Feeding your Dog People Food

The woman is thinking that Broccoli is good for people so it is probably good for the dog. The dog is sniffing the broccoli wondering, “Where is the MEAT?”

Your dog doesn’t really differentiate between people food and dog food.

It has a nose designed by Mother Nature to differentiate between meat and non-meat, regardless of where that meat comes from.

Its ancestors, according to recently available genetic information, appear to be a species of wolf that went extinct some thousands of years ago (not the Gray Wolf as was once thought). Either way, it would make no difference when it comes to what your dog, and its ancestors were designed by Mother Nature to eat. (1)

Dogs are carnivores as determined by their physical characteristics and their Mitochondrial DNA which determines the energy pathways, from the food they are designed to eat down to energy transfer at the cellular level. The Mitochondrial DNA is only passed on by the female and as a result remains consistent for thousands of generations, which means todays dogs still need to eat like a carnivore. (2)

The Nuclear DNA can be manipulated to make a wolf look like a Schnauzer over a few dozen generations because a separate strand is donated by each sex, but that doesn’t change what they are designed to eat, and need to eat, which is dictated by the Mitochondrial DNA.

Carnivores are designed to eat meat and fat and have absolutely no need or requirement for carbohydrates of any kind. They can eat them, but it is not a food they were designed to eat, or need, and don’t get in their natural diet other than what is found in the stomachs of their prey.

Omnivores, like people, convert carbohydrates into glucose for energy and have the ability to produce the enzyme Amylase in their mouths, (the enzyme that digests carbohydrates), to begin the digestion process while chewing.

Carnivores, like dogs, do not have Amylase in their mouths which is an indication they were not designed to use carbs as a primary source of energy the way omnivores do.

When a carnivore eats carbohydrates they are converted into glycogen and stored in the liver instead of being used for energy as they are with omnivores. Eventually the glycogen is converted to fat and stored in the muscle tissue, which helps shed light on why over 60% of dogs are overweight eating todays carb heavy dog foods.(3)

 

Dogs have no need for carbohydrates because they convert the protein and fat they eat directly into glucose for energy. 

Omnivores do not convert dietary fat into glucose under normal circumstances.

Many Veterinarians and nutritionists claim that dogs have evolved into omnivores based on having lived around people for centuries and gotten used to their food, specifically the carbohydrates.

I think it is more reasonable to assume their human families have fed their dogs the leftover meat, fat, and bones that dogs prefer, not the carbohydrates.

If you place grain, potatoes, or peas on the floor dogs will sniff them and walk away based on the instincts Mother Nature gave them to determine what food is best for them to eat. I’m not aware of anyone who has seen a dog attacking

an ear of corn, licking up grain spilled from a silo, or raiding a vegetable garden.

Dogs will not instinctively eat carbs unless they are soaked in meat flavor, which is how they are being tricked into eating dog food that is loaded with grain, potato, and other high glycemic carbs.

In the final analysis I find it unreasonable to claim that dogs have evolved from carnivores into omnivores in a relatively short period of time based on the dubious theory that they have been eating a constant diet of carbs fed to them by their human families. If in fact that were the case, it would not create an omnivore out of a carnivore - it would just creates a sick carnivore, which in fact the dog foods loaded with up to 75% carbohydrates are now doing.

The large dog food companies ran tests which show dogs can metabolize some carbohydrates and based on that they are claiming that dogs are now omnivores and 75% of their diet can be carbohydrates. They say the carbs are actually healthy for the dog because there are no scientific studies to prove otherwise. This of course is an extremely self-serving argument.

The inability to find a path from cause to effect, does not mean there is no path. It only means we have not looked for it or do not understand what it is yet.

The fact that dogs are afflicted with numerous problems including allergies, dry itchy skin, ear infections, gnawing of feet and tails, dry hair, hair loss, brittle hair, skin rashes, weepy eyes, lack of energy, bad breath, joint pain, pancreatitis, diarrhea, excess gas, shedding, itchy butt, hazy cloudy eyes, stomach problems, and over 60% of them being chronically overweight is easily observable and verifiable. We saw them come through our store every day.

Something is causing all these problems that their fellow dogs in the wild, eating a diet of meat and fat without all the carbohydrates, are not experiencing.

After 15 years selling food to thousands of customers in our dog food store I have witnessed the numerous problems that dog food full of high glycemic carbs can cause. When we take a dog off that food and put them on a diet of high protein, low carb food the problems usually go away in a few weeks unless the dog has developed Systemic Candida, which can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to resolve.

Further testing refined our understanding of what the causes and solutions were.

Based on our experience, the physical problems we see in dogs, are mainly caused by consumption of dog foods with increased amounts of high glycemic carbohydrates like grain and potato, because the problems go away when they are fed a more appropriate high protein, with equal calories of fat,, low carb diet.

The high glycemic carbohydrates feed the bad bacteria in the gut which outgrow the good bacteria and create a state of Dysbiosis, that leads to the breakdown of the mucosal lining in the gut. Eventually gaps developing between the cells (enterocytes) that line the inside of the gut, creating Leaky Gut, which allows fecal matter, including partially digested proteins (that cause allergies) and the Candida Albicans fungus to leak through the gut wall into the blood stream.

 

 

Leaky Gut is probably the root cause of more problems in dogs today than anything else.

While there are some carbohydrates that can be fed to dogs in limited amounts, there are reasons to challenge the theory that a diet of up to 75% carbs is good to feed a dog which has been a species of carnivore for tens of thousands of years.

The first reason is the ability to metabolize something does not in itself make it healthy to eat. A child can metabolize a candy bar but that in itself does not mean the candy is good and nutritious in any amounts.

The second reason has to do with degree. While it is true that a child can metabolize a bowl of sugary cold cereal, I think most would agree that eating a steady diet that was  46% to 76%  sugary cold cereal would not be a healthy choice, and this is for an omnivore designed to eat carbs. How much worse for a dog designed to eat meat and fat.

The third reason is Mother Nature designed dogs to thrive on a diet of meat and fat alone without any need for carbohydrates and going from 0% to 75% carbs is well beyond reasonable. Dogs were not designed to process anything but a minimum amount of carbs, as is evident by the number of health problems they have developed.

The fourth reason are the physiological differences between omnivores and carnivores. (4)

• Dogs’ teeth are adapted to a carnivorous diet (for tearing muscle and crunching bone to extract marrow).
• Many of their innate behaviors are carnivorous in nature. Consider digging, for example. Like wolves, dogs dig to hide parts of meals for future ingestion.
• Dogs, like many large mammalian carnivores, are metabolically able to survive for long periods of time between meals.
• Dogs have a lot of flexibility in metabolic pathways to help make up for a feast-or-famine lifestyle and a wide range of possible prey.
• Dogs do not have the enzyme Amylase in their mouth to initiate the breakdown of starches as omnivores do.
• Dogs do not instinctively find carbohydrates desirable to eat.

I think the process of evolving from a carnivore into a omnivore is more involved than saying they are able to digest carbohydrates, a process that places a demand on their pancreas to produce the enzyme Amylase needed to break the carbs down, an enzyme not necessary to digest meat and fat. The added demands of which may possibly contribute to the increase in Pancreatitis in dogs.

I strongly recommend that you feed your dog food with more meat and fat in it then high-glycemic carbohydrates and it does not matter whether they come from your kitchen, dinner leftovers, or a quality, high protein dog food as long as the protein is animal sourced protein and not all vegetable protein.

Finally, I have witnessed extensive health problems caused by carbohydrates in hundreds of dogs over fifteen years. While dogs may be able to metabolizable certain carbs, it appears too many, or the wrong kind of carbs (like high glycemic grain and potato ),can throw the biology of the gut out of balance and lead to Leaky Gut, which is usually accompanied by Systemic Candida.

Leaky Gut causes allergies, reduced immune system functioning, and a form of auto-immune disease where the immune system attacks its own body parts.

Systemic Candida is a fungus that leaks into the blood stream through a porous gut wall, and almost always accompanies a Leaky Gut condition.