Why Feed Your Dog Homemade Food?

Nutrition is one of the most important topics that needs to be covered when it comes to the health of your dog.  If you want your dog to live a long and active life, free from the common health problems related to with commercial dog foods, then you should be feeding your dog home-made meals every day.
 
Just like humans, dogs need a balanced diet of the proper nutrients for perpetual growth and tissue repair.  A deficiency of these nutrients in a dog’s diet can cause stunted development, poor healing after an injury, and a shorter life compared to dogs that are getting optimum nutrition.

 
Proteins are one of the most significant nutrients in a dog’s diet.  They are essential for proper growth and development, and a healthy immune system.  Plus, proteins are burned up as calories and can also be converted, and stored, as fat.
 
Although the intake of fat is commonly looked upon negatively in human diets, it's a very important nutritional requirement in a dog’s diet.  Fats are really concentrated forms of energy.  Fat is also required for normal kidney functions, and to help your dog maintain a healthy coat and skin.  In addition to proteins and fats, carbohydrates are needed in a dog’s diet as well.  Since dogs are normally active, they need a clean source of carbohydrates that can easily be burned for energy.

Many dog owners are being duped into thinking that pet food companies are providing the very best nutrients for dogs in their brand of food.  The amount of the protein shown on bags of dog food is not an accurate listing of the percent of digestible protein.  The digestibility in quality dog foods is between 70 and 80 percent.  In lesser-quality foods, the digestibility could drop to 60 percent or even less.  Chicken byproducts or other meat byproducts, which are what many dog foods are made with, are standard but not high quality.  Meat and bone meal, which are also used in many dog foods, are even poorer quality and less digestible.  Grains are not good digestible sources of protein either.  

By feeding your dog a healthy, home-made meal, you are able to carefully monitor the nutrients your dog is getting.  Plus, you can give them the correct portion size for their breed.  Also, you can keep your pet away from things like preservatives, additives, and artificial flavoring.  Home-made dog food recipes call for healthy foods like bananas, honey, peanut butter, vegetables, apples, and pumpkins -- plus nutritious meats such as fresh beef, chicken, turkey, and fish.  You don't have to feed your dog home-made meals because of a health condition that require a special diet. You might choose homemade dog food simply because you understand that most commercial dog food is nothing more than semi-processed, low-quality food sprayed with fat to make it more tasty for dogs.  

It probably won't surprise you that many people who learn about the ingredients found in commercial dog food brands are changing over to feeding their dogs a wholesome home-made diet.  They are beginning to realize that they can provide their pets a longer and healthier life by giving them quality, fresh food.  

As you probably already know, the ingredients in foods are listed in descending order by the quantity.   Dog food is made up of many animal byproducts.  When cattle, pigs, chickens, lambs, or other animals are butchered, lean muscle tissue is trimmed away from the carcass for humans to eat.  About fifty percent of the animal doesn't get used in human foods.  Whatever is left of the carcass -- including heads, feet, bones, blood, intestines, lungs, spleens, livers, ligaments, fat trimmings, unborn babies, and other parts -- are used in pet food, animal feed, fertilizer, heavy-duty lubricants, soap, rubber, and other products.  The nutritional quality of byproducts varies from batch to batch but, is never high quality.

The grains and vegetable products used in dog food are not much better than the meats.  Many of these products are labeled as unfit for human consumption.  Plant products now replace a large percentage of the meat that was used in earlier commercial dog foods.  As you can guess, this change has led to critical nutritional deficiencies.  Most dry dog foods contain a large amount of cereal grain or starchy vegetables to give the food texture.  These high-carbohydrate plant products furnish a cheap source of energy in the form of calories.  Gluten meals, are high-protein, with most of the carbohydrates removed, and are often used to boost protein levels without costly animal-source components.  Corn gluten meal is the most commonly used plant product for use in dog food.  Wheat gluten is also used to produce shapes in the food, such as cuts, bites, chunks, shreds, flakes, and slices, and as a thickener for gravy.  In most cases, dog food that uses vegetable proteins are among the poorer quality dog foods.

In addition to inadequate in nutrients, dog food is also drenched in additives and preservatives.  Because manufacturers need to see to it that dry foods have a long shelf life (typically a year), fats that are sprayed on dog foods to make them more attractive to dogs are preserved with either synthetic or natural preservatives.  It is easy to see why so many dog owners are switching to feeding their dogs home-made fresh meals.