Posts

Digestive Enzymes for Pets | The Happy Beast
Chelsea Niekelski

Digestive Enzymes for Pets

/in , , , /by

What are digestive enzymes? Enzymes are responsible for making the chemical reactions in our body faster and more efficient. Digestive enzymes aid the body by breaking down proteins from food into amino acids which can be absorbed and utilized. Enzymes facilitate proper absorption of foods.

Digestive enzymes are found in raw foods. They are what cause foods to break down and decay. For example, bananas contain the enzyme, amylase. Amylase breaks down raw starch into sugar, which is why green bananas become softer and sweeter as they sit on the counter. All raw foods contain the right amount of the specific enzyme required to break the proteins they are made of.

Why is this important? Cooking destroys the enzymes that are required to break food down, so when we eat cooked food our bodies have to source enzymes from an internal supply. If the body is focused on producing enzymes for digestion, less energy is allotted to the metabolic enzymes used in organ, muscle and cell function.

Efficient and complete digestion is essential to good health. When the digestive system is functioning well, the rest of the body is prepared to maintain good health and fight disease. Digestive enzymes can take the body from merely surviving to truly thriving. This is especially important in animals with allergies, compromised immune systems, IBD, IBS, and pancreatitis. Symptoms of an enzyme deficiency can include bloating, gas, irritability and fatigue.

How should this affect your choices for pet food?

  1. Feed raw. Any food that hasn’t been cooked over 118 degrees will retain its required enzymes. Choose a frozen, dehydrated and freeze-dried raw food that is complete and balanced. See some of the foods we recommend here.
  2. Supplement with a digestive enzyme. Choose a plant-sourced enzyme as they survive under more diverse conditions. Avoid enzymes called “animal pancreas extracts” which may not survive the acidic environment on the digestive tract. We like InClover’s Optagest.
  3. Choose raw treats like frozen marrow bones and raw goat milk. These treats contain live enzymes to support the digestive tract and overall good health and your animals will love them!
  4. Read our blog post on “Helping Pets with Digestive Problems“ for more info and recommendations.
The Benefits of Pet Food Rotation | The Happy Beast
Chelsea Niekelski

Ending the Monotony Meal Plan: The Benefits of Pet Food Rotation

/in , /by

At The Happy Beast, we believe that there are significant benefits from pet food rotation. In fact, we think it’s a big pet food myth that animals should eat the same formula of the same brand of food for their whole lives. While this is a great marketing ploy for the pet food companies (who don’t want you to feed anything but their brand of food) it is not in the best interest of your animal’s health and well-being. For one thing, eating the same thing over and over is boring… just imagine eating one kind of cuisine for every meal for the rest of your life! Even more importantly, from a health perspective, a monotonous diet can have negative effects on your animal for the following reasons:  

  1. Although pet foods are formulated to be “balanced and complete,” it’s unlikely that one food will meet all of an animal’s nutrient requirements over a long period of time.
  2. Feeding one food may cause your animal to develop an intolerance or allergy to the ingredients in that food.
  3. The digestive system of an animal that has only had to process one kind of food will be weaker and less tolerant to changes and natural aging.

The good news is that there are many ways to incorporate pet food rotation into your animal’s diet:

  1. Even if you like feeding a specific brand, choose a different recipe or protein source each time you buy a bag, box, or can of food. Most companies offer several formulas. If you usually feed a chicken recipe, try bison or fish.
  2. If you normally feed dry food or kibble, supplement with another, less processed food. Raw, dehydrated, freeze-dried, and canned foods can all make great mix-ins.
  3. Add fresh food. “Table scraps” aren’t necessarily bad as long as you’re not feeding them during a meal at the table! Just limit what “people food” you share with your animals to healthy foods like lean meats, salmon skins, yogurt, and cooked vegetables. Although small fish bones are fine, you should not typically feed larger “table scrap” bones because they have been cooked. In comparison to raw bones, cooked bones can more easily splinter and cause a choking risk. 

If your animal has a very sensitive digestive system or has been eating the same food for a very long time:

  1. Add in new foods very slowly.
  2. Supplement the diet with a prebiotic, probiotic, or digestive enzyme. (We like Optagest or raw goat milk.)

Chicken, turkey, lamb, and beef are often used in pet foods, but new protein sources are making their way into the market. “Novel proteins” is an industry term for meats not commonly found in pet foods. We commonly recommend novel protein diets for animals with food sensitivities or allergies, but healthy animals can benefit from these meats as well. Try including goat, rabbit, venison, alligator, or kangaroo in your animal’s next pet food rotation!

 

If variety isn’t the spice of life, is it catnip?

The Truth About Grain-Free Pet Food | The Happy Beast
Natalie Soonthornswad

Flimflam Food: The Truth About Grain-Free Pet Food

/in , , /by

Grain-free pet food is one of the fastest growing areas of the pet food industry. Even major commercial brands such as Purina and Science Diet now have grain-free pet food options for cats and dogs. Due to clever marketing, “grain-free” has become synonymous with premium quality and the assumption is that it is a more biologically-appropriate food for both cats and dogs.

However, it’s important to note that “grain-free pet food” does not mean “zero” carb, or even “low” carb, which is a very important distinction. Carbohydrates are an essential part of the manufacturing process of dry pet food, or kibble. Just like with baking; you have to have a flour source or binder to create kibble; whether it’s wheat, corn, potatoes, peas, etc. It is the nature of kibble and can’t be avoided.

“Grain-free” kibble only means that the carbohydrate binder of choice is something other than grain, such as potatoes, lentils, or peas. Grain-free foods can be equally high in carbohydrates when compared to their grain-based counterparts. For cats, potatoes and peas are just as inappropriate as corn, wheat, or soy.

A cat’s natural diet of rodents, rabbits, insects and birds, is about 2% carbohydrate. Dry cat food is generally 25-35% carbohydrate. Carbohydrates in such excessive percentages contributes to both obesity and diabetes, and therefore no kibble is a biologically appropriate food option for cats.

As a frame of reference, let’s take a look at how many carbs are in some of our most popular foods as well as other foods on the market:

Percentage of Carbohydrates | Sample of Brands

Cat Dry Food (Kibble)

  • Orijen dry food: 17%
  • Earthborn dry food: 18.5%
  • Acana Dry food: 27%
  • Taste of the Wild: 27%- 39%
  • Blue Buffalo Wilderness: 25-27%
  • Science Diet w/d: 30%
  • Science Diet t/d: 34.4%
  • Hill’s Ideal Balance: 35.3%

Dog Dry Food (Kibble) 

  • Orijen: 29%
  • Earthborn: 29.5%
  • Petkind: 29.5%
  • Fromm Grain-free: 35%
  • Blue Buffalo Wilderness: 30-35%
  • Taste of the Wild: 37%-46%
  • Kirkland: 45%
  • Science Diet w/d: 40.2%
  • Science Diet t/d: 51.7%

Carbohydrates are not typically listed on pet food labels, but there is a simple calculation to figure out how many carbs are in your animal’s food. Simply add all of the percentages listed, including protein, fat, fiber, moisture and ash, and subtract the total from 100. Here are a few examples:

EXAMPLE 1: Earthborn Cat Primitive

  • Crude protein – min 44%
  • Crude fat – min 20%
  • Crude fiber – min 3%
  • Moisture – max 10%
  • Ash – max 4.5%

TOTAL: 81.5%

100% – 81.5% = 18.5% CARBS!!!!

 

If you are trying to figure out how many carbs are in canned or raw food you must first convert the percentages into dry matter.

EXAMPLE 2: Earthborn Cat can Chicken Catcciatori

  • Crude protein – min 10%
  • Crude fat – min 2%
  • Crude fiber – min 1.5%
  • Ash – max 3%
  • Moisture – max 82%

Total: 98.5%
Dry matter conversion: Subtract the moisture percentage from 100 percent: 100%-82% moisture = 18% dry matter

100% – 98.5% = 1.5% / 18% = 8.3% carbs

 

EXAMPLE 3: Small Batch Raw Cat food:

  • Crude Protein (min): 15.9%
  • Crude Fat (min): 8.9%
  • Crude Fiber (max): 0.3%
  • Ash (max): 2.9%
  • Moisture (max): 71.8%

Total: 99.8%

Dry matter conversion: Subtract the moisture percentage from 100 percent: 100%-71.8% moisture = 28.2% dry matter

100% – 99.8% = 0.2% / 28.2% = 0.71% carbs

 

In summary, we feel that for a majority of dogs and all cats, protein should be the main source of dietary nutrition and calories. Incorporating less processed and lower carb food options is always encouraged, and there are a wide variety of ways to accomplish this. Feeding canned, raw, freeze-dried, and air-dried meat options are easy to incorporate, highly digestible, and very palatable – even for the pickiest of eaters.

Stop by the store to talk with us about your animal’s diet and history and we’ll help you develop a customized feeding plan to meet your needs.

Transitioning Your Dog to a New Diet | The Happy Beast
Chelsea Niekelski

Transitioning Your Dog to a New Diet

/in , /by

Here are our Happy Beast tips for transitioning to a new diet!

Allow 4-10 days to transition your pet to a new food. Choose a supplement to make the transition easier on your animal.

1) Choose a supplement!

It’s not uncommon for dogs to have loose stools when transitioning to a new food. Pick one or two of the following to help your animal’s digestive system adjust get the most out of his new food:

2) Phase in the new food!

Combine your dog’s old and new foods together in the proportions shown in the diagram at the top of this post. Spend 2-3 days on each phase. A dog with a more sensitive system will benefit from a more time in each phase.