Dog Food Ingredients, The Bad and Good

The dog food that you buy your dog is more than just a meal. What your dog eats impacts his health and it can even make him sick. As a concerned dog owner, you must take your time to choose dog food that is high quality and that does not contain ingredients that could harm your dog’s health.

It can often be difficult to tell if a dog food is high quality just by looking at it. It is really not about how the food looks as much as it is about what is inside of it. To really access the quality of a dog food, you must begin by looking at the list of ingredients.

Ingredients are listed according to how much of the ingredients are used in the food. This means that the ingredient listed first is the main ingredient. This first ingredient should be an animal protein. The preferred ingredient would be “chicken” meal (not something like meat meal or poultry meal). It is important to note that poultry meal is not the same thing as chicken meal. Also meat by products are also not a good protein choice because by products lack the proper nutritional value.

Some grains, such as corn, wheat or soy can be difficult for a dog to digest. This leads to less nutritional value, less nutrition for your dog and more digestive issues that can be uncomfortable for you and your dog. Furthermore, they can cause allergic reactions that could be very harmful to your dog.

Another thing to look at is the fat sources in the food. As with the human diet, in the canine diet some fats are better than others. Animal fats are better for your dog because animal fats are easier on your dog’s digestive system.

Something else that you want to watch out for is preservatives. Watch out for them. Just as with the food you eat, preservatives add little value and they are not good for your dog. Some preservatives are very harmful to dogs. BHA, BHT and Ethoxyquin are a few examples of preservatives that have been proven to be harmful to dogs when they consume them over a period of time.
Lastly, take an overall look at the dog food. Just what does it offer your dog? Does it provide extra benefits? Some things to look for are vegetables, beet fiber, antioxidants, minerals and bacteria cultures.

When you take all these things into mind you should be able to choose the best dog food for your dog. You should feel confident that the food you are feeding your dog will be healthy for him and that it is going to provide him with great taste that he enjoys. You will become a pro at spotting dog food that is just not right for your dog.
As humans, eating fast food is sometimes convenient and even tastes good. Eating like this once in awhile isn’t bad. However, this couldn’t be a realistic diet everyday because of lack of nutrition. Eventually the wonders of our body would crave something more. The same hold true for you dog. They can’t tell you though when they are looking for something better, healthier and more nutritious. We tend to feed our dogs the same food everyday. Some dog food brands can equate to human fast food. If we wouldn’t eat everyday like that; why would we feed our dogs food daily like that?