The following criticism is about healthy dog’s food and not about special diet therapeutic food because e.g., a dog with pancreatitis should not eat fat, while a healthy dog will be fine even if he eats only fat for weeks.

How has the feeding of dogs changed in the last hundred years, which in evolutionary terms is a blink of an eye? The proportion of animal matter in the dog’s diet has gone from 90-95% to 20-25% with the rise of pet feed. The predatory dog has effectively become a herbivorous pet.

The consequences are cancer, allergies, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, heart and kidney problems.  Today more than 30% of dogs suffer from cancer at some point in their lives. In their wild counterparts, say a pack of wolves, these diseases are unknown. A lack of exercise only adds to this dietary health ruin.

Some good advice for reading the contents on the feed bag:

• Unfortunately, protein does not necessarily mean animal protein!
• If ”beef” is on the list of ingredients, it is not always meat. Unfortunately, in reality it can also be tendons, cartilage, horns and skin and hair.
• Grain is not good news either, but fructose (fruit sugar) is specifically toxic and so is rapeseed oil, because of its erucic acid content.
• The claim ‘carefully selected’ is usually an empty marketing ploy.

What is the feed made up of?

Proteins, Fats, Carbohydrates basically.

Proteins are the building blocks of the body. Unfortunately, most of what is in our diets is made up of legumes. The digestive organs of a dog that has evolved to a predatory lifestyle cannot digest it sufficiently, for example, because the intestinal tract is much shorter. The proportion of amino acids in soy is different from that in the prey animal. Unfortunately, the smaller amounts of the so-called limiting amino acids dictate the overall protein utilisation. In addition, some specifically toxic proteins have been developed by these plant species over millions of years to protect the animals that destroy them. A carnivore is more vulnerable than an herbivore.

Fats

Dogs get most of their energy from animal fats when they can. The diets contain a lot of vegetable fats, oils and even trans fats that are not found in the wild. They have a much higher ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 which is pro-inflammatory (ideally 1:1). The lack of polyunsaturated fatty acids renders these membranes inelastic with far-reaching consequences.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrate is empty calories for your dog, a nutrient-less fuel. Canine predators have almost no access to carbohydrates by consuming prey animals, at most some semi-digested plant parts are taken in from the stomach contents. In nature, the maximum percentage of carbohydrates in a dog’s diet is 5% and the maximum percentage of carbohydrates in a dog’s diet is over 50%. Carbohydrates break down into sugars, which when burned produce toxic free radicals.

The dog’s organs and cells choose fat over sugar when they can, and they function better by burning fat. With very few exceptions. Even the brain thanks you very much, but it’s fine on ketone bodies. Only the red blood cells need sugar, the little bit that the body can produce itself from fat and protein whenever it needs it. So it’s never the lack of sugar, it’s always the excess sugar that causes the problem for dogs fed with food. The body fills up liver and muscle glycogen stores first, then tries to get rid of the excess sugar by burning it instead of fat. The liver then makes fat from them which the body stores as visceral fat and the visible subcutaneous fat deposits appear.

As high blood glucose levels are persistent, so are high insulin levels, and consequent insulin intolerance develops, the kidneys also pass sugar as a drainage valve, so it is also present in the urine. That’s diabetes. Meanwhile, the body’s underlying inflammation levels are rising, chronic inflammation is a breeding ground for cancer. If the dog is fed only and exclusively animal fat, a protein deficiency develops by the second third week, but carbohydrate deficiency is an unknown concept to the dog.

Why does the dog eat so much of the feed?

That is because they are being deceived. Firstly, the dog’s hunger is limited by protein intake. It will stop eating when it has consumed the required amount of protein, regardless of how much carbohydrate it has eaten…

On the other hand

The dog eats what the owner gives it, it is vulnerable, but the fact that it eats food regularly (wolves do not feast on wheat or pea fields!) is because of flavour enhancers, texture improvers, stabilisers, and other additives. Which are good at tricking your senses.

The farmer is motivated by convenience, and simplicity and is dazzled by the excellent marketing. For those who still have questions, put a slice of ham or whatever is available at the butchers in another bowl with the dry food and see which one the dense “vegetarian” animal chooses.

Unfortunately, the veterinarian also mostly goes with the flow, we were not taught about animal nutrition, only about farm animals, and anyone who really thinks about it can easily come to the conclusion that the destruction of the animals’ health caused by the beautiful, coloured feed bags also increases the turnover of my practice.

It’s a farcical attitude, but I think most people don’t even think about it, they go with the flow, such criticisms don’t get much publicity. For profit.

So to sum up: all carbohydrates are broken down into sugar. All carbohydrates are reduced to carbohydrates. These act as hormones and work against health.  Too much sugar in the intestines creates leaky gut syndrome which causes allergies.

Too much sugar in the blood leads to diabetes, and elevated inflammation levels lead to tumours. A brighter outlook.

My favourite example of how strong a dog’s immune system is the following: If he gets a nice big, tasty bone-in meat when he’s well fed, he’ll bury it in the backyard.

Yes, but when the fasting days come, in a week or two he’ll pick it up again and eat it! Which will rot in the ground for a week, and nothing will happen to it!! Starting from this level, you manage to break down the immune system to one of the above-detailed conditions, primarily caused by daily food consumption.

You should also buy a bottle of HerbalVet medicinal mushroom extract with every feed bag you buy, to give the dog a chance.

In addition, if we notice that there is a problem, we can try to correct many of the adverse effects by fasting and protein intake.  Eat lean meats and eggs, which are complete proteins and provide few calories. Alongside these, you can start breaking down fat stores, and cleaning out toxins with the help of medicinal mushrooms.

Medicinal mushrooms are good for detoxification, boosting metabolism, strengthening the immune system and reducing inflammation. In which snacks are not part of.

Dogs on feed would eat medicinal mushrooms.

There are also many similarities in the diets of humans to those described above. The big difference is that humans are omnivores, they really have no problems with a well-chosen vegan diet!

Dr. Varga Miklós
HerbalVet