Can Cheap Dog Food Be Healthy?

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.

One of the easiest ways to supplement is to use human food. Look for bargains while you grocery shop. When frozen vegetables go on sale, I stock up, especially the store brands. I’ll grab a couple of different types of vegetables and throw them in the blender with some water. My daughter calls them vegetable smoothies for the dogs. Other things I look for on sale are cottage cheese and yogurt. Just by adding these things in with cheap dog food can help boost the nutritional value of their food.

Another supplement to cheap dog food would definitely be a multi-vitamin. You can get a good multi-vitamin for around 25 cents a day. That’s not much to help keep your dog healthy and less prone to illness and allergies.

The following are the things I would look at when comparing cheap dog foods to see which would be best for my dog:
Flavorings/preservatives/colorings:. I stay away from foods that have flavorings added – if you’ve got to flavor it, it’s probably no good. For preservatives, look for natural ones, like vitamin C & E (ascorbic acid & tocopherols) – stay away from BHA, BHT, and Ethoxyquin, which can cause health problems. For colorings, it’s just not needed – your dog doesn’t care and it’s just more artificial things in their body that they have to overcome. Basically, stay as natural as possible.

Unidentified meat sources: meat, meat by-product, poultry, poultry by-product, fish, etc – when the source is not identified you just don’t know what you are getting. This is a huge red flag for me.

Too much grain: if grains or grain-byproducts are the majority of the first 5 ingredients, then the chances that your dog will develop allergies or food intolerance are greater. Although dogs are omnivores, their main source of protein should be meat – they don’t process grain protein as well and efficiently as meat protein. If I could only afford a high grain dog food, I would really try to supplement with raw meat and or eggs.

Cheap dog food really isn’t healthy, but if that is all your budget will allow, you really should try to supplement with multi-vitamins and raw human ingredients if at all possible. Even if it is only a couple of days a week, your dog will be able to stay healthier.