Already Feeding Homemade? Three Commonly Missed Nutrients
And how we formulated All-pups
Many people are afraid of feeding homemade food because they’ve been told over and over by the veterinary profession that homemade is dangerous. The story goes a couple of different ways. Sometimes it’s about pancreatitis from eating too much fat. Other times it’s about unbalanced food missing nutrients. The best one we heard from the vet is that kibble is needed to clean dogs’ teeth. I guess the vet we saw didn’t learn about the relationship between carbs and cavities.
Despite the warnings from vets the research does not back up these claims. Even Mars’ own research arm, Waltham, published research showing that dogs fed UNBALANCED homemade food DID NOT show signs of deficiency. If interested you can read more about why AAFCO is not suitable for real food diets.
However, just because a dog doesn’t show active signs of being deficient doesn’t mean that they are getting all their nutrients. After all up to 50% of people are short in one or more nutrients, despite not showing symptoms. Today, we share on the three most commonly overlooked nutrients in a homemade diet.
Before that here is this week’s recipe:
Three easy-to-miss nutrients
Iodine
Iodine is essential to make thyroid hormone. In fact iodine is so essential the different forms of thyroid hormone T3 and T4 are measured by how many iodine atoms each one contains. (T3 has three iodine atoms and T4 has four!) People and dogs don’t need a huge amount of iodine, but we do need it consistently.
Unfortunately, iodine is really hard to get in most foods grown in the ground. It’s highest in seafood and in the ocean, but gets washed out in most inland and mountain regions where food is grown. The modern food supply is short on iodine, and thus most of the salt sold in America today is supplemented with iodine.
Since we don’t feed table salt to dogs (they don’t sweat like we do so need less sodium) iodine is one of the nutrients that can get missed in a homemade diet. Sources of iodine minerals like potassium iodate. Natural sources of iodine include sea kelp and sea weeds as well as seafood like oysters. But due to variance, even feeding a lot of seafood can be short of iodine requirements.
Our preference is to use sea kelp A. nodosum, in small amounts. Even though there is natural variance, keeping doses small still ensures that your pups don’t get too little or too much.
Calcium
Calcium is an essential nutrient in both dogs and people. It’s the main mineral in bones and teeth. It is also used in muscle contraction, sometimes called the “go” signal that instructs muscles to contract. Similarly it helps with nerve signaling. Calcium also plays a role in blood clotting, enzyme function, and repair signaling.
Though we believe that AAFCO requirements for calcium are too high, most homemade diets are very low in calcium because the modern food supply is based around muscle meat. In antiquity, whole animals stews were more common with all the connective tissue, bones and organs. Since dogs ate whatever people had left over, it’s likely dogs ate a fair amount of stewed bones and organs.
Our favorite form of calcium is eggshell. It’s widely available, especially if using eggs for a recipe. We prefer eggshells over bone for several reasons. First, bone can be brittle and cause injury if cooked, but not cooked long enough to become soft. Canned sardines are an example of bones that are cooked soft enough to be safe to consume. Second, bone tends to be very high in phosphorous, which can be problematic for dogs with kidney disease.
Zinc
Homemade diets can often be short on zinc, especially those made with chicken or turkey. Zinc is an essential mineral that is critical to many metabolic functions. For example, zinc is needed to make thymulin, a hormone made by the thymus. Thymulin matures and tunes t-cells which play important functions in the immune systems of animals. Zinc is also needed for making skin and hormones amongst many other functions. It is a micronutrient like iodine, so it’s needed constantly in small amounts.
Zinc absorption can be highly variable, especially with plant heavy diets. Phytates, which act as mineral storage molecules in plants, bind with minerals like zinc in foods to inhibit absorption. Whole wheat and wheat bran is high in phytates. Sprouted grains, soaked beans, and well-cooked food help to reduce phytate content.
Our favorite source of natural zinc is oysters! They are one of the most nutrient dense foods on earth. High in protein and minerals while low in fat and calories, oysters are excellent addition to any diet, dog or human. A little goes a long way. Just 3 oz of fresh pacific oysters has almost 200% the RDA of zinc for an adult woman.
If you can’t get your hands on fresh oysters, we make a freeze-dried oyster powder for your convenience.
Honorable mention
Iodine, calcium and zinc are three nutrients that are challenging to get on a homemade diet, but there several others that are worth mentioning.
Copper is easily in short supply if beef or organ meat like liver is left off the menu.
B12 can also be short in muscle meat heavy diets, but is also easily made up with organ meat.
Vitamin E can also be short in homemade diets, but is easily made up with extra egg, olive oil or our favorite sources: roasted unsalted sunflower seeds and wheat germ.
Vitamin D is abundant in fish (we feed sardines and wild-caught salmon) and is relatively high in eggs.
Choline is also very high in eggs.
Beef liver is particularly nutrient dense, so just like oysters, a little goes a long way.
All Pups Seasoning formulation
We formulated All Pups Seasoning to help make up for iodine, calcium and minerals that are easily missed in a homemade diet. The oysters we use are the highest quality, sourced from a local oyster farm in the Pacific Northwest. Eggshells are produced in America and our sea kelp is sourced from Canada. All of our ingredients are premium, human grade quality. Whether you choose to use our products or not, we want to help you give your pup the best possible diet!
That’s it for now
All the best,
Joelle & R.A.