Why your Pet maybe Overweight?
Back to Basics Human Grade Food for Pets
All Life Stages Formula
Overweight pets are not healthy pets. Although this is true, we must look at why there are so many more overweight animals now, as opposed to 50 years ago. Obesity in most pets is caused from poor quality, unbalanced pet foods, that are high in carbohydrates. Weight loss diet foods on the market today are not helping the problem.
|
|
Let us begin with some basic facts. Cats and dogs rely on fat burning for energy. Dogs require diets high in fat, low in protein, with moderate carbohydrate levels, and vegetables to maintain a healthy diet. Cats need higher protein levels than dogs but, otherwise, their needs are consistent with dogs in reference to weight loss.
The ingredients that make up a healthy diet must be made from whole ingredients. Dogs and cats do not need a "by-product" of a whole ingredient, or what is left of a whole ingredient after the healthy useable part has been removed. In carbohydrates, these are known as "fillers"(i.e.: anything that ends in "Gluten Meal", "Flour", "Bran", or "Hull"). These whole ingredients should also be from human sources and of the highest quality. We don't want to eat diseased, over processed or rotten ingredients and neither do our pets.
Finally, the fats, carbohydrates, and proteins should come from a variety of sources to balance them. All of these ingredients should be preserved naturally with Vitamins C, E, and Rosemary Extract. Adding chelated minerals, digestive enzymes, yucca, alfalfa, among other healthy ingredients is a good idea.
Few pet food-manufacturing facilities have the capabilities to produce a food of this quality. Most manufacturers follow few, if any, of these simple standards. Why? Well, it would cost more money to produce a"quality" food. Not surprisingly, poor quality foods result in a laundry list of health problems. One of the less obvious problems is "obesity" in our animals.
We must remember that animals do not metabolize fat the same way that we do. Animals require fat burning for energy. A high fat diet contributes to increased stamina, protects against heat stroke, heat exhaustion, and hypothermia. It helps to maintain hydration during strenuous exercise, improves the efficiency of energy utilization, and reduces breathing efforts during exercise because less fatty acids are burned as fuels (as compared to carbohydrates) therefore lower levels of carbon dioxide are in the blood.
Cats and dogs do NOT gain weight from too much fat in their diet. However, they DO gain weight if they have too much carbohydrate in their diet.
As animals burn carbohydrates, lactic acid is produced. Lactic acid is made up of lactate and acid. The acid lowers PH levels and blocks the enzymes that would break down fats. The lactate produces glucose, which produces more acid. The acid produced from the glucose further lowers PH levels and further reduces fat burning. As a response to the blocked fat metabolism, the body burns more carbohydrates and the cycle begins over again. Because the animal's body is caught in a cycle of burning carbohydrates it stores the fat.
Most commercial pet foods contain carbohydrate levels of over 50%, some much higher. Poor quality formulas are hard on a young system and impossible to keep up with for an older system. The result is a tendency toward increased weight gain.
Animals do need carbohydrates in their diet, just not as much as has become common in most pet foods. If "whole" ingredients are used (such as "Ground Corn", "Rice" or "Oatmeal") the levels should be about right. As long as they are not listed as the first ingredient! It is when manufacturers break up the carbohydrates and use "Fillers" that levels get out of hand because the carbohydrates then make up the majority of the formula. Further, a food that contains fillers is using poor quality ingredients and not putting the health of your pet first.
Let's recap: Animals use fat for energy. Excessive carbohydrate burning in animals interferes with their ability to burn fat, resulting in "fat storage". This causes them to gain weight.
Enter "Prescription Weight Loss" foods; these foods are very low in fat with increased "grain" protein, and "fiber". I encourage people to look up what grain protein is, you won't be happy. What do you think happens to an animals system when we take the fat out and replace it with grain and fiber?
According to Susan Gayle Wynn DMV, there have been negative effects from Low Calorie, Prescription Weight Loss Foods, She says "One common problem that we see is a gradual degeneration of coat quality. Animals tend to stay overweight and develop dry, flaky skin". (No kidding??) Another problem that has occurred when animals are kept on reduced fat diets for long periods... "If they eat supplements of meat containing fat or even a maintenance pet food after becoming accustomed to low -fat diets, they may develop a potentially serious disease called pancreatitis ". With cats, diabetes is an additional risk associated with the excessive grains seen in "prescription weight loss" foods. (Grains in the feline diet: Cat Nutrition Facts from Feline Future, The Well Cat Book.)
In other words, "prescription weight loss" formulas do not achieve the task they were created for. The "weight loss" formulas cause dry, flaky skin, reduction in overall health, and ultimate weight gain. Finally, if our animals are kept on reduced fat diets for prolonged periods, their bodies begin to reject any fat. What does it say about a manufactured pet food that destroys an animal's system to the point of forcing its body to reject fat, which is one of the single most important ingredients in their diet?
If you are concerned about your pet's health, evaluate what they are eating. If the food you are feeding does not follow all of the standards listed at the beginning of this article, your pets are not getting what they deserve. Animals that are fed a healthy balanced diet will regulate their own body weight. If humans ate only foods that were healthy, we would all be at "our" perfect weight, whatever that is. It is the same with our pets. REAL FOOD, plus REAL NUTRITION equals REAL HEALTH.
All of the ingredients in Beowulf's Back to Basics are from human sources, with carbohydrate levels of 37%. Back to Basics is hormone and antibiotic free and balanced for all life stages.
