Because dog foods are bought by people, dog food suppliers market to the ideas dog owners have about their dogs likes. This explains why dog foods come in different shapes and colors, with or without gravy, dry or moist, etc. Dogs do not need any of these things for the best all natural dog foods. Isn’t it interesting that pet owners spend around $13 billion annually for pet food which the majority of these dog foods are not all natural dog foods that give your dog optimum health.
Consumers Digest reported several years ago, “Few foods are so liberally laced with artificial flavors as pet foods” they also quoted sources that basically said that the only way they can get pets to eat the poor quality food is by adding phony flavors.
Would you choose artificial, poor quality for ingredients in your dog foods or would you rather choose dog foods that are all natural dog foods for your dog?
A carnivore’s system is designed to eat raw meat, one animal at a time. Your dog should digest its meal and be eliminated before any putrefaction begins. A dog’s digestive system is highly acidic, or at least it should be. Only raw meat stimulates a highly acidic system that is designed to kill unfriendly bacteria.
Ingredients in the Best All Natural Dog Foods
You will find the best all natural dog foods consist of approximately 75% organic, all natural raw meat. This can consist of beef, whole chicken or turkey wings, necks and backs as long as they are raw and fresh. When bones are old or cooked they become brittle and splinter.
The best all natural dog foods are also around 25% vegetables. This does not mean give your dog a whole, raw carrot. In the wild your dog would get these vegetable requirements from the predigested vegetables in the animal’s stomach and intestines. You can add organic vegetables to your all natural dog foods by grating them, chopping finely (like what you would find in a rabbit’s stomach) or run through a blender, food chopper or food processor.
In the wild a dog would get the water they needed from their prey, so the all natural dog foods you give your dog should be the consistency of a thick stew. The moisture content of dog foods also has an effect on maintaining healthy kidneys and bladder in your dog. Many pet owners report their dog cutting down on water consumption when being fed these types of all natural dog foods.
Most of the minerals must come in the form of supplementation today. Calcium is very important in the best all natural dog foods. Bone meal is not an acceptable source of calcium for your all natural dog foods because bones store toxins and heavy metals like lead or even mad cow disease. The other reason is the calcium to phosphorous ratio. Pets need a 2:1 ratio between calcium and phosphorus. That is, for every 2 parts of calcium in the food, there should be 1 part phosphorus. As an example, if the food contains 2 grams of calcium, the food should contain 1 gram of phosphorus. Meat is naturally low in calcium and high in phosphorus. Bone meal is not only a source of calcium, but bone meal is also a source of phosphorus, so using bone meal reverses the 2:1 ratio so that perhaps your dog’s body has a 1:3 ratio or 1 part calcium to 3 parts phosphorus. This imbalance could cause your dog health problems.
Finely ground raw egg shells are the best choice for calcium supplementation in the best all natural dog foods. They contain virtually no phosphorus and are extremely high in calcium plus they are affordable and lightweight. The best all natural dog foods will use approximately 1 tsp. finely ground raw egg shells or about 8 large eggs for every pound of meat. Raw eggs are an excellent source of meat and affordable.
Digestive enzyme supplementation are also a good ingredient in the best all natural dog foods. The four most commonly used enzymes in the best all natural dog foods are amylase that helps with the digestion of carbohydrates, protease which helps with the digestion of protein, lipase that helps with the digestion of fats and cellulase for the digestion of vegetables.
Nutritive herbs provide a blend of vital nutrients that are essential in the best all natural dog foods. Alfalfa which is an Arabic word meaning “mother of all foods, dandelion leaf, nettle, and kelp are ingredients in the best all natural dog foods. These herbs can be found in various green food powder supplements from health food stores.
The combination of these herbs in the best all natural dog foods provide such nutrients as biotin, bioflavanoids, calcium, magnesium, folic acid, iodine, iron, potassium, linolenic acid, niacin, potash, sulfur, zinc, vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, B12, C and E. These herbs also aid in the assimilation of protein, fats and carbohydrates plus are an excellent blood purifier. They also aid the body to help detoxify the liver, clean the colon and keep the thyroid working.
Using these simple guidelines you can choose which are the best all natural dog foods to buy or how to make the best all natural dog foods available so your dog can enjoy optimum health.
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29Jul
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27Jul
Food labels will give you information about the elements of the food and can help you to decide what to choose as part of an overall healthy eating plan.
Food labels provide information about nutrition facts. They also tell you what’s in a packaged food (i.e., the ingredients). Some food labels also state which country the food came from, whether the food is organic, and certain health claims.
Information that are given in a label:
Reading food labels seem to be the most effective way to understand the amount and kinds of nutrients that are provided in the item. It lets you make sensible food selections.
The following information will help you to read a food label.
Serving size: The amount of servings stated in the food label refers to the quantity of food people usually consume. It determines the amount of nutrients that enters the body. This means that if you will follow strictly what the serving size is, you will obtain the same amount of nutrients according to the serving size that was given in the label.
Calories, Calories from Fat and Percent Daily Values: This part of a food label provides the calories serving and the calories that come from fat. If you need to know the total number of calories you eat every day or the number of calories that come from fat, this section provides that information. Remember that this part of the label doesn’t tell you whether you are eating saturated or unsaturated fat.
On the right side of a food label, you’ll see a column that lists percentages. These percentages refer to the percent daily values (%DV). Percent daily values tell you how much of something, whether it’s fat, sugar or vitamin A, one serving will give you compared to how much you need for the entire day. It will help you gauge the percentage of a nutrient requirement met by one serving of the product. One way to use this section of the label is when you comparison shop.
Fat, Sugar, Sodium and Carbohydrate: This section of a food label shows the name of a nutrient and the amount of that nutrient provided by one serving of food. You may need to know this information, especially if you have high blood pressure, diabetes or are eating a diet that restricts certain nutrients such as sodium or carbohydrates.
Food labels also include information about how much sugar and protein is in the food. If you are following a low-sugar diet or you’re monitoring your protein intake, it’s easy to spot how much of those nutrients are contained in one serving.
Vitamins, Minerals and Other Information:
The light purple part of the label lists nutrients, vitamins and minerals in the food and their percent daily values. Try to average 100% DV every day for vitamins A and C, calcium, iron and fiber. Do the opposite with fat, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol. Try to eat less than 100% DV of these.
Reading Label Lingo:
In a food label following terms are used to indicate the contents of the food. To read a label you have to know about the phrases. They are-
1. ‘Low in calories’ means that the food can be eaten frequently without going beyond guidelines for a good diet.
2. No calories or calorie free – Contains less than 5 calories per serving.
3. ‘Low in sodium’ means less than 140mg. a serving.
4. ‘Reduced’ means the product has at least 25 percent fewer calories of an ingredient than the regular product.
5. ‘Good source’ means one serving has 10 to 19 percent of Daily Value for that nutrient.
6. ‘Low fat’ means the product contains no more than 3 grams of fat per serving.
7. ‘Lite’ means that the food contains at least 50 percent less fat than the food it’s being compared with.
8. ‘Fresh’ means that the food cannot have been frozen, processed, heated or chemically preserved.
9. ‘Organic’ means foods that have been prepared to a certain production standard. They have been grown without the use of conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, or sewage sludge. They have also not been processed without ionizing radiation or food additives.
10. No preservatives – Contains no preservatives (chemical or natural).
11. Sugar free – Contains less than 1/2 gram of sugar per serving.
12. Reduced sugar – at least 25% less sugar per serving than the reference food.
13. No preservatives added – Contains no added chemicals to preserve the product. Some of these products may contain natural preservatives.
14. No salt or salt free – Contains less than 5 mgs of sodium per serving.
15. High fiber – 5 g or more per serving.
16. Good source of fiber – 2.5 g to 4.9 g. per serving.
17. More or added fiber – Contains at least 2.5 g more per serving than the reference food.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Reading a Food Label:
Until you become accustomed to reading food labels, it’s easy to become confused. Avoid these common mistakes when reading labels:
A label may say that the food is reduced fat or reduced sodium. That means that the amount of fat or sodium has been reduced by 25% from the original product. It doesn’t mean, however, that the food is low in fat or sodium. For example, if a can of soup originally had 1,000 milligrams of sodium, the reduced sodium product would still be a high-sodium food.
Don’t confuse the % DV for fat with the percentage of calories from fat. If the 15% that 15% doesn’t mean that 15% of the calories come from fat.
Rather, it means that you’re using up 15% of all the fat you need for a day with one serving (based on a meal plan of 2,000 calories per day).
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the amount of sugar on a label means that the sugar has been added. For example, milk naturally has sugar, which is called lactose. But that doesn’t mean you should stop drinking milk because milk is full of other important nutrients including calcium. -
27Jul
What does whole food nutrition mean? What is a diet that includes primarily whole foods? Whole foods nutrition means eating foods that are unprocessed and unrefined or minimally processed and refined before being consumed. To me, at its simplest level, eating whole foods means nothing more than eating REAL FOOD-food that come from plants and animals rather than a factory. These are foods that are foods because nature made them that way. There is no need for an ingredient list or lengthy food label. Whole food nutrition is the opposite of the mindless, standard American “carbotarian” diet that consists of nutrient poor, highly processed, white flour and refined sugar items that are made in a factory, come in a box and have a really long shelf life because even mold can’t be convinced to eat them.
Why are whole foods better for you than factory made foods? There are too many reasons to list. And, in my mind, the vast amount of information out there today telling us all the reasons we should eat an apple instead of potato chips has created too much confusion around a very simple concept. A concept that, in its purest form, is nothing more than good old common sense. Plain and simple: whole foods created by nature are better for you. Ok, for those of you who need a little more convincing, one of my favorite explanations about why to eat whole foods is provided by health and wellness author Johnny Bowden, PhD, C.N.S., in his book The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth:
Eat real food. Stuff your grandmother would have recognized as food. Stuff that usually doesn’t come in a package. What you eat probably doesn’t ultimately matter as much as how much processing it’s undergone. Real food – whole food with minimal processing – contains a virtual pharmacy of nutrients, phytochemicals, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and healthful fats, and can keep you alive and thriving into your tenth decade.
If “thriving into your tenth decade” is not enough incentive to eat a diet rich in whole foods, maybe the truth of the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure” will convince you. The United States Department of Agriculture, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute and the American Heart Association tout the benefits of eating seven to thirteen servings of fruits and vegetables a day as the best form of prevention we have against chronic disease such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. See e.g.www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov.
