Could A Plant Based Diet Be Beneficial For Your Dog?

Public opinion on vegan pet food was once firmly on the resistance side of the dog park fence, but times are a-changing.

Plant-based pet foods are rapidly developing, driven by distrust of conventional pet foods and concerns about their impacts on pets, farmed animals and the environment.

But are plant-based pet foods nutritionally sound?

Can vegan dog food really be palatable? And finally, what could be the benefits of switching your dog to a plant-based diet?

What I feed my dog

I used to positively hesitate in the pet shop as I made my way to the till clutching my bag of lamb and rice kibble, knowing full well that my dog Kizzy would eat anything as long as it was delicious - whether a lamb had been anywhere near it or not, writes David Ferguson.

My dad still buys lamb in the supermarkets and is resolute in his belief that it is not the same as the lamb he sees in fields when in the countryside.

Happily for people like me who accept those lambs are one and the same, but don’t like it - the plant-based market is now exploding for both humans and our pets.

Plant-based diet for dogs

Increasing nutritional knowledge and food science advances have allowed us to create nutritionally sound products without meat... that may also be much better for your dog than what he’s been eating up to now.

As a brief starter into the topic, recent studies have shown that vegan pet foods are generally at least as palatable to dogs and cats as conventional meat or raw meat diets.

And at almost all stages within the formulation, manufacturing and distribution processes, surveyed companies had acceptable or superior standards overall, with plant-based diets slightly superior to meat-based diets.

Quality of nutrients

OK, so that’s good news so far! Let’s delve a little deeper. Any dog food (whether meat-based or vegan) making up more than 5% of your dog’s diet, should really have a label stating it is ‘complete’.

This means that the food contains specific nutrients at levels above a minimum and sometimes below a certain maximum; set by FEDIAF, the trade body representing the European pet food industry.

Great, the right nutrients at the right levels on the back of the pack and labelled ‘complete’ - sounds good, right?

But here’s the kicker: It’s also about the quality of those nutrients - it is about digestibility and availability of those nutrients to the canine body.

Much of this will depend on the processing that has happened to those ingredients - before even the formulation stage assessed by the recent study mentioned above. This is not information that is on the back of the pack. This is where we have to think.

The cooking process

The origin of meat that is used in the vast majority of dog food - the ‘meat and animal derivatives’ you may find on the ingredients list - is really as vague as its name suggests.

The offcuts of many species at an abattoir are mixed and transported to a high-heat rendering plant, where processing temperatures are so high, it splits this vat of mix of species offcuts into two main products - meat & bonemeal (MBM).

This is otherwise known as ‘meat and animal derivatives’ - and fat. These two are bought by animal feed companies and added separately into food according to respective recipes.

The question on everyone’s lips is - can it be healthy for dogs to eat proteins in MBM that are rendered at these temperatures, likely denatured - and go through another cooking process before it is canned or bagged.

Can we reasonably expect that protein to not be altered, be available to our dogs' systems, and can we reasonably expect that protein to be ‘good’ for our dogs?

But we need the high-heat rendering process you may say! Lucy, don’t you remember that we fed MBM to our cows - for decades - and ended up with the BSE crisis?

Yes, reader, you are of course correct! We did give cows ground-up cow central nervous system to eat in their feed as it was cheaper than conventional feed.

The current high-heat rendering process was brought in after the BSE crisis to ensure the denaturation of prion proteins found in infected central nervous tissue, now accepted as the causative agent of Transmissible Spongiform Encelopalopathys (TSEs) - like BSE and vCJD.

So, rendering seems necessary in order to eliminate or reduce the risk of TSEs to the animals it is fed to (and us if we are to eat the animals).

Environmental impact of prime cuts

OK, I don’t want any more mixed offcut MBM for my dog you may cry! My dog is my child, members of the family more than ever before (and rightly so); they should receive premium cuts of meat like those that enter the human food chain.

And I would pay more to know they were eating less processed, un-rendered meat - no offcuts needed! But this also creates a problem - if we go back to my little lamb from the start;

Many, many more like her would need to be slaughtered so that our ever-growing numbers of domesticated dogs can eat prime cuts - resulting in increased landmass use and environmental impact of livestock not to mention huge offcut wastage.

With the growing number of premium vegan dog foods available you can now feed in alignment with your ethics.

Owners often report improved stool consistency, an improvement in coat and increased energy levels from a switch to plant-based, a reduction in skin itchiness (including the ears, paws or perineum) in dogs allergic to one or more of 8 of the 10 most common food allergens, naturally omitted in a vegan diet.

Author Notes:

Dr Lucy McKinna - Veterinary Surgeon, BVSc, MSc, MRCVS

Founder of Noochy Poochy - an exciting UK start-up specialising in nutritionally complete vegan dog food and vegan supplements. Noochy Poochy Adult is out now, with Noochy Poochy Puppy launching Feb 22