Tuesday, March 22, 2016

INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE CAUSED BY THESE INGREDIENTS IN PET FOOD


Inflammatory bowel disease is extremely common in pets and people. Symptoms can include vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, constipation, bloating, weight loss, and abdominal pain. What pet food ingredients might contribute to these problems? There are two ingredients that are common culprits and should be avoided.

The first ingredient I recommend avoiding is wheat gluten. Wheat gluten is the rubbery protein residue left after all the starchy carbohydrate has been removed from the grain. This is a  cheap source of protein when pet food companies don't want the expense of using real meat proteins. Some pets will have an autoimmune response to the gluten, which causes inflammation in the bowel and the symptoms listed above.

The second ingredient is carrageenan. Food grade carrageenan has been studied for years and has been shown to be cause an immune reaction that triggers inflammation. Chronic ingestion of carrageenan is associated with inflammatory diseases, insulin resistance, and glucose intolerance - precursors of diabetes.

Carrageenan is used in many canned pet foods, particularly cat foods, as a gelling or thickening agent. I have discussed the many reasons cats should not be fed dry kibble (too high in carbohydrates, too low in moisture, among other things). This leads people to feed canned foods. But canned foods loaded with gluten and carrageenan can cause severe problems as well.

Be a label reader. If you see gluten or carrageenan in the pet food, put it back on the shelf. Do not feed these ingredients to your pets. Feed them a species-appropriate, meat based diet like fresh, frozen, or freeze-dried raw food or a home prepared diet. Don't subject your pets to the poor ingredients found in low quality processed pet foods.

4 comments:

  1. The terrible ingredients found in most dry and canned pet foods are the reason I feed raw to my three dogs.

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  2. I'm with you, Mario. We have been feeding a raw diet for over 15 years. I grind our raw mix myself so know exactly what is in it.

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  3. Same here...raw all the way for my pup! Don't have to worry about all the "nasty" stuff added in to so much pet "feed" these days!

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  4. Turning the raw food diet completely turned my pets help around for the better we formulated Wild River Pet Foods because of this committing to the most highest quality of Premium raw food formulas including raw bone marrow and a balance of good fats lean proteins it made all the difference in the world

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