All of the dog food brands on the shelf claim to be nutritionally complete and balanced, so how do you tell which foods are good for your dog and which are not? The fact is, there are foods on the shelf that are not the best choice for your dog. To avoid these foods you need to know what ingredients to avoid in a dog food.
Corn
There is no nutritional value to adding corn to a dog food. All it does is add shelf weight to the food. Most dogs don’t digest corn easily. It can cause gas and stomach upset, For this reason you should avoid any dog food with corn in it. This includes corn meal. You will be surprised what a difference it will make in your dog to cut corn out of his diet.
Soy
Most dogs are allergic to soy so having soy in their dog food is not good. If a dog food doesn’t have soy it will usually advertise it on the front of the bag. Soy can affect the condition of your dog’s coat and it can cause stomach upset.
By-products
You want the first ingredient of your dog’s food to be a meat. Chicken, lamb, beef, duck, turkey, they are all acceptable. What you don’t want is a meat by-product. By-product is the left over scarps of meat and the quality of the meat is questionable.
Preservatives
To extend the shelf life of your pet’s food suppliers must add a preservative. That being said, not all preservatives are good for your dog. Ideally, you want to choose a food that is preserved with vitamin C or E. There are a few preservatives you absolutely want to avoid. First you want to avoid ethoxyquin. This is not just a preservative it is a pesticide and a hardening agent.
There are two more preservatives you should steer clear of when selecting a dog food. One is BHA or butylated hydroxyanisole. The other is butylated hydroxytoluene or BHT. The World Health Organization has named both of these ingredients as cancer causing compounds.
At the end of the day the most important thing you can do is read the ingredient label. You might even choose to add chicken flavored protein powder to their diet. Most dog foods will label themselves as nutritionally complete, but the ingredient label will tell you if that is actually true.