𦴠FOOD
Kale instead of meat
Your dog might very well be the biggest meat lover in your family and while there are a few different ways to feed a dog, they always include meat.
Homecooked, commercial, and especially raw diets set their focus on meat content followed by some or no veggies.
Looking at the different diets for humans, we have everything from people that only eat fruits to others that completely refrain from sugar or sodium.
One of the most popular diets out there - the vegan diet - may very well be a possible food choice for our dogs.
And research suggests that it might be even healthier and safer than other diets.
In a recent study, more than 2,500 dogs and their owners were surveyed over the course of one year with the goal of finding the healthiest dog food.
Out of these dogs, 54% were fed a conventional meat-based diet, one-third reported using raw meat diets, and 13% vegan diets. π₯¦
To monitor the health status of each dog, they used seven health indicators:
- number of veterinary visits
- medication use
- switch to a therapeutic diet
- owner opinion
- veterinary opinion
- percentage of unwell dogs
- number of health disorders per unwell dog
Results: Vegan dogs required less medication and were overall healthier than dogs on a commercial diet.
Dogs on a raw diet performed marginally better but this might be due to the fact that the raw-fed dogs were younger than the other dogs.
Why vegan diets might be better for dogs is not completely certain but veterinarians guess that veganism is linked to lower obesity rates which pose the biggest health risk for dogs.
Over half of the dogs on commercial diets had some type of health issues compared to the 36% on the vegan side. π₯
Diet studies are so difficult to conduct because there are so many factors that need to be considered to achieve a sound result.
For example, owners that feed their dogs a vegan diet are most likely vegan themselves and have a healthier lifestyle overall.
Nonetheless, veterinarians that reviewed the findings concluded that "We have sufficient confidence, scientifically, that dogs can be healthy - and indeed, thrive - on nutritionally sound vegan diets."
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