A Discussion On Vegan Dog Food

When it comes to dog food, vegan dog food has been quite a touchy subject for a long time. However, actually feeding your dog this type of diet is quite simple. Basically, you want to ensure that your dog is getting all of the nutrients that they need. So, you can choose to either make your own vegan dog food or you can buy it. When developing your dog’s diet, you should always aim to create a balanced diet.

It is safe to feed your dog vegan dog food once it has all the nutrients that your dog needs.

If you’re a dog parent, then you should know that traditional dog food contains a lot more ingredients than simply meat. It contains the bones, skin, blood and other different parts of various animals. It is possible that your dog food maybe even made from sick animals. This is something that is certainly not fit for any human to eat. Due to this, it is no surprise that the dog food industry is causing more dogs to suffer from various health issues such as cancer, obesity etc.

Dogs have carnivore teeth which means that they don’t have molars. This means that your dog’s teeth were designed for them to rip the meat off of prey. Also, they have different digestive tracts. Their small and large intestine is short which means that they are designed to eat a diet made up of mostly meat. If a dog consumed a more plant-based diet, this means that it will take longer to digest the food.

To put this into perspective, a cow’s digestive tract is 60 meters whereas a dog’s tract is quite short at 2 to 7 meters.

Nutrition tip: It is important for your dog to get the right nutrients. This means that dogs need to consume foods that have protein, fat, carbohydrates, vegetables etc. You may want to treat your dog every now and again with dog treats, a dog treat tin is a great storage method.

If your dog doesn’t get enough fats, then they would have issues absorbing enzymes.

The amount of carbohydrates that you should feed your dog should be 40% of their meal where protein should be 30%, fats at 3% and vegetables at 27%. You can serve various meals to your dog and even foods such as rice, spaghetti, soy meat and tomato sauce. However, make sure that you don’t feed them any spices, salt or sugar. If you want to feed them vegan meals, then you’ll need to add ingredients such as l-carnitine, vitamin E, vitamin D, vitamin B12, iron and taurine. It is highly recommended that you fed your dog a diverse and balanced diet and ensure you don’t feed them any foods that are poisonous to them.

Disadvantages of feeding your dog vegan food

When you feed your dog meat, they will naturally get the nutrients that they need from the meat such a iron, vitamin E, vitamin B12, iodine, calcium, protein etc. All of the nutrients listed here are in raw meat. You can use soy products as an alternative, however, they won’t have these nutrients. So, you will need to supplement these meals. Also, you shouldn’t feed your dog too much soy since it has hormones that aren’t good for your furry friend. We will now look at the disadvantages of feeding your dog a vegan diet:

Doesn’t have all the nutrients your dog requires
Dog’s digestive tract is not made to process a vegan diet
Takes a lot of time to make meals
Need to learn about vegan food and how to prepare the best meals

Benefits of giving your dog a vegan diet:

Little or no digestive issues
Very little if any bone and joint deposits due to diet. Drastically reduced risk of developing articular gout
Reduces risk of developing common diseases like cancer
Better for the environment
Less smelly waste