What are cereals in dog food?
Cereals found in Dog Food can include Wheat, Rice, Oats, Barley, and other cereals. Some popular Dog Foods are made up by around 70% cereal, which makes the recipe incredibly vague and makes the recipe liable to being contaminated by Aflatoxin and Mycotoxins alike. As the type of cereal isn’t specified, the grain source is also able to change between batches. Whilst the term can encompass high quality grains, it’s safer to assume the worst and avoid food with the term ‘Cereal’.
Some Mycotoxins, such as Aflatoxin, are already in certain crops – such as Corn, Wheat, Barley, Rye – before going into production and are then scanned to try and prevent the mycotoxins from going into the dog food being produced. Despite this, it makes dog foods high in cereal more likely to contain these toxins, so low levels of cereals or none at all within dog food is best.
Cereals supply a slow-releasing digestible energy to dogs, and can be close to 100% digestible in cases such as cooked Starch. Uncooked Starch on the other hand is largely indigestible to pets and would pass straight through your dog, which highlights the importance of having or not having certain cereals in a dog’s diet cooked in a certain way. This is due to the complex nature of uncooked Starch not being able to be broken down completely due to dogs having less Amylase compared to herbivores, so it therefore cannot be fully broken down and absorbed in the digestive tract. This means that the unbroken Starch has to pass through the digestive system in the form of a loose stool.
What is a good alternative dog food?
Grain-free Dog Food cut out the cereals, and normally gluten too, in pet food and are normally hypoallergenic so is a good alternative for Dogs with allergies that have symptoms ranging from upset stomachs to itchy and flaky skin. Cereals within Dog Food have been linked to causing allergies to grain, therefore causing an increased production of grain-free food to meet demands. Most grain-free foods also contain more higher-quality protein and more digestible fats with less carbohydrates – meaning that Grain-free foods are able to control and maintain your dog’s weight better than a normal dog food.
Cereals are not an essential nutrient or ingredient for dogs either, they can just be metabolised fairly easily. Avoiding foods with the term ‘Cereal’ wouldn’t harm your dog – if anything, it would result in needing to feed your dog less, meaning you’d need to buy food less often. It would also mean that a Dog’s stool would be more firm and would be passed less frequently – which is always a benefit to Dog Owners. However, grain-free food is normally more expensive as the cost needs to include more expensive and better-sourced ingredients as well as an alternative energy source, but Dogs do tend to enjoy eating Grain-Free food more so than normal Dog Food.
Team Shanklinpets