7 Everyday Foods to NEVER Feed Your Dog & What to Give Instead

7 Everyday Foods to NEVER Feed Your Dog & What to Give Instead

First, let’s talk about some of the foods you should not be feeding your dog. These are foods in particular which can be really harmful for the intestinal tract. They can alter the gut microbiome dramatically, you know, really affecting the ultimate health of your dog. So, think about what happens when you your dog takes antibiotic.

 In many cases, that can wipe out those good bacteria. Some of these foods can do that. Some can cause gut inflammation and hence we’re seeing these dogs with chronic vomiting, chronic diarrhea. And there are other foods you really want to avoid. If your dog is prone to acid reflux, so for dogs prone to acid reflux, you want to avoid the highly acidic, some of the citrus foods.

 Think about things such as lemon. Occasionally, it’s good for say a dog who has a cough. But if you have a dog that has acid reflux, want to avoid the citrus. Then there’s other common acidic foods. Think about ACV or apple cider vinegar. Yes, many people use it. They believe it might help them for things such as increasing metabolism, helping with weight loss.

 But if you’ve got a dog that’s prone to acid reflux, this could add further acid to your dog’s stomach, produce more reflux, causing more of a problem. So, you want to be cautious in terms of limiting the amount of acidic foods your dog is going to get, and if they have a condition, acid reflux, no acidic foods.

 should go with common sense. But the high fatty foods, probably the biggest one I saw in practice was this people giving their dogs bacon. Bacon tastes great. You’ve got an extra piece, you give it to your dog. The problem is these high fatty fatty foods. Number one, they can be a really common problem causing pancreatitis.

 All that high fat, it’s a big demand of the pancreas produce enzymes to break it down. But secondarily, when that happens and all those enzymes are released, that can cause a localized irritation within the intestinal tract leading to vomiting, leading to diarrhea, and making it a big problem when we have a dog that has underlying intestinal disease.

 And the highfatty foods, they’re way up on the list. So yeah, you’re avoiding these. Any of the highly processed foods have caused much more gut irritation. So, an example of a common highly processed food that you have quite likely fed your dog is this. Think of a per quality kibble such as this unnamed one.

 I won’t say what it is or who made it. But when it comes looking like this, these little multicolors, just the way to make kibble, it involves a whole degree of processing, right? You’ve got to take carbohydrate, you got to take the fat, you got to take the protein, you got to mix it all up. exposed to heat, high pressure form these cute little shapes, extremely high processed.

The ingredients in this can cause serious gut irritation. So some of the additives, i.e. the coloring, some of the unnatural preservatives, those can directly affect the gut in a harmful way. This is an example of a good carbohydrate. High quality, easy to digest, provides a whole array of different beneficial nutrients.

 But there are many poor quality carbohydrates found in many of the dog foods which can harm your dog’s intestinal tract. It just so happens that the second ingredient in this lovely food, it is corn. Corn itself is difficult to digest, especially for many of our dogs. And much of the corn, especially in the low quality dog foods, it’s genetically modified, meaning there’s a good chance it’s going to have a higher percent of things your dog shouldn’t have.

 toxic insecticides, herbicides such as Roundup. Avoid the poor quality carbohydrates such as the corn, the second ingredient here. Then lastly, I encourage you to avoid the legumes, especially the peas found in dog food. These contain things called phitates. Be really difficult for our dogs to digest, break these down, can lead to gas and bloating.

 Secondarily, the phitates can bind to other nutrients and actually affect nutrient absorption. So there’s a bunch of concerns especially when we have these high legume based dog foods and there is one suspected correlation with the percent of peas in a food they likely have DCM or this disease dilated cardiammyopathy.

 In general avoid the legumes especially the peas especially if you’re concerned about your dog’s git health. Now that you know what to avoid here are the top seven gut friendly human foods for dogs including little Tula. Number one, many alternative veterinarians, they strongly advise that you daily feed your dog honey. First, honey, it’s a natural prebiotic.

 It supports the good bacteria. A second, honey. It contains one of the digestive enzymes. It contains amalayise, so it can help your dog break down the carbohydrates, break down the starch. And third, because honey is such a potent antibacterial, it could potentially kill some of the gut pathogens, being protective for gut health.

 And also topically it can soothe inflammation. So it can be a natural gut anti-inflammatory. So all those things can happen from this honey. Ideally you’re going to get raw local unpasteurized honey. It’s got all the beneficial nutrients of honey. It hasn’t been sort of heated out of it. Then you could do really low doses as low as a/4 of a teaspoon per 10 to 20 pounds of body weight daily.

 And as you can see, Tula likes her honey. Oh, good girl. It’s also good for her coughing. It’s good for her oral health in terms of helping kill some of the bacteria in her mouth. Oh, as well as your gut health. Number two, ginger. Ginger can be helpful in a number of different ways. Number one, it contains protease. That’s the enzyme that helps break down protein.

 So, that can make it just beneficial for a dog’s gut health. For many of dogs that have acid reflux, you know, they might have like a little bit of indigestion every time they eat. You may see them regularly licking their lips. They might seem just to be a little bit uncomfortable. Typical signs of acid reflux.

 You want to be feeding an alkaline food, a food that is not acidic. Ginger is that it’s alkalizing, so it counteracts all that acidity. Ginger is anti-inflammatory. So, in general, good for gut health and it is a well doumented anti-nausea herb in terms of and it’s being used for hundreds if not thousands of years specifically for that.

 An easy way to give it, get yourself a cup of water. Great offer. Just cut off about a teaspoon of ginger. Just cutting off about that amount. And that can make up your dog’s water bowl. So for a dog with ongoing gut health disorder, you can try that. You know, the teaspoon of ginger, about a cup of water, substitute that for your dog’s water.

 And I found for many of the dogs, it is much more compelling to consume this, but you add in some of this, you add in some of the honey. So you might just add in a teaspoon of honey into that water. That’s enough to make it much more enticing. And together, the honey, the ginger, they’re both gut friendly. Number three, really healthy fruits, bananas and apples.

 Bananas, they’re a source of amalayise, that digestive enzyme that breaks down carbohydrates, and they’re also very alkaline. It would be the ideal food for a dog that has acid reflux. That’s what we want. We want alkaline food. Break down some of the things they can’t break down. Comes in the form of a banana.

 You can safely give your dog about a quarter of a banana per 20 pounds of body weight daily. and it tastes good apples. They’re high in fiber, great to help with dog gastrointestinal health, especially with constipation. They can help actually normalize the intestinal tract. Secondarily source of anti-inflammatory polyphenols such as keretin found in this apple peel.

 So that can decrease gut inflammation, especially helping a dog that has IBD, inflammatory bowel disease. And also some of that fiber in the apple, it acts as a natural prebiotic. It can help the probiotics, the good bacteria grow. You can safely give your dog about a quarter of a standard apple per 20 pounds of body weight daily.

Number four, the veggies, cucumbers, and kale. If you have a dog with acid reflux, think cucumber. One of the big cucumber benefits is it’s got an extremely high moisture content, upwards of 90% moisture. It tastes good, but that does a great job of helping dilute some of that extra stomach acid, providing instant symptomatic relief for your dog.

 Cucumber is also a reasonably good source of fiber, so great to help for just normalizing gut constipation especially and just improving overall gut health. And then third, the cucumber would act as a prebiotic. If your dog likes cucumbers, you can’t really overfeed them. You know, if you want to give your 30 lb dog a quarter of this cucumber once a day, that’d be completely fine.

 Kale is extremely nutrientdense, probably considered one of the most nutrient-dense veggies. It’s a rich source of array of different flavonoids, including kerosin. It can be really beneficial for allergic skin disease. Also, a rich source of iron. It’s a great source of insoluble fiber. So, once again, that’s going to markly improve gut health.

 And kale has a unique type of sugar which does a great job of acting as a very effective prebiotic helping the good bacteria the probiotics grow. So when you think of all those things if you can incorporate some of the kale into your dog’s diet can marketly improve their gut health. So as little as one chopped teaspoon per 10 lbs body weight daily that can make a big difference.

 Number five unsweetened natural yogurt. It contains all these good bacteria primarily lactobacillus species some of the bifidto bacterium species and these are probiotics which can be really beneficial for your dog’s overall gut health. No, they’re not dog specific probiotics but even many of the human ones can make a big difference.

And if you can’t afford, you know, somebody’s probiotic supplement, even mine, it’d be okay to just feed this, you know, good high quality unsweetened an allnatural yogurt, as little as one teaspoon, this amount here, per 10 pounds of body weight daily, you know, mixed into their food. That’s a great source of some of these good bacteria, the probiotics.

 So, if you have a dog with especially ongoing diarrhea, it’s a potentially a really good option to help for sure help deal with that. May also help manage some other things going on maybe and help manage recurring yeast infections. Number six, ah, the awesome potato. Sweet potato. Sweet potato. It is a wonderful carbohydrate to support your dog’s gut health.

 It’s an excellent source of fiber to promote regularity. It is an awesome prebiotic in terms of many of the nutrients within the sweet potato will support the growth of the probiotics, the good bacteria. Sweet potato is also anti-inflammatory. It contains anthocyanins, especially if you’re also feeding the outside of the sweet potato, not the inside soft part.

And that can decrease inflammation. Say we’re dealing with a dog that has IBD. This can help for all those specific reasons. A tablespoon for 20 pounds of body weight daily. Number seven, it’s this here. Flax. As you can tell by my writing. And when you open the lid and you look inside, what do you see? Ground flax seed.

 Flax is especially high in fiber and a great source of the anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids. Ground flax seed, it acts as a very effective prebiotic. So, it’s helping those good bacteria, the probiotics grow. So, it can support healthy gut digestion, help with regular bowel movements. I’ve seen be really helpful for dogs have chronic anal gum problems because number one, can just help with all that additional fiber.

 It’s helping them have more regular bowel movements. Secondarily, it’s got the anti-inflammatory properties. So, it can decrease inflammation within the anal gland, decrease inflammation with the anal gland duct, normalizing anal gland problems. The standard dose I suggest it’s not very much, right? It’s about a/4 of a teaspoon per cup of food fed daily. Tula gets about that much.

 You get one quarter of a teaspoon per day. You have a small dog about half of that. And ground flax also has other, you know, lesser known nutrients. You take flax seed and you grind it. The outside part of the hull of the shell of the seed contains thing called lians and they those have proven anti-cancer properties and they’ve been specifically studied for mammorary gland cancer.

Point being here flax. It’s really good. Then we have bonus number eight. Oh, it’s the fruit only popular around Halloween. This is canned pumpkin. Well, number one, pumpkin. It is well known as a gut friendly food. In pumpkin, it has been well used in veterary medicine. It’s a rich source of fiber especially soluble fiber.

 So what that means when you add when some of the nutrients in pumpkin when they get come in contact with moisture almost f forms this gel like substance think about like adding water to flax seeds and they swell up. Similar thing happens with pumpkin. So when that happens number one it’s a great source of adding bulk in a gentle way as it moves stuff through the intestinal tract.

 So, it’s helping ensure there’s normal bowel regularity. In other words, good for constipation, good for things such as hairballs. The orange color in pumpkin, that’s a source of the antioxidant beta carotene. It’s a really good anti-inflammatory. So, it can help lower gut inflammation, especially some of these inflammatory gut disease like IBD.

 It’s very safe for animals. I mean, the one little caveat here is it can be a little bit expensive, especially if you’re not getting pumpkins in season. You’re buying them via the can. I suggest a standard pumpkin dose about a tablespoon of the canned pumpkin for 20 pounds of body weight. Do that once daily to start.

 I think you get much the same similar benefits from this flax seed. You can buy flax seed in bulk and grind it for a fraction of the cost. Can really do much the same things for your dog’s gut. So there they are, my top seven and bonus eight gut healing human foods for dogs. And thank you so much for watching this edition of Energy Secrets.

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