CARBOHYDRATES IN DOG FOOD

Why do you think they are trying to convince you that putting all these cheap carbohydrates in dog food is a good idea?

$30,000,000,000 income a year from dog food that is full of carbohydrates.

Now they are telling you that healthy vegetables like peas are causing problems like DCM so you will choose to put more cheap carbs in your dogs diet.

In 2018 42,000,000 dogs were eating a grain free diet and a few hundred dogs were reported as having developed a heart problem based on an opinion that, after 5 years of investigating has proved to be a hoax.

A few hundred dogs out of 42 million acquired a heart problem and a teaching nutritionist at Tufts University who took money in grants from the big three dog food companies decided it was due to peas and wee should all return to feeding our dogs carbohydrates.

The FDA followed her lead down the wormhole of insanity and what followed was an embarrassment for all concerned, that lasted five years and was finally abandoned.

DOGS AS OMNIVORES

Many nutritionists and veterinarians are claiming that dogs should now be classified as omnivores, like people, based of tests that show they have developed an increased ability to metabolize carbohydrates compared to their wolf ancestors, as a result of hanging around people for a few hundred years and sharing their food.

Dogs are descended from wolves who are carnivores, designed by Mother Nature to eat the meat and fat of their animal prey. Neither wolves or dogs have any dietary or nutritional need for carbohydrates. Wolves and dogs can survive and thrive on a diet of meat and fat without any carbohydrates what-so-ever and this is acknowledged by all concerned.

METABOLIZING CARBOHYDRATES

Fairly recent tests by large dog food companies have shown that domesticated dogs have developed an increased ability to metabolize carbohydrates and this has led to dogs being loosely classified, and referred to, as omnivores, like people. This is the justification they use to add more and more carbohydrates to dog food to lower costs and increase profits, but the fact that the domesticated dog has developed an increased ability to metabolize carbohydrates does not mean the rest of the biological systems in the dog have adapted to the change or are capable of doing so.

The fact that dogs can metabolize carbohydrates better than they used to has been used to imply that dogs can be fed any amount of carbohydrates, and any variety of carbohydrates, regardless of their glycemic index. Being an omnivore

does not mean you can eat any combination or amount of carbs without consequences. A harsh reality proven by the fact that over 60% of people and dogs are now overweight or obese on high carb diets.

METABOLIZING CARBOHYDRATES

Being able to metabolize carbohydrates does not imply that everything else in the dogs biological system, designed to  for tens of thousands of years as  a carnivore eating animal protein and fat almost exclusively, has fully adapted to an omnivores diet. A drastic change from minimal carbs to the 60%

to 75% carbohydrates which are common in todays dog food, does not come without consequences, and those consequences are more widespread than is understood, acknowledged, or being researched. The big money that pays for research is heavily invested in finding ways to put less expensive carbs in the dog food, not the problems that are resulting from it.

THE GUT MICROBIOME

One major consequence being overlooked is the impact the increase in carbohydrates is having on the balance between the beneficial bacteria and harmful bacteria in the gut microbiome.

Microbiome is a term used to describe the 100 trillion bacteria and other life forms that inhabit the gut and are the core of the biological engine that extracts nutrients from the food and transfers them through the gut wall into the blood stream for transfer to the rest of the body. It is responsible for maintaining the health and well-being of the gut lining that makes it all possible. At the same time it must keep the harmful bacteria and fecal matter contained within the gut for eventual elimination.

THE GUT LINING

THE MUCOSAL LINING AND IMMUNE SYSTEM

Part of the gut wall is the mucosal lining where 80% of the immune system is generated. The microbiome protects and maintains the mucosal lining and in doing so facilitates a healthy, strong immune system. Too many carbohydrates produce sugar that feeds the harmful bacteria and can compromise the mucosal lining.

DYSBIOSIS

Too many carbohydrates, which turn into highly available sugar in the system, can cause the harmful bacteria to out grow the beneficial bacteria and overpower it. When there is an excess of harmful bacteria compared to beneficial bacteria, (made worse by the overuse of antibiotics, toxins, and chemical stressors like systemic flea medication), then a state of dysbiosis exists that can cause a condition known a Leaky Gut.

LEAKY GUT

Leaky Gut is a condition where the joints between the enterocytes that line the

inside of the gut wall become porous and allow fecal matter, along with the Candida fungus which is present in all colons, to leak through the gut wall into the blood stream. Partially digested proteins also leak through a porous gut wall eventually causing allergies to that particular protein. Fortunately, research has recently begun on Leaky Gut, and hopefully will soon bring attention to its wide-spread and negative consequences.

SYSTEMIC CANDIDA

Once the Candida Albicans fungus gets into the blood stream it is fed by the abundance of sugar from the carbohydrates in the diet and spreads throughout the system as a fungus. It is called Systemic Candida and the overgrowth of its fungal form leads to an abundance of skin problems including dry itchy skin, rashes, hot spots, dry brittle hair, tail chewing, butt scooting, paw licking, and yeasty ears.

ALLERGIES

Allergies to the proteins in dog food are another health problem caused by Leaky Gut. Proteins are long chains of the 22 available amino acids (the building blocks the body uses to repair itself and grow). The digestion process is designed to turn the chains back into individual amino acids and transport them through the gut wall into the blood stream where they are distributed to the rest of the body for growth, rebuilding, and repair.

 THE GUT WALL

When the gut wall is porous, partially digested proteins (random lengths of amino acids) leak through the wall into the blood stream where the immune system identifies them as invading pathogens (harmful intruders) and makes a record of them to attack should that sequence ever show up again. Over time as thousands of these partially digested sequences leak into the blood stream, are recorded, and eventually attacked by the immune system, it becomes an allergy.

AUTO-IMMUNE PROBLEMS

If allowed to continue it eventually becomes an auto-immune problem where the body attacks itself when the immune system recognizes these partial chains of amino acids in other body parts, like a kidney, and attacks them. Given the convoluted causal pathway from too many high-glycemic carbohydrates to gut dysbiosis, leaky gut, allergies, and auto-immune disease it has been difficult for the scientific community to connect the overuse of carbohydrates to the problems that result, but hopefully that will change as research into Leaky Gut increases.

CARBOHYDRATES ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL

Another consideration with carbohydrates is their contribution to the overweight and obesity epidemic now affecting about 60% of the 90 million dogs in the US. The volume of carbohydrates (50% to 70%) in most dog foods, combined with high-glycemic ratings, is the leading cause of weight gain in dogs.

GLYCEMIC INDEX

The glycemic index measures the degree that a food elevates the blood sugar levels in the body. Too much blood sugar in the blood stream is harmful. Carbohydrates, like grains and potatoes, that cause the blood sugar to spike are

assigned a high Glycemic Index and they force the body to produce and release the hormone insulin to lower the blood sugar levels.

 

Insulin directs the body to take the excess sugar out of the blood, put some of it in the liver temporarily, and store the rest as fat in muscle tissue, or add it to existing fat stores. It also directs the body to stop burning fat for energy, which is exactly what you do not want.

 

The body increases its stores of fat every time it consumes carbohydrates that trigger an insulin response. And to make matters worse, when the blood sugar drops as a result of the insulin activity, the dog will be hungry again in a couple hours.

 

You probably know what that is like from your own experience. If you eat a lot of carbs like potato chips, bread, cake or doughnuts you get a sugar rush then a short time later you are craving more carbs and feeling hungry again.

 

On the other hand, eating animal protein and fat does NOT raise the blood sugar levels to a point where insulin is released. Meat and fat are converted to glucose slowly, as needed, through a process called gluconeogenesis, that provides a steady, supply of glucose without triggering insulin.

A dog food designed with an equal percentage of calories from carbohydrates, protein, and fat (low glycemic carbs) will provide an excellent source of nutrition that will naturally maintain a healthy weight, by avoiding the blood sugar spikes and insulin responses that cause the dog to store fat instead of burn it for energy.

The calories in one gram of carbs, protein and fat are as follows:

Carbohydrates = 4 calories / gram

Protein = 4 calories / gram

Fat = 9 calories / gram

A healthy balance on a calorie weighted basis is shown below:

THE NUMBER ONE HEALTH PROBLEM FOR DOGS

Over 60% of the 90 million dogs in the US are overweight or obese, which means 54 million dogs have a serious health problem. The primary reason the problem has spiraled out of control is that nutritionists, especially the veterinarian nutritionists, are in denial when it comes to connecting the weight gain epidemic to what the dogs are eating.

A veterinarian nutritionist named Lisa Freeman, a professor at  Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University made the following statement in a blog article:

“And while grains have been accused on the internet of causing nearly every disease known to dogs, grains do not contribute to any health problems and are used in pet food as a nutritious source of protein, vitamins, and minerals.”

Earlier in the blog article she stated, “ I’ve seen vast improvements in our knowledge about pet nutrition, in the quality of commercial pet foods, and in our pets’ nutritional health (other than the unfortunate rise in obesity)”

Apparently, as a nutritionist with twenty years experience, she does not see a connection between what she calls “the quality of commercial dog foods” (that are filled with high-glycemic carbohydrates) and what she terms as. “…the unfortunate rise in obesity”. She makes it seem as though obesity falls out of the sky on the hapless animals, and has no connection  to the the food they are eating, that is filled with an abundance of the grains she insists “do not contribute to any health problems.”

Most competent nutritionists consider overweight and obesity to be a health problem.

Nutritionists who do not realize that weight gain is primarily a result of diet are a shocking conundrum that is hard to imagine. What are they teaching in school if they are not learning that a dogs weight and health is directly connected to what they eat?

FALSE PREMISE

Low-fat, high-carb weight loss diets do not work well with dogs because they are based on the false, overly simplistic premise that lowering calories is an effective weight loss strategy as though there is no difference in how the body reacts to meat, fat, or carbs. It does not take into consideration the complex interaction of different food with the overall organism or the practical reality of living day to day with a poor dog who feels like it is starving when it is eating a normal weight-loss dog food that has an added amount of high-glycemic carbs instead of meat and fat.

When eating a balanced diet with equal calories of protein, fat, and carbs the dogs appetite is satiated by the protein and fat and they can easy adapt to eating less than normal until they achieve their ideal weight. At that point you need only add a little more to their daily rations to maintain a healthy weight.

it is more likely to exercise eating a balanced, non-starvation diet. The ideal diet must be formulated to maintain the optimum weight and these diets with extreme amounts of carbohydrates will almost always cause the dog to gain weight once they are off the low-fat weight-loss food.

There is one final good reason to feed your dog less of a balanced diet rather than a weight loss diet. Dogs have the ability to convert their fat stores to glucose when they are hungry through a process called gluconeogenesis so on a balanced diet that does not trigger an insulin response they will naturally burn off some of their fat stores.

Their claim that dogs are now omnivores and can be fed any amount of carbohydrates, regardless of their glycemic index, is shocking to hear a nutritionist to make.. Using some very simple logic you can decide for yourself if that makes sense with the diet you feed your children who are also omnivores. Based on their logic you should be able to feed your kids a diet that is 75% grain based, cold cereal (without the milk) and they should be healthy, kids of an appropriate weight.

There is a reason almost 2 out of three people are overweight or obese and it’s caused primarily by their dIet which in this country is a high-glycemic carbohydrate diet blessed and ordained by the FDA who is  failing in their ability to recognize healthy food.

 

Written by Richard S Darlington, CEO

Brothers Dog Food.com

September 2, 2023