Diet for Canine with Cancer - 3 Key Nutrients for Fast Recovery

Cancer is such a scary term that most people would rather choose not to encounter. However, most of us are fond of practicing unhealthy lifestyle. Such practice will also be reflected to everyone inside your house including your pets. Yes, your pets and one of the most common household pets are dogs, the ever loyal best friend of man. Absolutely, dogs could have cancer too.

So the first thing to do is watch out for your diet as this will follow to your dog’s diet. Diet plays a very important part in the maintenance of a dog with cancer. If you will search online on diet for canine with cancer, you will be amazed of the numerous recipes flooding in front of your screen. However, before you select any of those, watch out for the three most important factors – sugar, protein and fat contents.

These three basic yet very essential nutrients should be incorporated in a balanced manner if you are preparing the diet for canine with cancer diet.

1. Proteins. Protein’s function is mostly for growth, repair and maintenance. One specific function is to fight against cancer cells that continuously damage the body and the system. One type of protein for this function is digestible protein. This is actually the amount of protein absorbed into the body relative to the amount that was consumed. Examples of digestible proteins are chicken (white meat), beans, egg whites, lean beef, skim milk and lamb. Animal protein is a much more complete source of protein as compared with plant protein sources like tofu/other soy products, grain or plant based protein powders. So have more of these in your pet’s diet

2. Sugar-content. Any treated sugar such as rice syrup, maple sugar/syrup, honey, molasses, corn syrup, glucose, sucrose and dextrose and fructose (sugar from fruits) are called simple sugars. Likewise with milk, vegetables and fruits like carrots, sweet potatoes, turnip, beets, and squash are all simple sugars. What is the relevance of knowing this? It is because cancer cells would love to grow on sugars. They feed on it. And we don’t want that to happen instead we want these cancer cells to starve. So give your dog a more complex type of sugar such as breads, cereals, peas, grains, rice, potatoes, vegetables, fruits and pasta. Complex sugars are “good carbs” and are also called complex CHOs (carbohydrates). These complex CHOs function as source of energy particularly for the brain, muscles and central nervous system.

3. Fats. As compared with carbohydrates or proteins, fat is the primary source of more energy than. It provides a source of essential fatty acids for healthy skin and coat. It also transports the fat-soluble vitamins A,D,E and K. A good source of fat is meat wherein the fattiest meats include lamb, pork and goat. When feeding your dog just leave the skin on it because it has most of the fat. Also, use dark meat rather than the light ones as it contains more fat. Other good sources of fat are canned fish, whole milk and dairy products, eggs and fish oils.

Since there are uncontrollable factors that lead to cancer development such as age, genetics, environmental pollution, and electromagnetic radiation and there are also carcinogenic factors that we could control such as nutrition, lifestyle, inbreeding and exposure to chemicals and toxins; therefore the diet for canine cancer plays a very crucial role in the recovery of your dog. Watch out for it! Be the guard this time.