Your dog’s diet is elemental to their health and wellbeing, so picking the right dog food is an important decision. But how do you make sure that you’re making the right choice for your dog? Most people would look to the ingredient list or perhaps the words “complete” or “balanced”.
The reality is, although the content is important, one of the most valuable factors to determine the quality of your dog’s food is its digestibility.
A dog food may contain a high amount of important nutrients, but if the food is excessively processed, these nutrients may not end up being easily digestible in the end, rendering them wasted. On the other hand, if your dog’s food is highly digestible, you can rest assured that your dog is getting the absolute most out of their food. The reason that understanding digestibility is important is because, oftentimes, even the highest “quality” dry dog food diets that promise top-notch ingredients and a high meat content are actually quite difficult for your dog to digest. This defeats the whole purpose of including premium ingredients in the first place. Here’s a quick crash course on dog food digestibility, and why raw diets can be the most beneficial.
What does it mean for a food to be digestible?
You can think of digestion as being the process of harvesting the nutritional value out of food. Nutrients are absorbed and made available to the body for use during digestion. The amount of nutritional value that is able to be absorbed into the bloodstream is also known as the food’s “bioavailability”. A more easily digestible food is also more bioavailable, meaning more of the “good stuff” gets to be used.
Measuring digestibility
Measuring digestibility comes down to comparing what goes in, with what goes out. In other words, a dog’s stool can reveal much about their diet and how much is being digested. Feeding tests are often conducted to gain insight into digestibility. These tests involve feeding dogs a specific diet, for a specific amount of time, and then collecting and analyzing their fecal matter. The result is a digestibility percentage, or coefficient, which is found by taking the total amount consumed and subtracting the amount within the poop. These tests can even break down the analysis by macronutrient (protein, fat, carbohydrates).
Acabonac Pet prioritizes digestibility
At Acabonac Pet, we are digestion obsessed. Our premade raw dog food has been formulated to maximize digestibility so that your dog can actually get what they need from their diets. Our frozen raw dog food is made from whole ingredients, the kind that your dog has evolved to eat – and fully digest. We want our dogs to take advantage of the nutritional value within their diets, otherwise what’s the point of brandishing claims of high nutritional content?
Let the science speak for itself
Reading the label is not going to give you the information you need to determine the quality and digestibility of your dog’s food. In fact, if anything, relying on the label will end up misleading you. It’s what you don’t see that makes the difference.
The two biggest factors to consider are:
- The quality of the ingredients.
- The processing methods.
These determine whether or not your dog will be able to fully digest the nutrients within their foods. Let’s look at dry dog food. Traditional dry dog food is not made from the most high-quality ingredients. In fact, much of it is made from the left-over scraps from human food production, rather than quality cuts of organ and muscle meat (the kind of premium protein sources present in a raw dog food like Acabonac Pet). Dry dog food is also often pumped with nutrient fillers that allow manufacturers to advertise high nutritional content without the said nutrition being easily usable by the body.
The processing methods that dry dog food undergoes also robs the food of much of its nutritional content. Dry kibble production includes multiple rounds of high-heat processing including a process called extrusion. Extrusion triggers a chemical transformation called the Maillard reaction, which makes the vital amino acids within the food less bioavailable. This study concluded, the undesirable effects of extrusion include reduction of protein quality, decrease in palatability and loss of heat-sensitive vitamins.
This is why raw dog food from Acabonac Pet is the best choice for maximizing bioavailability and digestibility. Acabonac Pet food, unlike dry kibble, is made in small batches, with whole ingredients sourced from high quality producers. Our raw dog food is made to the highest standards in a USDA facility. We also offer a 100% money back guarantee because we want you to be certain that our premium dog food is the right fit for your furry loved one.