How to boost your Pet’s Diet the right way!
One thing is upsetting me recently - in many consultations I have with you guys, we speak about severe Issues your Pets have which often leading back to a lack of certain nutrients.
Nutrients that could’ve easily changed everything.
To understand which add-ins and tweaks make the most sense for your particular furry, let’s look at the different preparation styles of Meals and see what to do!
What’s the difference between raw Homecooked and processed food diet?
Let’s look at why it matters how you prepare your pets food and what to keep an eye on with regards to a wholesome diet.
Nutrients, Protein, Enzymes, vitamins - all of these break down in the extensive heating and processing needed to make commercial Pet Food.
After the heating process nutrients are synthetically added back into the processed petfood.
Synthetic nutrients are not the same as natural food based nutrients.
That is one of the reasons it's always a good idea to rotate different brands and flavours of kibble. Its an easy way to prevent overexposure of any chemical in a particular kibble to your pet.
Any processed food will most likely be lacking in Omega 3, which can cause tremendous consequences in the long run - from Skin Issues to UTI to Renal Ailments or Seizures!
Additionally most processed foods are heavily starchy - even if it says grain free there will be peas or sweet potatoes or other starchy fillers.
Thus you have to be aware of three things when feeding processed foods:
What you need most urgently to fight inflammation, help fight starches and flush by products are:
- Omega 3
- Minerals & Vitamins
- Protein
- Glucosamine & Chondroitin
- Anti Oxidants
- Digestive Enzymes
- Probiotics
This sounds like a lot but it’s all not so complex - feeding some whole fish, whether that’s by feeding dried WHOLE FISH, SALMON or ANTI INFLAMMATION MEAL or Fish Broth and boiled boneless fish you tick off almost everything in the above list and that seriously can change everything!
To help the digestive system be strong and fight harmful bacteria and yeast feeding probiotics is a good idea. Find our SOIL BASED PROBIOTICS here or read more about Probiotics HERE.
Additionally adding some raw minced or boiled fruit or veggies, herbs and powdered sea weeds for example can be a huge plus for the gut.
- Home Cooked
A homemade Diet gives you the control to know exactly what goes into your Pet’s food - so it’s super important you know what needs to be in their food!
When you order home cooked meals please make sure they have meat, organ and bone and no peas or potatoes, rice and the likes.
Whether you order or cook food at home, for one thing you need balance - Chicken and Rice is not enough. The other thing you need is to know that nutrients change when heating.
Heating food changes it.
Denaturalisation of protein is often illustrated by eggs - look at what a raw egg looks like and a fried egg.
The protein has changed due to heat and that is irreversible - you can turn any raw egg into a boiled one but no boiled egg into a raw one.
Cooked bones change in structure and can not safely be fed. As a consequence many HC Diets lack bone content which can have horrible effects on the nervous system and heart in the long run.
So you have to be aware of three things when feeding Home Cooked:
Cooked food is not as nutrient dense as raw.
But there’s ways to retain more nutrients.
By baking instead of boiling, leaving meat in one piece and not chopped, cooking for a short time you achieve more nutrient retention.
If you boil, keep the water. If you fry, use a little ghee and sprinkle.
The HC diet usually lacks bone as we cant feed it cooked.
You can replace Bones by Bone Broth and or Paste but the best thing would be to either get some powdered or edible bone or try a raw chew if you think your Furry is up for it!
Eggshells / Eggshell Powder can not replace Bones.
Feeding eggshells alone can actually cause arteries to calcify and renal issues.
This is because only eggshell is pure calcium, but calcium needs phosphorus to be absorbed. Egg yolks have that phosphorus so feeding a wholw egg does deliver calcium.
If a dog has elevated phosphorus levels on the other hand we can feed eggshell to help that by binding to the phosphorus in the bloodstream. So for one dog eggshell is harmful and for the other its beneficial. But eggshell never replaces Bone.
Other nutrients break down as well so adding digestive enzymes, vitamins and antioxidants as mentioned above with raw or boiled fruit and veggies and POWDERS that’s a great help.
If you do not feed Fish please refer to the part about Omega 3 above. It’s essential!!
Raw is the most bio available Diet for Dogs and Cats but for Raw as well Balance and Absorbability are important factors.
Mixing and Matching Meat, Organ and Bone as well as different Proteins and making sure Meat Cuts are lean and of high quality is important.
Typically the main thing missing in a Raw Diet are Veggies - Veggies and Fruit are great even for Raw fed Furries to supply some extra anti oxidants and fibre to support digestion.
A purely vegetarian Diet does NOT supply the essential nutrients our Cats and Dogs need - please refer to the NUTRIENT 101 to understand more.
For de-worming and Anti Tick Garlic, Pumpkin with Seed and Peel are good additions.
Find our Picks for Homecooked Boosters HERE
Find our Picks for Kibble Boosters HERE
Find our Picks for a Veg Diet Boosters HERE
If you’d like to know more - BOOK A CONSULT or send an EMAIL
