Feeding Dogs Junk Food
Feeding dogs junk food designed for humans can cause severe, immediate health complications and long-term disease. Highly processed snacks like chips, cookies and fast food are packed with excessive sodium, refined sugars and unhealthy fats that a canine digestive system cannot safely process. Even small amounts of these foods can trigger acute pancreatitis, a painful and potentially life-threatening inflammation of the pancreas.
Consistent consumption of empty calories quickly causes canine obesity, placing intense strain on the joints, heart and lungs. Over time, this nutritional imbalance can result in diabetes, high blood pressure and permanent kidney damage.
What is junk food?
There are certain foods dogs should never eat. Highly-processed junk food is amongst them. Feeding dogs junk food is a complete no-no. Junk food is not good for humans – it is positively harmful for dogs!
While precise definitions vary, Wikipedia describes junk food as “food that is high in calories from sugar and/or fat, and possibly also sodium, but with little dietary fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, or other important forms of nutritional value”.
By that definition, junk food would have to include fast food leftovers. Things like:
- Takeaway curries
- Burgers
- Hotdogs
- Pizza
- Doner kebabs
- French fries
It would also include crisps and other salty snacks, sweets, biscuits, cakes and the likes of non-dog-safe ice cream. Foods that are high in calories but provide no beneficial nutrients.
Junk food is unhealthy
Junk food is unhealthy. Feeding dogs junk food should be avoided. Please don’t kill your dog with kindness.
You might feel like you’re rewarding your pet with that odd slice of pizza or digestive biscuit or two, but you are not. You are effectively poisoning your best friend and increasing its risk of obesity and heart disease.
Furthermore, you run the risk one day of stepping over the edge. Of inadvertently feeding something that is not only unhealthy, but immediately life threatening because of its degree of canine toxicity!
Foods obviously toxic to dogs
While no junk food is safe for your dog, there are also a limited number of other ‘human foods’ you should never feed your dog. These include chocolate, raisins, grapes, macadamia nuts and anything that contains the artificial sweetener, xylitol.
Table scraps
The commercial pet food industry makes much of telling you to avoid feeding your dog table scraps. Table scraps are not the enemy here. The likes of excess vegetables or a little meat from your own table, providing they are not laden with salt or sauces is just fine. Over hundreds and in some cases thousands of years, various breeds of dogs have been honed to perfection on what some today ridicule as table scraps.
But do please be mindful of feeding dogs junk food. They don’t need it in their diet any more than you and I do!
A healthy wholefood diet is what the really need!
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