing to your fur child.
References
How Dog Food Research Is Done
The Reviews.com team gathered experts across all areas of dog care: veterinarians, animal behaviorists, dog trainers, researchers, and authors. They read hundreds of articles and studies about pet food, and reviewed the ingredients lists for thousands of brands. Then, they surveyed 300 regular dog owners to gain insight into how most people approach choosing a dog food. After more than two months of full-time research, or 1400 man hours, they came to some incredible conclusions.
Their first discovery: over 70% of dog people dont know whats in the food they give their dogs. Thankfully, this study into the composition and safety of dog food aims to help dog people understand what goes into dog food so we can make safe, healthy decisions for our best friends.
2-in-1 measuring scoop and bag clip: $8.99
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What Kind Of Snacks Can I Feed My Dog With Kidney Disease
Our dogs walk a bit on the wild side when it comes to snacks as they love thin apple slices, banana chunks, carrots, whole unsalted peanuts in the husks, and dehydrated sweet potatoes! Dog’s with kidney disease should avoid meat based chews/treats that are high in phosphorus, so you may find that you need to explore doing friendly fruit and veggies for treats like we have. We still on occasion will offer Hooch bully sticks or a jerky treat, but it is better for him if we limit his intake due to the levels of phosphorous that those treats contain.
Merrick Brand Dog Food
The ingredients that make Merrick a great choice include deboned duck, deboned chicken, turkey meal, salmon meal which is a source of omega 3 fatty acids, peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, potato protein and lamb meal.
Merrick dog food also uses duck fat and chicken fat preserved with mixed tocopherols, blueberries, apples, salmon oil, organic alfalfa, natural flavor and salt.
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Can Dogs Eat Avocado
Avocados contain persin, which can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and heart muscle damage. The most dangerous part of an avocado is the pit because it is a choking hazard, and it contains a lot of persin. If you think your dog has ingested an avocado pit, call your vet asap. If your dog ate a small piece of avocado, they should be okay, but make sure you monitor your dog and call your vet for further care.
Coffee Tea And Other Caffeine
Give your dog toys if you want them to be perky. Caffeine can be fatal. Watch out for coffee and tea, even the beans and the grounds. Keep your dog away from cocoa, chocolate, colas, and energy drinks. Caffeine is also in some cold medicines and pain killers. Think your dog had caffeine? Get your dog to the vet as soon as possible.
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Choosing The Right Dog Food For Your Lifestyleand Your Budget
Of course, commercially available food isnt the only option for your dog, and for budget-conscious pet people, premium packaged dog food can seem overly expensive. Its true that better ingredients tend to cost more. But the fact is, spending a little more money on food now can mean spending a whole lot less on vet bills down the line.
The same goes for investing time to prepare healthful dog meals at home: extra time now will mean less worry later. And in fact, homemade and raw diets tend to be incredibly cost-efficient if you shop smart . As a bonus, if you make your dogs food, youll know exactly whats on the ingredient list!
Vittles Vault dog-proof 60-lb food storage: $42.24
The Top 10 Ingredients To Avoid In Dog Food
If you spoke to five different veterinarians or animal nutritionists, you would get five different answers in regard to the dog food ingredients that are most important to avoid. This speaks to a major problem within the pet food industry that there are so many low-quality ingredients used by pet food manufacturers, that they cant all be included in one list.
But why exactly do pet food manufacturers use low-quality ingredients in their products? The main reason is money the lower the quality of an ingredient, the lower the price. That means that the manufacturer can cut their own costs for production while still charging pet owners like you the same price.
So what are the top ten worst dog food ingredients you should be on the lookout for? The list could go on forever, but here are our top choices for ingredients you should avoid in your dogs food:
Again, these are just a few of the many low-quality ingredients that sub-par pet food manufacturers try to sneak into their products. For the most part, if an ingredient sounds like a chemical or has a number in it , it probably isnt good for your dog.
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Twin Pet Dry Dog Food
Twin Pet dog food is a plant-based dry dog food utilizing a limited amount of unnamed and unidentified meat as its primary source of animal protein.
Twin Pet contains cheap ingredients of poor quality that do not provide the necessary nutrition to dogs.
Like the dog food brands we already discussed, the first ingredient is corn, so you already know how we feel about that.
The second ingredient is wheat middlings, also known as wheat mill run. It is a cheap by-product that remains after cereal grain processing.
Unfortunately, the disparities in nutrient content in the wheat middlings can be a critical concern in determining their aptness for being used in any dog food or even livestock feeds.
In actuality, wheat middlings is just the milling dust as well as floor sweepings. It is an ingredient that is typically associated with low-quality pet foods.
The third ingredient is the meat and bone meal, a rendered product from the mammal tissues. It has lower digestibility in comparison with the other meat meals.
Other unhealthy, non-nutritional ingredients in this dog food include unspecified animal fat and salt. The quantity of salt is also unknown, making it difficult to determine the nutritional value of this ingredient.
Altogether this product is one of the worst dog food brands.
Understanding Yeast Infections In Dogs
Dogs may not be obligate carnivores like cats, but the majority of their diet should still come from animal products like meat, poultry, and fish. Protein is the foundation of a healthy diet for dogs and it should be supplemented with healthy fats for energy. Dogs have no specific requirements for carbohydrates in their diet and, in fact, these ingredients should be limited because they are more difficult for your dogs body to digest than animal products. Not only are carbohydrates more difficult for your dogs body to digest, but they can cause other problems as well.
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One particular group of carbohydrates that can be problematic for dogs is starch. Starches are a type of complex carbohydrate that your dogs body breaks down into sugar. While these ingredients do provide your dog with energy, the sugar they produce provides food for something else as well yeast.
Yeast is naturally present in your dogs digestive tract as part of his natural gut flora. In low numbers, yeast is not harmful for your dog but, if they start to proliferate, it can cause an infection that will spread throughout the dogs body causing all kinds of nasty side effects including red, inflamed, and itchy skin. If you dont change your dogs diet, the infection is only going to get worse and it can make your dog very uncomfortable.
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Which Ingredients Are Actually Good For Your Dog
Perhaps the main ingredient which is currently undergoing a re-evaluation due to the FDAs warning and concerns about grain free dog food is corn. As grain free dog foods and foods which contain large amounts of peas and related ingredients fall out of favor, many dog lovers are scrambling to find dog foods that have the approval of veterinary cardiologists.
Taurine is an important sulfur-containing amino acid, which makes it different from other amino acids. Its naturally found in fish and meat. Cats cannot make their own taurine and it has to be added to their food. It has always been assumed that dogs, like humans, can produce their own taurine in their bodies, so it didnt have to be supplemented in dog food. What does this have to do with corn? Well, corn is high in methionine and cysteine, sulfur-containing amino acids. These amino acids are the precursors to taurine. If your dog has these amino acids in his food, he should have no trouble producing plenty of taurine in his body, provided he has vitamin B in his diet. Corn is also highly digestible when its prepared properly. And, while there is a popular belief that corn and other grains cause allergies in dogs, the truth is that meat proteins are responsible for more allergies than grains.
Can Dogs Eat Peppers
Bell peppers are okay to feed dogs. Dogs are carnivores and prefer meat to vegetables, but there are some benefits to veggies. For example, green peppers are a low-calorie snack packed with vitamin C and beta-carotene.
Be sure to chop peppers into small pieces because the outer skin can be tough and difficult to chew. Pureeing or steaming the peppers makes them easier to consume and digest. As with most human food, dont overdo it because too much could lead to sickness. Never give your dog a spicy variety such as jalapeños or hot peppers.
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Foods Your Dog Should Never Eat
Admit it: you know exactly what you should eat to stay healthy, but sometimes find yourself elbow-deep in a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, wondering how you got there. You might decide thatafter just one more chipyoure swearing off junk food for good. You might have gone through this process a few times, eating very healthfully sometimes, eating more junk than you care to admit at others. The fact is, you have a choice about what you feed yourself. You can choose what, when, and where you eat. Your dog, on the other hand, doesnt have this choice.
You, the pet owner, are solely responsible for your dogs health and wellbeing. This means, along with feeding him a healthy and balanced diet, that you make sure he isnt eating the wrong things. Sometimes its easy to think that a food that is healthy for us humans would make a healthy treat for our dogs. But there are a lot of toxic human foods out there, and its up to us to make sure our cherished pets dont get ahold of them.
Heres a list of tens things your dog should never eat:
Blood Tests Don’t Lieand Hooch’s Numbers Shifted Drastically In Just The First 6 Weeks We Made These Diet And Lifestyle Changes
He noticeably had more energy, was suffering less from inflammation, was shedding less with a more luxurious coat, and for the first time EVER he had zero bloating! NO GAS for the first time in his entire life! The best news though, was that those stage 4 kidney disease blood levels he had at his yearly checkup had climbed back up to to midrange stage 1 kidney disease blood levels! The extra time and energy invested in making his food and the other small changes we made to his lifestyle have given us more quality time with our beloved Hooch which is more than we could have ever hoped for!
If youve made our Easy Homemade Dog Food for your pup I would be so grateful if you would rate the recipe and let me know what you think in the comments below! I just love hearing from you and your reviews and comments really help others that visit This Mess is Ours. Want to be a part of our online community outside of the blog? Its easy!! All you have to do is follow @THISMESSISOURS on , , , , or to see cooking demos, and peeks into our day to day life.
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Should You Cook Your Dogs Food
Is cooking dog food at home really better for your pup? While there may be claims made to that effect, theres no hard scientific evidence to support it.
Owners are told by many sources that homemade food is superior to commercial products. However, there is no proof to support this claim, says Dr. Larsen.
Larsen cautions dog owners to be aware of fearmongering within the pet food industry. This is often driven by myths about ingredient quality. While there are no scientifically-supported benefits to homemade diets, whole ingredient-based diets are better in the long term. Commercial foods are made to be complete and balanced, adds Dr. Bartges, albeit not the most exciting of meals.
Think of it as eating the same highly processed food for every meal, day after day, for years, he affirms.
Put that way, feeding your dogs a variety of whole foods makes a lot of sense. In fact, there are a multitude of reasons why you might want to prepare homemade foods for your dog, according to Dr. Larsen and Dr. Bartges.
These include gaining control over your dogs diet, appeasing picky eaters, combatting food intolerance issues, concern over food recalls, or simply for the bond-building joy of preparing a home-cooked meal for your dog.