Canine Grain Free Food

Our lab had food allergies. Our vet recommended a grain free diet and she has quit scratching since then. We feed her Flint River Fish and Chips. They ship to your door. Her dog biscuits with the same ingredients come from the same place. She's maintained her weight well on this diet.

We use Blue Wilderness Salmon grain free formula.

The best food for your dog is the one you can afford and with which your dog thrives.

There is nothing in general about canis familiaris that excludes feeding starch (cooked grains); there is genetic evidence that dogs developed (about the time of domestication) the means to digest starch. However, this information is about population genetics and not about individual genetics; an individual may not be able to tolerate certain foods. So the diet for an individual may need to be tailored in order for that individual to thrive.

Nutrasource or Call of the Wild is all we feed.

As far a the grain free myth...I don't buy the argument. The grains have been so genetically modified over the last 10 years or more, do you really know what it is?

You can choose to accept the scientific studies or choose to believe the opinions on internet blogs

For example:
New feeds from genetically modified plants: substantial equivalence, nutritional equivalence, digestibility, and safety for animals and the food chain
Livestock Production Science
Volume 74, Issue 3, April 2002, Pages 223–238
A Aumaitre, Karen Aulrich, A Chesson, G Flachowsky, G Pivad

One huge advantage of GMO feeds is that we get more nutritional yield per acre. This means that the exploding world population can be fed with existing farm land as opposed to forcing people to live in high density leaving sufficient land for food production for our ever increasing population.

dturm wrote:
Not so much a sore subject as

misinformation, advertising and internet postings taken as fact.

X10
Amen to that.

Once the media started advertising grain free everyone felt the need to run and buy it and drastically change their dog's diet that most likely was WORKING just fine for the dog.

Grain Free dog food has much higher protein and higher fat content.

Most pet owners did not even read the label to see the drastic increase of these percents when changing to these foods........and then wondered why their dogs started gaining weight.

And my obligatory comment: that switching to these grain free products on older or compromised pets? It adds an additional burden on their liver and kidneys.

And if the veterinary world had a source of records like the human medical arena does that can track reasons for illness and/or death, we would easily see an increase in kidney and liver problems in pets since the introduction of grain free products.

And sadly thru no fault of the veterinary industry it will be written off to old age and not the real culprit 'higher protein/fat than the pet needed to be fed'.

Remember many years ago when they came out with pet food just for Giant Breed dogs AND for GIANT Breed puppy food? The protein was dangerously over the top and serious bone growth problems reared it's ugly head directly due to the food when uneducated pet owners where driven by the 'media' to buy these breed specific foods.

When problems started rising within the Giant Breed dog owners and further research showed how dangerous that protein level was, interestingly they pulled it and/or reduced the protein.

Purina Farms and Hill's are the ONLY pet food company's that have their own extensive research labs for their food. And Hill's having the most extensive labs of the two. The other brands do not.

Something to think about. The only dogs that need high protein and high fat is a "WORKING" dog. And 98% of pet owners do not own a working dog.:W

rockhillmanor wrote:

Grain Free dog food has much higher protein and higher fat content.

Not all of them. Not by a long shot. A lot of them replace grains with potatoes (white or sweet), tapioca, quinoa, etc. Those foods don't necessarily have more fat or protein than foods that contain grains.

Purina Farms and Hill's are the ONLY pet food company's that have their own extensive research labs for their food. And Hill's having the most extensive labs of the two. The other brands do not.

I suspect Royal Canin would disagree strongly with that statement. ;)