Understanding The Raw Meat Diet

The raw meat diet is the idea of mimicing what your dog would be eating in the wild. This diet traditionally consists of muscle meat, organ meat, and bone. Because dogs are facultative carnivores, they would also get small amounts of their nutrition from plant matter like fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. All of these play a different role. 

"Although domestication has changed the dogs' external appearance and temperament, the digestive system and nutritional needs have not changed from those of their wild relatives."

A raw diet provides an ideal gut balance for your furry friend because that is the diet their body was designed for. Something to keep in mind is that all disease lives in the gut so feeding raw automatically decreases their chance of developing disease. 

One of the best things about feeding raw is you know exactly what your dog is eating and how it is benefiting them. You can completely personalize their diet to offset any issues they might be having. For example, dogs with allergies or itchy skin would benefit from oily fish because of the omega-3s. Perfect opportunity to ditch the pharmaceuticals and prove that food is medicine! Just like dogs with sensitive stomachs or inconsistent stool should have pumpkin in their diet to act as a pre/probiotic. A good rule of thumb is that food works like-for-like; you feed kidney and it promotes good kidney health, feeding heart will benefit their heart and so on. 

Dogs do not produce the enzyme amylase, normally present in human saliva, which helps break down carbohydrates. Because of this, carbs can be difficult for your dog to digest and they are even prone to plaque and tartar buildup due to that lack of acidity in the saliva. Raw diets contain minimal carbohydrates, minimizing the possibility of oral disease.

Something you can expect when feeding raw is lower stool volume due to better absorption of nutrients and no need to dump all the extra toxins that come with kibble. Raw meaty bones that come with a raw diet scrape plaque and tartar off the teeth and the calcium and phosphorus within the bone keeps their teeth nice and strong. A raw diet can positively affect every aspect of your dogs life. The benefits truly are endless. 

Faith Samford Rogers