I was recently asked if a cheap dog food can be healthy. The answer for the most part is ‘no’. Dog food is made cheaply by using lots of low quality and by-product ingredients.
So what can you do if all you can afford is cheap dog food? If it were me, I would supplement the food I could afford with multi-vitamins and/or human vegetables and meats.
Have you ever looked at your dog food ingredients list? If you have trouble reading it, you are not alone. Dog food companies use all sorts of little tricks to make their food ’seem’ better than it actually is.
The best dog foods, the super-premium ones, have recognizable ingredients – a lot of them things humans eat regularly.
The super-premium foods are, unarguably, the best food for your dog. Many contain human-grade, and even organic, ingredients, rather than the massive by-products most companies use. These foods also have a higher price tag. But this price is worth it for the health of your dog. By keeping them healthy, you will ultimately lower your vet costs and improve the quality of their life, as well as their lifespan.
With the massive pet food recalls in the past few years, pet owners have been taking a closer look at their dog food. And a lot of people have been turning to a healthy, homemade or raw dog food over commercial dog food. Why? Because then you know exactly what is in your dog’s food. It’s food you get from your grocery store or butcher. But is feeding raw dog food to your dog dangerous?
Most people are concerned as to whether the raw meat might give their dog salmonella poisoning. Same with raw eggs. And then there is the controversy over whether raw eggs deplete biotin. But very few dogs have ever got sick from eating a raw diet. Dogs stomach acid is much higher than humans and they are able kill more bacteria. Their intestinal track is also much shorter, about 1/3, so food doesn’t stay in them for very long. Now, we are talking fresh meat, just like you and I would eat – nothing spoiled or rotten. As for eggs, again fresh eggs only. If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t give it to your dog. The biotin controversy is really more if you are only feeding raw egg whites – if you feed the whole egg, the yolk counteracts the effects of the egg whites.
In the previous post on dog food ingredients, I talked about preservatives and meats. And don’t worry if it is too confusing at first. It took me several times of going to the store and looking at all the dog food ingredients, before I really got a feel for how to quickly judge a quality vs. crap dog food.
In this post I’ll talk about grains, fruits and vegetables, and vitamins – or the rest of the stuff in the dog food ingredients list.
There is much debate over what is considered a healthy dog food. To provide the healthiest dog food for your dog, you will probably have to spend a LOT of money – pretty much like feeding a child.
The healthiest dog food will be all-natural, all-organic, freshly made, with the correct amount of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes needed for your particular dog. But unfortunately, not everyone can afford to feed their pet like this, nor does everyone have the time needed to prepare food like this.
So a healthy dog food must be considered along with your budget for pet food. If you cannot afford a high-quality, healthy dog food, you can supplement your current dog food with some human-grade ingredients, or some dog multi-vitamins, to increase the amount of nutrition your dog is getting.
In 2007 healthy dogs and cats started dying. No one really knows how many pet needlessly died, but finally, there was a dog food recall. The killer was an non-food ingredient called melamine, that was used to cheaply boost protein in the dog food. This was definitely the largest recall affecting a large number of dog food labels, but there have been other dog food recalls before this one (possible problems caused from BHA preservative in 2003 and aflatoxin contamination in 2005). And there have been another dog food recall since (salmonella from contaminated peanut butter in 2009).
What has this dog food recall done to the dog food industry? Well, luckily for our pets, many more pet owners now really look at what kinds of foods they are feeding. And many companies have responded to our concern, providing us with more organic, natural, and holistic dog foods to choose from.
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