Added Sugar Dog Treat Is Bad

Did you know that carbohydrates are basically mostly sugar? Did you know that carbs typically make up 60-90% of the dry matter of the plant and that commercial dog food is between 70 -80 % grains.

Polysaccharides are the main carbohydrate found in most corporate dog foods (starch, glycogen,  dextrin and dietary fibre).  And did you know that cereal grains such as wheat, rice,  corn, sorghum, barley and are the main ingredients in most dog food.

Now that we are all caught up, you should realise that by feeding your dog commercial dog food, you are mostly feeding them sugar.  And that reason alone is a good reason not to feed your dog more carbs or sugar dog treats.

This is why I often steer people away from buying dog biscuits. Yes we sell them, and they are the healthiest dog biscuits on the market, but they are still wheat based, just like dog food.

The reason that some nutrition sites say that adding straight sugar to a recipe is bad, is that the carbs contain enough already. Sugar is very easily converted to fat in a dog and humans body and excess sugar can lead to obesity or diabetes anyone.

The reason that most dog treats companies add a lot of sugar to any mix is that its the simplest way of disguising the bland grain taste and getting a dog addicted to the treat.

How much sugar is in the typical dog treat?

Dog treats, like dog food, don’t list the percentage of any ingredient.  They list them just in order of percentage of the ingredient, but by ‘ingredient splitting’  the total amount of any one class of ingredients like carbs or sugar can be disguised.

If a dog treat has sugar as the first ingredient you should definitely avoid it.  Many of the non-meat dogs treat on the market have sugar listed as the second and third, or third and fourth ingredient BUT when combined they make up the highest percentage total ingredient.

This is why I always recommend that MEAT is the first or first and second ingredient.  Did you know that one very economical and great source of meat we sell is “dog meatball treats”.

We list the ingredients that they are made from on our site: “ Beef & Chicken Meat, Wheat flour, water, sugar, salt”

Firstly we know that meat makes up over 80% of the dog treat. So the second highest ingredient wheat has to be less than 20%. You will also see here that sugar and salt make up the fifth and sixth ingredient. They are added to enhance the taste but not to make up the bulk of the treat. As they are less than the water content (in a dry treat) they are in tiny amounts.

We always recommend meat for a dog as besides adding energy (instead of carbs or sugar) they provide vital maintenance and growth functions for the dogs cells.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to feed my dog filler or cheap ingredients or anything that disguises real flavours and nutrition. That is the philosophy of the products in our range.