Understanding Proteins in Your Dog’s Food
September 29, 2011 by Paris Permenter and John Bigley
Filed under Health, Tips
In Tracie Hotchner’s last canine nutrition tip, she examined the fact that our dogs are carnivores and need meat to survive. Today this canine nutrition expert and author looks at proteins, the “building blocks” of life:
As you probably know from human nutrition, protein foods are considered the basic material from which most cells are formed. In a dog’s body (or our own) proteins are the major component of the muscles and bones as well as the hormones and enzymes. The dog’s digestive system, like our own, breaks food down and then absorbs it to be used as energy. However as you have seen in how your own body metabolizes different kinds of food, not all foods are absorbed in the same way. When a dog eats excess calories from corn and similar starches (much like in the human body) this excess energy is often stored as fat. This is a debated topic in human nutrition, but according to proponents of Dr. Atkins’s theories – whose high protein, low carbohydrate diet has stood the test of decades – there appears to be a relationship between the insulin produced by eating a heavily carbohydrate diet (especially those like corn with a high glycemic index) and whether those calories are stored by the body as fat.
This Canine Nutrition Tip is from Tracie Hotchner, author of The Dog Bible and award-winning host of Dog Talk® on NPR station WLIU. Canine Nutrition Tips are sponsored by Proportions, the whole food custom nutrition program for your dog. Visit www.Proportions.com to get a custom 2-meal trial for your dog, or to learn more about canine nutrition from the full Canine Nutrition University classes written by Tracie.
Author photo courtesy www.traciehotchner.com; photo © Ling Li
About Paris Permenter and John Bigley
DogTipper publishers Paris Permenter and John Bigley are a husband-wife team of full-time writers. The couple has authored over two dozen books and 2,500+ magazine articles.
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