I keep hearing that grains are not good for dogs on this message board and others.  Plus, there seem to be more and more dog foods that are grain-free. 

The thing that puzzles me is that "grain-free" foods seem to substitute grain (rice, corn, wheat, etc.) with potato - which to me is just another starchy, fibrous food - no better or worse than rice, for example.  And no more likely to be part of a dog's diet "in the wild" than grains.  In fact, I would guess less likely, since most animals that a canine is likely to catch are more likely to have consumed grains than a potato.

I don't get it.  Can someone please explain the science behind why grains are supposed to be bad for dogs?   I get the bit about some dogs may be allergic to wheat, etc.   So allergies aside, why are grains a no-no?

A small amount of grains shouldnt do any harm i suppose... It's the huge amount put into dog foods that,instead of meat,that causes problems IMO.Dogs just have no need for grains or the carbs they provide persay.I cant comment on potatoes as i dont know a great deal about them or their nutrient profile or why they are added instead of grains..My best guess is that dry food needs a starchy carb source to hold it's shape,without it kibble would just be mush.

Here's a little article detailing carbs and grains in the dogs diet

http://www.b-naturals.com/Dec2005.php

Its because its only just dawning on people that dogs arent sposed to eat grains or potatos or... myriad other things that are in dog food.

Ktee,  im not even sure its that, i suspect its just spuds are a good cheap alternative to grains and then the food can claim to be 'whatever free' or 'hypo allergenic' or something along those lines.

Have to agree, commercial food is never going to be primarily meat bone etc as ti will not be commercially viable and very expensive.  Most people could feed their dogs more cheaply by buying from teyh butcher.

As dogs are pretty adaptable man has always bulked out their diet with what was available to keep the costs down, pretty much as we do for ourselves.

I would love to be able to buy only organic free range food, for myself let aloen the dogs.  I have to compromise with a litle of what is best with some of the processed cheeper fillers.

Understand the bit about grains are cheaper than meat, but what I still cannot understand is why a potato is any better than grains?

So Orijen says "Cats and dogs are simply not evolved to eat processed cereal grains, which is why ORIJEN's grain-free, reduced-carbohydrate diet more closely matches the diet Natural intended for your dog or cat.!"    But white and sweet potatoes are included in Orijen products. 

(I could have sworn I also saw that JWB now has a grain-free food, but it's not on their web site .. so perhaps I was dreaming that one.) 

I don't believe kibble would be mush without a starchy carb, just very expensive :rolleyes:

Because dogs do need some form of carbs in some description within processed diets?  I had a book somewhere about nutrition and feeding and I can't find it now.  :rolleyes:

But I remember reading something about the major ingredient in grains for dogs was starch which the dog digests into sugars.  Potatoes are starch so they are just a substitute I guess.  Are they any better than grains?  Probably no different, but if you're a company and you want to sell grain-free diets and the word is out there that grains is bad for dogs , what better way to market than to advertise that dogs have not evolved to eat processed cereal grains and use potatoes instead.  :rolleyes: :-D It sounds very like marketing hype IMO.

I expect you're right Spender. I was at a dog show in the US a while ago and there was a stand for a company selling raw foods - meaning raw meat and ground bone with vegetables.  They were tooting it as "grain free" as well, so I asked what all the ingredients were and sure enough sweet potatoes were on the list.   They couldn't explain to me either why a potato was good; but grains were bad. 

I'm not bothered by either grains or potatoes as part of my dogs' diets, but I hate fads in foods and it annoys me when companies are a bit short on the truth. 

>I could have sworn I also saw that JWB now has a grain-free food, but it's not on their web site .. so perhaps I was dreaming that one.

It's on there :D It's the Lamb and Vegetable one. Contains "potato flakes" apparently!

Thanks Zarah!

No I don't get it either, I have never came across any science to say grains are bad for dogs, but I have come across marketing strategies taking advantage of the recent shift in society towards healthy eating and natural, although how one defines natural in this very unnatural world that has been completely changed by man is beyond me. There is nothing natural anymore.  

Strangely enough I've come cross some nice pieces of rubber in one of these so called grain free natural foods and another, by a well known manu on here that was crawling in some sort of beetle larvae.  Lovely...

On a more series note, organisms can adapt to eat and thrive from many different types of food providing it's in their genetic deposition to make the change and that change does not occur too quickly.   The body has an amazing ability to adapt, to produce enzymes to digest and extract requirements out of the residue of food if necessary.  Dogs are a case in point as they are scavengers by nature.  On saying that, some modern dogs do better on one diet as opposed to another. 

I'm not convinced about the 'badness' of grains either. I've seen my dogs, walking along the edge of a wheat field, stop and snap off a nearly-ripe ear of wheat and munch it before moving on the the next. They also choose to pick ripe blackberries, and search out fallen damsons beneath the trees. I really should tell them they're carnivores and that they don't naturally eat grains! :D

By the way, the beetle larvae were probably grain weevils. They might have been in the feed originally or could have come from your own cupboard.

Oh thanks JG, I was getting excited there as I didn't have a clue what they were, the pet shop and the manu don't know what they were either.  Pet shop thought some sort of larvae.  They don't look like grain weevils thou.

Manu is testing to identify them.  They were like little tiny caterpillars, almost a CM in length, brown in colour with light brown ridges on their hairy backs.  When I disturbed them, they'd curl into a ball.  I suspect it is a storage problem, rather than a production problem and I do think they came in with the food.  Some were dead, others were feeding.  Completely stripped the cupboard and nothing found so I think they were all contained. 

That doesn't sound like grain weevil grubs - they're white and only about 3mm long. No idea what yours were!

They looked very like warehouse beetle larvae figure 3 on this page,
http://agspsrv34.agric.wa.gov.au/Ento/trogo/f07799.htm  

Horrible things anyhow, could live with it better if I knew what they were. 

Apparently the manu has recently changed the company they use for storage.  Don't know if that's anything to do with it.

The pet shop was falling over backwards trying to help, really kind and supportive.  I'll chase the manu tomorrow, see if they have found out anything.

Have you ever tried 'green' grains, ie still on the stalk not dried out?

They have a slightly sweet taste, dogs arent daft, if it tastes nice they will eat it.

Its easy to forget that the grains we now eat are VERY far removed from their original wild forms.

I dont doubt for a second that a wild dog will wander around eating fruits, vegetables and grains it finds along the way.

But that a dog would base the majority of its diet on grains.. well dogs COULDNT have done that anyway, because there has only been an abundance of such things since we humans started farming them and 'invented' the modern cereals.

Grains arent good for us either, carbs found in grains, potatos, etc, do us no good at all if we base our diet on them.

But we do, because its cheap.

Dogs ARE omnivores.. in that they can and will eat a range of things. As opposed to a cat which is an obligate carnivore, a dog is NOT obligate.. he can eat other things, he is still a carnivore.. omnivorousness doesnt rule out that. We are omnivorous, though we are built better to extract nutrition from fruits and veg than meat.

He is designed to get the best nutrition from meat, as is evidenced by his teeth, muscles and gut, but he can get some benefit from eating other things. Thats why dogs do so well with us, we have for the vast majority of our shared history with dogs, fed them on our left overs.

These days our left overs are predominantly grains, but that wasnt always the case. I dont think its any coincidence that there are parallels in the increase health problems both humans and dogs suffer ie, allergies, skin problems, obesity, behavioural problems, cancer..

Why SHOULD dogs be fine eating a grain based diet? Asides from being designed to cope well with a variety of foods, why should it follow that they can thrive on something really alien to their systems?

After all... most people and a lot of horse owners, would think a horses natural food is lush green grass and grains, and in fact thats not the case.

Their diet ought to be the dry, low sugar scrubland/semi desert grasses, ie tough and low nutritional value. Supplemented with the seeds and grains (far far smaller and lower in starches than todays 'man made' grains) and the odd bit of more succulent stuff they could find.

Its only NOW though that the problems caused by what we feed horses, and dogs, and ourselves is beginning to be understood, and its hard to work out whats right and wrong because the info we need takes money to get hold of.... and hte ones with that money are not interested, it doesnt serve a dog food manufacturers purposes to reveal real evidence that grains are not suitable for dogs.

Mmmmm.........I'll think I'll remain sitting on the fence about all these alleged problems which are caused by food. 

Food is plentiful and abundant in the Western world; there are no shortage which is probably half the problem, too much food and eating, with a sedatory lifestyle and not enough exercise.  A changing environment, (not for the better), resonance, lifestyle, can be just as responsible for health problems as food. 

Here's an interesting one; during scientific studies on heart disease, they found that if they fed the Western diet to primitive societies who practiced their own culture in their home ground there was no increase in heart disease.  If they moved the primitive societies to America and encouraged them to adopt American culture but kept them on their own home diet, heart disease increased.  Mmmm..... I think there is a lot more going on here than food......

>Grains arent good for us either, carbs found in grains, potatos, etc, do us no good at all if we base our diet on them.

We need both simple and complex in our diet and I don't know anyone who eats carbs and nothing else but there may be some people that eat too much simple and not enough complex.

My grandparents were brought up on bread, dripping, and potatoes.  Dripping!! Just think of all that fat.  Money was tight in those days and meat was a luxury that they could rarely afford.  There were no health problems to speak off.  My Grandfather lived until he was 93.  In fact a lot of the Irish were reared on potatoes, myself included. 

My grandparents were brought up on bread, dripping, and potatoes.  Dripping!! Just think of all that fat.   Money was tight in those days and meat was a luxury that they could rarely afford.  There were no health problems to speak off.  My Grandfather lived until he was 93.

same here, I think the difference though is that they worked harder in those days. men walked or cycled to work and worked hard with little mechanical help, or worked in the fields open to all weathers, the women had no 'appliances' of today and washed and cleaned everything by hand. Such a totally different lifestyle to today. Mind you, I wouldn't want to go back to that lifestyle, to harsh.

Yes it was harsh back then, but hard manual labour never hurt anyone.  Keeps one fit :-D 

But the point I'm trying to make is that these people lived today's perception of a somewhat unhealthy diet and they weren't keeling over from heart disease and all the ails we hear of today that are allegedly caused by diet.  This is only 2 generations back mind.  Either the human being has become so vulnerable very quickly that he is adversely affected by his food, the manus are putting something lethal in our grub which I very much doubt :-D, we are not eating properly - input equals output... ie too much food or we are wrong...and it's nothing to do with food and everything to do with lifestyle. 

>it's nothing to do with food and everything to do with lifestyle. 

Agree 100%! :)

e too much food or we are wrong...and it's nothing to do with food and everything to do with lifestyle.

I think it's a mixture of all of it. In the old days people suffered with all sorts of problems with poor diet, they certainly aged faster and if what the experts say is true, they didn't live as long as people today do either.

When I say back then was harsh, I don't mean just the hard work! Poor living conditions, damp, the slums, people ill and dying because they couldnt afford good food, people working when ill because they had to keep the family fed, TB, childhood diseases, cancer, heart disease, lung disease, it was all there. Accidents from unsafe machinery with no compensation for having an arm ripped off, coal miners knowing their work would kill them.

In some ways we live a 'softer' lifestyle, homes are heated to the extent they don't 'breath' anymore, as are offices, people walk round in T shirts at home whereas in my youth we wore jumpers indoors in the winter, food is readily available either by drive by Big mac or home delivery on Pizzas etc. Or just open the deep freeze for ready meals. Our food has changed dramitically from what our grandparents ate, they cooked from scratch and couldn't afford snacks etc, you had your meal and that was it till the next one. Now we have giant bars of choc as normal, huge sacks of packets or crisps, snacks that are loaded with salt and flavours and goodness knows what else, same as some of the ready food/junk food we eat. GM foods are something that was not about back then either.

What is eating properly? It would seem every generation has its own ideas. 'Going to work on an egg' was not allowed recently to be advertised, as its not a nutritionally sound breakfast, yet Nutella on toast is advertised as being a good breakfast aimed at kids! I think as a whole we all have a better idea of what forms a balanced diet, yet the supermarkets and shops are full of giant sized choc bars, packs of things like Mars bars, huge bags of packets of crisps, all of which have become the norm to have in the house when back in my childhood these sizes were not even made.

I really think a mixture of both lifestyles would be ideal, healthy home cooked meals with less fat and salt in the cooking, and a lot more exercise, far less alcohol and 'treats' or snacks.

http://rawfed.com/myths/omnivores.html

No idea on the potato front though!

Skimmed the article Zarah, thanks. 

Cooking breaks down the cellulose in grains though, so they do become more digestible and usable.  Don't think I would do to well trying to digest uncooked rice or wheat either :-) 

I never have understood why people worry about dogs getting "too much" protein when they are definitely optimized to be meat eaters. Or in the case of my two, they are pretty much optimized and happy to eat anything - regardless of food group

i think the amount of grains that are put in commercial foods are more the problem rather than the grain itself. as a dogs digestive system is short most grains are digested at a slower rate so a slow build up of undigested toxins are raised, thus causing an allergic reaction.

removing the grain from the diet for a short period will illiminate the toxins. a slow introduction of the grains should stop an intolerance ( as with humans)

a dogs diet should be planned out over a month, for its nutrition, not per day as we are led to believe by the marketing people, so grains, not being a normal dietery requirment, should be given sparingly.

>i think the amount of grains that are put in commercial foods are more the problem rather than the grain itself.

Exactly! I would rather feed my dogs as close to what nature intended,rather than as far away from it as i can.

>Because dogs do need some form of carbs in some description within processed diets?

There are no set percentages on carbs in a dogs diet,as it is not deemed a necessary nutrient for canines.Ofcourse some carbs in the form of grains wont go astray,especially in hard working dogs,but lets not forget that dogs can, and do derive their energy from fat and protein,and can assimilate it much better in meat form than in grain.

As said above it's the amount of grains and cereals,usually the predominant ingredient,in dry foods that is the problem!

I don't understand; what does grain do to dogs that makes it a problem?

I don't think we can safely say that all modern dogs assimilate their food much better in meat form.  It would be fair to say IMO that some dogs do better on one diet as opposed to another; there are dogs that cannot tolerate red meat, some that can't tolerate raw. Some dogs do better with more carbs in their diet than others, and some do better on grain-free foods with alternative sources.

Protein from an animal source for example is not necessarily superior to a vegetable source, surely biological value, digestibility and a balance of amino acids is far more important. 

I don't honestly believe that this is as black or white, rather different shades of grey. 

There is no proven need for carbohydrates in a dogs diet.  They were not designed to consume processed domesticated grain or potato.

Dogs get their energy from fats.

Animal sourced protein IS superior to that from other sources as it is COMPLETE ie it contains all the essential amino acids.  Soya contains complete protein too but is contraindicated in dogs because it is a thyroid inhibitor and creates gas.

There is nothing NEW about grains not being suitable for dogs, it is just now that people are beginning to realise that all animals do best on species appropriate diets, eg do not feed sheep and poultry to cows etc.

>They were not designed to consume processed domesticated grain or potato.

Not at one time, fair enough....but is it unreasonable to think that a species such as the dog could not develop the necessary digestive capabilities to extract requirements from a food source other than what they were designed to consume at some point in history....

I cannot agree that all modern dogs do best on species appropiate diets, at this moment in time.  Too much involvement with man for too long.  One of mine has an allergy to red meat, she thrives on a high carb, high grain diet and putting her on a species appropriate diet doesn't bear thinking about.

>putting her on a species appropriate diet doesn't bear thinking about.

And my breed has its own particular dietary needs, unlike any other breed. Feed them loads of red meat and offal and you're likely to put their lives in danger. Lots of rice, potato, eggs and dairy produce, however ....

Dogs have only been eating the extremely highly processed, predominantly grain based diets for the last 80 years or so.

Whilst I can appreciate as scavengers they are designed to adapt... thats a very quick adaptation.

I would think its safe to say most food allergies are caused by highly processed foods and grains. And dogs that show allergic reactions to grain based diets are FAR more common than those who show reactions to raw red meat.

There again, there are dogs allergic to tinned dog food meat... but not the raw stuff, and dogs allergic to processed grains but not the fresh stuff.

How much nutrition can a dog get from a ripe ear of corn though, BEFORE its been processed.... from the evidence i see in my dogs poo if they have been at straight grains (which with the menagerie we have here isnt that uncommon)... these go straight through, even now.

I suspect we have adapted grains and our processing of them to 'suit' us and our dogs far more than the other way round.

Spender, with the greatest of respect, your dog in her allergy to red meat is 'abnormal'. Its not grounds to base an opinion of a way of feeding on really.

I do wonder if dogs with a genetic tendancy towards allergies to meat COULD be natures way of adapting the species..

I thin its more to do with the amount of crap that goes into dog food and the amount of processing it goes through though.

> I would think its safe to say most food allergies are caused by highly processed foods and grains. And dogs that show allergic reactions to grain based diets are FAR more common than those who show reactions to raw red meat.

The most common food allergies in dogs are meant to be wheat, beef and dairy products.

Before those 80 years though, what were they eating? Likely to be crap basically and the odd catch. My uncle used to feed his fox from time to time.

I very much doubt that people had money to feed dogs muscle meat; they didn't even have that for themselves.  Like my grandparents, a lot of people round our way fed dog's scraps, bread and milk straight from the cows.  Don't they say that adults dogs can't digest milk? but then on the other side of the coin there are those that say that adult dogs develop the capabilities to digest milk when introduced to it.  Whatever the case, our dogs were healthy enough on it.

But knowing my grandparents dogs that were pretty much left to their own devices when not working, there was nothing they loved better than trawling through the drains and eating the remnants of the byre and cattle sheds. :-D

So what is the dog's appropriate diet?  It could be anything and everything. 

I agree that Shebs' intolerance to red meat is abnormal, bless her, maybe it is a species adaptation.  On saying that, her breeder used to make up his own diet for the dogs largely compromising of carbs and grain.  Her dam was fed on a high crab/grain diet.

Allergies is a strange one and rather than this, that and the other causing allergies, maybe we should be looking at why dogs and us are developing allergies towards our life force, because without food we don't survive.  Is it more to do with a immune weakness/ problems with ourselves rather than what we are exposed too? 

I had food allergies as a child, by the time I was 18, I'd grown out of them; that isn't unusual in children.  If it really is the food then one would expect that allergy to exist for life, surely?

Mmmm.. does depend on your definition of 'crap'..

I wouldnt eat a raw chicken carcass, but my deerhound pup is coming on lovely on a diet containing such things.

We dont eat bones so to our minds a big lump of steak is 'better' than say half a rabbit with all its little fiddly bones in it.

Then our opinions have also changed on offal, where 100 years ago we'd make something edible and useful out of pretty much every part of an animal, most of us turn our noses up these days at offal and even those who dont rarely eat more than liver or kidney.

We have also been educated to believe that simple carbs such as pasta, rice etc are healthy but why is that? It's not actually right, especially when people base their entire diet on it (go round my council estate, see the size and shape of people who eat potato and something, rice and something, pasta and something every single night, and no they arent fat because they are idle, because none of these people have cars, they walk everywhere!).... could it be that these foods we are taught are healthy are not quite so healthy? Certianly not when your diet is heavily based on it.

I have fed commercial, grain based diets to my dogs and I have found it makes them smell bad, scratch, do runny poo's, behave neurotically, and have crap teeth.

Feeding them raw food removes all those symptoms... its easy to see why id think its a better way of feeding.

Ive done similar for myself, ive stopped eating bread, pasta, rice, grains, potatos, and wow... i feel better, i have more energy, i have no headaches or acid indigestion, i sleep better....

I want to feed my dogs the BEST diet there is for them, not the one that will 'do', but the best i can achieve. For me thats raw meat, veg, bones, offal, fish, and no grains. I am fortunate to be sufficiently well off that i dont need to bulk my dogs diet out with cheap fillers and waste products.

We know dogs can survive on seriously poor diets, but should we rely on that if we don't have to?

We know human beings can survive on a few handfuls of rice a day... bet you don't want to though!

"We have also been educated to believe that simple carbs such as pasta, rice etc are healthy but why is that? It's not actually right, especially when people base their entire diet on it (go round my council estate, see the size and shape of people who eat potato and something, rice and something, pasta and something every single night, and no they arent fat because they are idle, because none of these people have cars, they walk everywhere!).... could it be that these foods we are taught are healthy are not quite so healthy? Certianly not when your diet is heavily based on it"

People get fat from carbs because of the amount of fat they eat with them.  Chips, not plain boiled or baked potato.  Chips with pasta bol.  Chips with fish dipped in flour coating and fried in a vat of oil.  Jcket potato loaded with beans and cheese.  Rice swimming in creamy or greasy curry sauce.  For some reason, a plain jacket potato or plain boiled brown rice and lightly stir fried veg does not have the same appeal! :rolleyes:

Moderation is the key.  At least IMO for my dogs that means limiting the amount of processed food they consume; although I don't feed raw and I do feed some grain.

Not me... i get fat from teh carbs, they are converted to sugar which i then store as fat as i am insulin resistant (as are a VAST number of people who dont know that yet)..

I know this because if i eat veg, fruit, meat, FAT (lumps of cheese, greasy bacon, butter, cream), i lose weight.

So no, its not the fat that goes with the carbs. Nor am i starving or doing the crazy atkins diet either. Carbs especially rice, pasta, grains make me really quite ill. And fat.

Emma

Just a question then on this :)

I love my carbs (eat brown rice, wholemeal pasta and bread) so if I was to cut them out I would miss them :rolleyes: How do you get over this as would feel something was missing in my life :D :D

I need to loose some weight (damaged vertebrae) and have found it very difficult. The last lot of solid regular excercise I was able to do was for about three months. I lost a few pounds but that was it :rolleyes::rolleyes: It is very frustrating and very demoralising. I think if I cut the carbs down it would help :)

Lucy
xx

>eat brown rice, wholemeal pasta and bread

>I think if I cut the carbs down it would help

No question it would help! :) IMO

Depends on how overweight you are. If you are roughly the weight you are meant to be (ie the weight your body likes not the weight the media sez you oughta be), then cutting out those carbs wont do much.

At first I struggled because eating bread or potatoes, rice or pasta or grains with every meal is pretty ingrained into me (into all of us id think).

Now, well i feel that much better without it, and a slip back to old ways brings on horrific headaches and indigestion.. its fairly easy not to.

You'll also find there are some carbs that do make you feel ill (the ill feeling is your blood sugar levels swinging around wildly due to incorrect insulin production), and some dont.

For me, a croissant wont kill me... a bowl of oat krunchies or a few slices of toast and i feel horrible.

If you do have weight to lose, then cut out all the carbs (and the overly sugary veg/fruit, so no root veg, no pineapple or grapes or bananas, but things like peppers, celery, tomatoes, beans, peas, and apples, oranges, pears, plums etc... all good.)

When you get to your goal weight, re introduce certain carbs you think you will be ok with, so porridge oats is often a good one, (whereas Crunchy Nut Cornflakes is probably not.. lol).

You may well be ok with a wide variety of carbs  and if you keep them to a small portion, say 10 or 15% of whats on your plate, with the rest being protein and veggies, the weight oughta stay off.

It wont (not suggesting you are..) let you go uber thin below whats right for your body though...

I am going to have a go but will find it very difficult The problem is when you love certain foods, bread and pasta it will be very difficult not to eat it :rolleyes:

It is the Carbs that i missed and felt most deprived about when I have lost weight.  never managed to keep weight off for more than a year after loosing it, but mainly because I am a binger and comfort eater rather than just  a carb junkie.

Manure, excretment, insects, contents of bins, sewage, stale mouldy bread, spoiled food etc, etc is what I mean by crap.  But dogs are scavengers and that's what dogs do given half the chance.  I'm not saying that was our dogs diet, of course not, but it was part of it.  They were keen on potatoes too.

>We have also been educated to believe that simple carbs such as pasta, rice etc are healthy but why is that? It's not actually right, especially when people base their entire diet on it (go round my council estate, see the size and shape of people who eat potato and something, rice and something, pasta and something every single night, and no they arent fat because they are idle, because none of these people have cars, they walk everywhere!)....

Isn't it more about eating too much high calorie food; without enough exercise?  It's quite simple, too much input and not enough output, same applies to dogs.  (Unless certain metabolic conditions exist that causes weight gain of course)  We are not blaming carbs for making people overweight, surely???  Well, we can I suppose, if they are laden with high calorie sauces and other things.

You'll find that people in the developing world base their diet on rice, they're not exactly overweight. 

>Moderation is the key.

Couldn't agree more!

>We know dogs can survive on seriously poor diets, but should we rely on that if we don't have to?

What is a poor diet?  Surely that varies on who believes what?  Some dogs do better on this, that and the other.  But I'd rather feed my dog a food that agrees with him or her, a food that he or she thrives on regardless of what I believe, cos let's face it our beliefs seem to change with every generation that passes.   If it aint broke, don't fix it.  There are people that make a decision to feed their dog what they believe is the best diet only for it not to agree with their dog; there's nothing to gain in that. 

>We know human beings can survive on a few handfuls of rice a day... bet you don't want to though!

Isn't it great that we have so much choice?  :-D There are many in this world that haven't.  If there was nothing else, we'd all be more than happy for a few handfuls of rice a day; it's better than nothing!

>I very much doubt that people had money to feed dogs muscle meat; they didn't even have that for themselves.

Certainly back in the days when a piece of meat was a once-a-week luxury, with left-overs having to be stretched in various ways to last as long as possible, the family pet dog certainly didn't get to even sniff very much of it! They lived to good ages on their scraps of what could be spared for them; and there wasn't the problem of canine obesity that there is now!

Funny that both humans and canines become more obese with the increase in dependance on high carb diets...

No, people in developing countries are extremely unhealthy and yet still have huge pot bellies... could it be the bloating effect of eating large quantities of rice/grains and not a lot else... mm.

They eat this because its cheap, and they suffer the consequences. Sadly i see children on my estate that are stick arms and legs and fat round tummies, and they live on chips and pasta with nothing on it. Scary parallel to draw but thats what ive seen.

Actually, re weight v exercise... there was a recent article (ill find the link if anyone wants it) seriously casting doubt on the concept that exercise is particularly useful in reducing weight. The more you exercise, the more you need to eat (i DO need to read it again).

The concept that lots of exercise was 'the thing' to deal with weight was one leapt at by just one person and it suited the media of the time and the bandwagon was jumped on... theres v little actual proof of it if memory of the article serves me correctly.

Too many calories depends on where the calories come from far more than we currently believe.

We dont even understand our own diets, and we believe a lot of stuff we are told without any real evidence for it.

There was a time smoking was considered good for you, we know thats not right now though!

Price i think is the main consideration we have towards our own food and our dogs food these days - and convenience. If there was a grain free dog food you could easily dole out.. and it was cheaper than one with grain in it... would you feed it?

The thing is, i find it infinately cheaper to feed raw food, so that and the evident improvement in my dogs health is all im really bothered about.
The fact that dogs CAN survive on complete rubbish .... well thats nice for them but i want my dogs fit healthy and shiny, not scrawny fleabitten bags of bones like the feral dogs you see who do scavenge for a  living.

If i wanted to feed NATURALLY, as in completely naturally.. then thats what id have, but i dont, i want to feed to the maximum benefit of my dogs.

For my dogs, thats grain free.. and i have five completely different breeds so its not as if my breed are better wihtout grains than others...

>Funny that both humans and canines become more obese with the increase in dependance on high carb diets...

Funny that, historically in the West and today in undeveloped countries, the fat people were/are the rich ones who can afford a higher proportion of meat in their diets and not rely on carbs as their staple diet.

recent article (ill find the link if anyone wants it)

Yes please :)

>there was a recent article (ill find the link if anyone wants it) seriously casting doubt on the concept that exercise is particularly useful in reducing weight. The more you exercise, the more you need to eat

Just the excuse the couch potatoes love! ;) It's on a par with "It's my glands" ...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2198862,00.html

If it was in the Sun, i might have thought that JG... but it wasnt.

>Funny that both humans and canines become more obese with the increase in dependance on high carb diets...

I eat a high carb/grain diet, moderate exercise and have been 8 1/2 stone, size 10 for the past 20 years...

>No, people in developing countries are extremely unhealthy and yet still have huge pot bellies... could it be the bloating effect of eating large quantities of rice/grains and not a lot else... mm.

Or lack of food, malnutrition and starvation, bless them :-(

>The more you exercise, the more you need to eat (i DO need to read it again).

More exercise increases hunger and less activity decreases hunger which I do actually agree with and find my own food intake varies very much on what my activity levels are like, Dogs too.  Eat more in winter than in summer and that makes sense because we need fuel to generate more heat in winter and in balance, that should keep both species at their natural body weight (providing we cut out the extremes of central heating and don't overeat).      

I've read the theory that if we do heavy exercise and reduce our calorie intake, we will lose muscle mass.  If we lose muscle mass, we lose the ability to burn calories and this results in lower metabolism and we gain weight very easily. 

I suppose if we went on a starvation diet and exercised heavily and then went back to eating normally, we would encounter weight gain.  Too little calorie intake can create cravings as well.  The trick I suppose is to get one's metabolism, food intake and exercise on a balanced even keel and stay at a healthy average weight.  Again it's balance.

In all honestly, I take note of what you say but I'm not convinced that Carbs are the culprit behind weight gain, maybe for some they are due to medical conditions I don't know, although it is not unreasonable to think that Carbs coupled with modern lifestyle can be a contributing factor.  Carbs by themselves aren't going to cause obesity.  Add the toppings, modern lifestyle, couch potato syndrome, chaotic eating, overeating, stress, etc, etc on top, and I don't doubt that the combination can be enough to lead to weight gain.   That still doesn't mean that eliminating carbs from one's diet means that one is not going to be overweight.  

Similarly, eating a diet high in protein which I understand is the principle behind the Akins diet isn't a good thing either.  Isn't red meat supposed to be linked to Cancer?  Bacon and Ham aren't supposed to be good for us either.  I suppose if we believed everything the scientist's throw at us about food, we wouldn't eat anything. :rolleyes:

... and neither would our dogs eat anything if we paid attention to all the advice from all quarters! 

Some raw feeders believe any other approach is not natural, unhealthy and the cause of all sorts of ailments in dogs; others believe that feeding raw is the road to broken teeth, food poisoning and intestinal impactions; and still others believe that anything they throw at their dogs - be it the cheapest supermarket dog food, a raw chicken gone off, or a leftover cooked pork chop bone is fine. 

We all do the best that we can - and at least for me if I was as careful about what I fed by dogs as I feed me; I'd be a lot healthier for it. :rolleyes:

When kibble is made, it has to have some carb content in it to bind it.  So you'll see the JWB and Orijen grain-free kibble being made with cooked potato instead. So whether it's needed or not, is another matter!!  You just have to read John Burns stance on how dog's digestion has evolved to process complex carbs but on the hand listen to the BARF people who don't agree at all. At then end of the day, most of us are not experts in canine digestion or food scientists, so I think the best bet is to buy a kibble or wet food which you trust to have had some thought put into it. I've had my dog on Arden Grange (he went off this), Burns (runny poos later in day), Naturediet salmon and fish ones (he got colitis), and now fish4dogs (no prob but made with potato)

I'm told BARF is easy - eg just meat and two veg but then you can get all sorts of powders as supplements etc.. Bit confusing for me.

I do half raw feeding and it suits me cos I dont need to worry about the balance thing so they get complete/mixer in the mornings and then a full raw food meal in the evenints - the change after adding in the raw food has been amazing.