The Ultimate Raw meat Evolution Dog Food Diet – balanced with Minerals & Vitamins

The previous Ultimate dog food article described in detail how to calculate a dogs food energy needs and how to calculate the amount of meat and offal to use as dog food.

It was shown that a meat (offal and bone) only diet (like a grain only diet) will not meet the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) minimum requirements for a food to be called ‘complete and balanced.’

This article looks at what kinds of vitamins and minerals would be needed to be added to a raw meat (evolutionary) diet if an owner wished to feed raw, while still meeting aafco guidelines.

Previously I had been feeding my dog exclusively raw meat and offal/ bones, however the reference book made the case for including carbs at least for formation of stools and the fibre is used by the intestine wall cells as an energy source.

This has prompted me to alter my dogs diet to 80% raw meat (offal and bones) and 20% kibble.

The nutrition effects of this are discussed in the previous article. This article looks at what vitamin and mineral supplements would need to be added to such a diet to achieve the aafco minimum standards. It is noted that aafco standards were mostly created with kibble and grain diets in mind, so they might be excessive for a raw meat diet.

The reference (ref 1) has concerns about a raw meat diet being “low in calcium; phosphorus; sodium; iron; copper; iodine; several  essential vitamins.” And it is true that compared to the aafco standard, these nutrients are low.

Meat mostly meets the aafco standard for amino acids (protein mix) so this article looks specifically at the required vitamins and minerals.

Nutrients in a beef based raw dog food diet V aafco & NCA standards.

In the previous article I created an example raw diet that included:

Wet weight percentage: 50% meat (beef chuck steak) + 16% lamb heart, + 2% beef liver + 12% Lamb Kidney + 7% chicken Syuncsacrum (bone) + EFA’s + 7% kibble

There are many other type of meat and offal that you could include, this is just an example.

Because the amino acids are mostly met by this diet, this article concentrates on the multivitamins and minerals in such a diet.

The NCA standards of 1985 formed the basis for the new aafco standards. Both of these are shown in the first three columns of the table.

The next column is the nutrients that the meat components contribute (excluding kibble). The last two columns shows whether the meat meal is above or below the aafco and NCA standards.

The cells in RED show values where this specific meat diet are below the aafco and NCA standard.

 

VITAMIN AND MINERAL SUPPLEMENTS IN THE ULTIMATE MEAT DOG DIET

This article does not validate the AAFCO tables (that were created mostly for manufacturers who make kibble (grain based meals)), however for the 97% of people who put their trust in manufactured dog food, then this is a necessary step in providing confidence around the new raw meat based diet.

The only way for grains or this meat based diet to meet aafco standards is by using vitamin and mineral supplements. The two types of vitamin and mineral supplements chosen for analysis are:

• Carnivore Blend (BalanceIT)

• Vetbasix

The reason that these two were chosen are that from my searching of the web, the Carnivore Blend (USA made) seems to be the only dog supplement that explicitly was created for complementing a carnivore dog diet.

The Vetbasix product is available in Australia.

The following table shows the AAFCO minimum adult maintenance standard for dogs and how it can be achieved with supplements.

Following the aafco minimum values column, I compare the Vetbasix product in raw mg column and a column converted to the same units as the aafco standard.

The next column refers to one tablespoon of Carnivore Blend (CB) product, CB converted to aafco units.

The TOTAL column (second last) shows the vitamin and mineral nutrients of the above Raw meat diet PLUS CB product, and the final column shows if the meat plus CB product results in meeting the aafco standard.

A RED negative number indicates how much the meat PLUS CB product falls short of the aafco standards.

 

As you can see from the above table, the CB blend (one tablespoon) almost meets the aafco standard. This is analysed more completely below.

VetBasix Vitamin Supplement Analysis

The bottle dosage message says dogs 10 kg – 30 kg should have two tablets. The calculations in the table are for one tablet only, which is converted to the AAFCO units.

There are only FOUR minerals: calcium phosphate/ dicalcium phosphate, Iron sulfate, Copper sulfate, zinc sulfate in the Vetbasix supplement, plus some vitamins. You will notice that many of the forms of compounds added to kibble are in the form of sulfates too.

The issue for comparison to AAFCO tables, is that AAFCO includes eleven minerals in their mandatory requirements.

One of the good things about the Vetbasix vitamin mix is that it includes calcium as two types: calcium phosphate/ di-calcium phosphate. Since literature suggests that it is important that the Ca to Phosphorus ratio is between one and two, this addition of calcium phosphorus compounds helps ensure that at least the Ca and P additives are close to the right ratio.

Iron Sulfate: “dried ferrous sulfate has 50mg elemental iron per 160mg”  Vetbasix has  20mg Iron sulfate, so in two tablets there are 40 x 50/160 = 12.5 mg iron.

The minimum AAFCO Iron requirement is 80 mg/kg. in 180 mg dry dog food, the iron supplement would be equivalent to   12.5 x (1000/180) =  69 mg/kg which is close to the requirement.

Copper Sulfate: there is 54.2% copper in CuS. The tablets have 0.06 mg CuS.

Therefore the AAFCO equivalent of Copper is  0.54 x  0.06 mg x 2 (tabs) x (1000/180) =   3.6 mg/kg

The AAFCO Cu requirement min is 7.3 mg/kg. The NCA standard however is 2.9 mg/kg

Zinc Sulfate (ZnSO4):   110 mg (25 mg elemental zinc)

This vitamin has 0.5 mg. That means AAFCO equivalent (two tabs) = 25/110 x 0.5mg x 2 x (1000/180) = 1.26 mg / kg  (AAFCO min is 120 mg/kg)

Vitamin A, retinol Acetate = 0.5 mg. T Vitamin D, 0.0075 mg Vitamin E, 0.25mg ARE ALL at insignificant levels.

Carnivore Blend (CB) Analysis

For a price this company will also provide you with a dog diet plan, that naturally includes the use of their product.

Most values on the ingredient list are in mg or g. Convert all units to mg.

Mineral conversions (%)

The carnivore blend (CB) values are in mg of a tablespoon quantity. As many of the first minerals in the AAFCO tables are expressed as a % requirement. We need to calculate the amount of mineral in a tablespoon of CB  as a % of the dry food weight of my dogs diet (approximately 180g).

For instance if the dry food weight is 180g.

Then 0.503 g Calcium =   503 mg

And as a percentage =  (503/ 180,000) x 100 = 0.279 %

The AAFCO calcium % requirement is in the range 0.6 – 2.5%  As you can see, bones as part of a raw diet will be needed to reach the minimum of this range even including one tablespoon of CB powder.

Mineral conversions (mg/kg)

The majority of AAFCO values are stated in this unit of measure (mg/kg).

For instance, AAFCO iron requirement is 80 – 3000 mg/kg.  The NCA value was 31.9 mg/kg

One tablespoon of CB powder has 6.660 mg of Iron.

For this particular diet, this is equivalent to  6.6 x (1000/ 180)  =  36.6 mg/kg Dry food.

NOTE that this exceeds the minimum NCA value, however is less than the new AAFCO minimum value. As a similar level of Iron is provided by the raw diet, the combined raw diet components plus the CB tablespoon also exceeds the minimum AAFCO value.

CB VITAMINS equivalents (IU/kg)

The FOUR main vitamin classes listed by AAFCO are vitamin A – Retinol, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, and the Vitamin B series.

Interestingly a raw meat diet mostly covers the whole Vitamin B range, however seems not to achieve minimum requirements of the AAFCO standard for Vitamin A, D and E. In Data tables the cells next to these vitamins are typically empty or have a tilde symbol in them, meaning unmeasurable.

And while the Vitamin E units are relatively simple (using mg/kg) Vitamin A, D and E use IU/kg – a unit that most vitamin supplements need to be converted into (as they are usually in mg units).

Vitamin A– “Each ?g RAE corresponds to 1 ?g retinol”

AAFCO requirement Vitamin A Retinol (IU/kg) range = 5000 to 250,000.  NCD value = 3710

CB amount in one tablespoon = 177.070  mcg_RAE

1 micro gram = 1 mcg. Thus 177 mcg CB Vitamin A =  177 x ( 1000/ 180) = 983 IU/kg

Note LIVER is a very high source of Vitamin A. 100g Beef liver can contain 168,990 IU/kg (wet weight). However since Liver usually only makes up a small percentage of the overall diet the combination of Vitamin A from liver and CB only reaches 3,700 IU/kg – which as you will see is VERY close to the old NCA standard.

VITAMIN D

AAFCO requirement Vitamin D (IU/kg) range = 500 to 5,000.  NCA value = 404

CB amount in one tablespoon = 51.284  IU  Therefore in this diet. Vitamin D =  51.284 x (1000/180) =  288 IU/kg

Beef liver is said to have 160 IU/kg (wet weight)

VITAMIN E

AAFCO requirement Vitamin E (IU/kg) range = 50 to 1,000.  NCA value = 22

Vitamin E : 1 IU is the biological equivalent of about 0.667 mg d-alpha-tocopherol

So   1 mg =  1.5 IU.   CB amount in one tablespoon = (alpha-tocopherol) =27.404 mg

27.404 mg =   27.404 x 1.5 x ( 1000 / 180 ) = 225  IU / kg  (exceeds minimum AAFCO )

There is very little Vitamin E in any of the raw meat components.

 

DISCUSSION

From the first table you can see that many of the cells values in the last column are negative and red. Whereas one tablespoon of CB powder (in the second table) almost reaches all of the aafco minimum standards for an adult dog maintenance diet.

Because this diet includes 20% kibble that is ‘complete and balanced’ as per aafco standards, it means that any nutrient that is within 20% of the minimum value will essentially meet the value (meat plus kibble plus CB supplement).

For any value that is much below the aafco mark, it is worth referring to the NCA values in table one. For instance Copper requires an aafco value of 7.3 mg/kg while the NCA standard is only 2.9 mg/kg.  The second table shows that meat plus CB achieves a value of nearly 4 mg/kg.

It is unclear as to why the NCA values where changed so much when they were used by aafco. Raw feeders feel that the aafco values are unnecessary high and are only so high to account for the lower nutrient uptake of synthetic mineral compositions, rather than those that occur naturally in meat based foods.

Another important question is why copper is required in the first place, and why it is missing in meat.

A future article reviews the effects of vitamin and mineral deficiencies and excesses.

The question about meat and offal in this diet plan only being 1.78 mg/kg compared to the aafco standard of 7.3 mg/kg might be to do with over-farming of land. The reason being that animals that are used as dog (or human) meat (cows, chickens etc) mainly accumulate copper from the plants they eat. If copper is not freely available in the soil, then it will not be in the plants or the animal that eats the food.

Of course these nutrition tables are based on the analysis of animals in certain parts of the USA, but are believed to be representative of the general global situation.

The only way to really know what nutrients are in your specific meats, would be to know where the meats come from, and perform detailed chemical analysis on the specific meats.

CONCLUSIONS

This article acts as an adjunct to the main Ultimate Raw dog diet article.

A subsequent article I have created looks at how to use human grade vitamins and Minerals for dogs.

This current article relates specifically to an example diet of: Wet weight percentage: 50% meat (beef chuck steak) + 16% lamb heart + 2% beef liver + 12% Lamb Kidney + 7% chicken Syuncsacrum (bone) + EFA’s + 7% kibble.

The table in that Ultimate Raw dog diet article’s Appendix can be used to form the basis of a spreadsheet that can be used to calculate the energy values and nutrients available in any raw dog food diet. You will need to do that and the supplement information in this article together in calculating total nutrients.

This article was created to show that if you believe in the aafco standards that all manufactured dog foods are judged, then by using a commercial DOG vitamin and mineral supplement, you can achieve a similar minimum nutrient level.

Factors such as cost and disguising the taste of the supplement will also need to be considered, as well as ensuring that you do not exceed any safe limits for vitamins and minerals. The AAFCO guidelines show the maximum values for the nutrients they believe should not be exceeded.

Be aware that out of all of the nutrients the Ca to P ratio of between one and two is considered critical. This will be affected by how many bones you feed your dog, as well as the Calcium or Phosphorus in the supplements.

It appears from the other supplements that I reviewed that many dog supplements seem to be made for adding to a commercial dog food, and only contain a few minerals and a subset of the vitamins, in small amounts. If you are going to feed your dog a raw diet, it is suggested that you find a supplement that is made to complement a meat and offal diet, not a kibble diet.

The next article looks at what the side effects of both deficiency or excess of vitamins and minerals cause in dogs.

Note that this example is for a diet for a healthy five year old 20 kg dog. If you are considering using a raw food diet, and any nutrient supplements, it is suggested that you discuss your plan with your vet.

 

Article by Bruce Dwyer. If you wish to use any of this information please refer to the article as a reference and provide a link to https://www.healthydogtreats.com.au

Join our FREE HEALTHY DOG TREATS Newsletter for Discount COUPONS. (use rego form top LEFT of this site)

If you would like to view the world of a dog walker and get healthy dog treat specials then please LIKE HDT on Facebook

 

Reference

Ref 1  Canine and Feline Nutrition  Case et al 3rd edition

Ref 2  Carnivore Blend supplement is from balanceit dot com