Monday, October 12, 2009

Dog Health Food - Make Sure That You're Not Damaging Your Dogs Health

 

Title: Dog Health Food - Are You Poisoning Your Best Friend?

Dog Health Food - Are You Poisoning Your Best Friend?

We all like to think that we are giving our dogs the very
best and dog health food is a vital part of this equation.
By not giving them the nutrition they need, we can make
their lives miserable and even cause them to die years
before they should.

What is animal meal exactly? Meal is made by processing
meat or fish. Cooking it, blending it into a puree and
baking it. This sounds like it's not going to affect the
content of the meat. However it's one of those cases where
they can get away with putting preservatives and other
things into the meal, but then it doesn't appear on the
ingredients list because it was't added as part of the
final processing of the food.

Fish meal is the worst offender as far as toxic
preservatives go. The meal is made on the fishing boat
while they are at sea and the law says that it has to be
preserved with a chemical called ethoxyquin. This is due to
the fact that unpreserved fish meal can become extremely
explosive. On the surface it seems ok, but ethoxyquin is
unfit for human consumption because it's so toxic.

In dogs it has been linked to many health disorders ranging
from chronic skin problems to cancer and liver failure.
Because this preservative is added before the fish meal
arrives at the manufacturing plant, it doesn't need to be
listed on the list of ingredients. However, unless there
is a specific statement that the fish meal does not contain
ethoxyquin, you can assume that it does, like the
overwhelming majority of fish meal.

Other types of animal meal are not always going to be as
bad but you won't know just by reading the label. A good
guide is to avoid 'animal' meal - would you buy animal meat
for dinner? Using the term animal is an easy way to
disguise the true origins of the meat. You want to look
for specific animal meat like beef and chicken. listed on
the ingredients to be sure.

There is still some discussion about whether meal or plain
meat is a better option. This is because even though meal
is processed and may contain some chemical nasties, it is
more concentrated because it's been dried and so has more
protein per gram than meat which has a higher water content.

Another tactic that is often used, is to list some sort of
meat protein as the first ingredient and the next few being
cereals so that it looks like there's plenty of protein
when in reality, there's a whole lot of filler and not much
meat.

By using too many grains to bulk out the food, your dog is
just getting empty carbohydrates. While some grains are
part of an ideal diet it's in a quite small proportion to
the amount of protein. This can contribute to dogs
suffering from allergies and them not really being
satisfied by their food. It's a bit like expecting white
bread for dinner to keep you full and healthy.
Unfortunately our pooches can't tell us if they like it or
not.

Dog health food can get around all of these problems, by
making it yourself you can make sure that only the best
goes into your dogs dinner. It's simple and will often
save you money. Best of all though, you'll be adding years
of life to your dog, giving them more energy and doing the
best thing for your best friend.

About the Author:

With all the preservatives that go into food these days, we
need to think about dog health food to make sure our best
friends have the best life possible. If you'd like to
receive a newsletter full of tips about how to make
delicious, healthy meals and what really goes into dog
food, click here http://www.dog-health-food.com

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