What does the science say about how much protein your kin needs?

Recent research shows that our canine kin are getting too little protein and too many carb-based calories, making a weak body at the cellular level. 

In Steven Brown’s helpful book, Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet, he lays out this research. Here’s the goals for our kin meal management based on the research (book page 6):

• • • • 85-90% protein from meat/fish/eggs
      • 10-15% vegetation

What’s up with popular and easily available dog food brands?

If I don’t want to eat the ingredients, why would I feed them to any of my kin? 

When corn, sorghum, wheat, and meat/animal “by-product” or “meal” are in the ingredients — especially the first few ingredients — ask yourself to imagine all of the left over factory farming materials going into bags and cans for feeding our pups. 

These low quality, even sometimes toxic, food-like substances are a means for finding a way to make money on these left overs from large corporate establishments. Even mold is found in some of these brands. 

The Aim: Don’t starve your kin with too little protein and/or don’t give your kin food-like substances scraped from a factory floor that also starves kin of nutrition. 

What can you do that’s easy?

Look at the nutrition and ingredients label on the bag or canned dog food:

Step 1: If the protein amount is below 85%, then either find a different option or add a quality collagen or whey protein powder to make up the difference.

and/or 

Step 2: If you don’t find that the ingredients are delicious for human consumption, then either find a different option or make some dog food at home (i.e. we will have a future blog on this option).

Same concerns for “organic” dog food brands?

Even if the word “organic” shows up on the marking word choices for bag or canned dog food, check out the ingredients. Are there left over food-like substances in the product (e.g. “chicken meal”)? Then rethink that brand.  Also, is the protein meeting the goal of 85-90%? Use the same two steps as above.

What about making dog food at home?

Some studies find that we forget to include enough protein in homemade meals. In this study, as much as 76% of examined meals were deficient in the Recommended Amount (RA) of protein.

Moral of this homemade story: Make sure you’re not accidentally starving your kin from the protein she needs to live healthy and long. The grass fed collagen protein powder idea above applies here, too.