The Grain Free Debate

Here we go...

 To grain or not to grain?

Why is a grain-free diet considered bad?

In 2018, the FDA began to investigate dog food and its relation to DCM (canine dilated cardiomyopathy). This essentially means that the dog’s heart enlarges and causes many issues, including death. They began to find what they thought was a relationship between grain-free diets and heart conditions.

What’s the real truth?

The reality of the long-standing debate is that diets that are labeled grain-free commonly have extremely high amounts of legumes and other unneeded ingredients. It was found that in the top ten ingredients of the dog foods, there were typically peas, potatoes, or lentils. Now, these things are not an essential part of a dog’s diet. While they do provide benefits, they should not be one of the top ingredients for your dog’s health.

To answer the question: To grain or not to grain?

This is completely up to personal preference. Grains do provide benefits to your dog, but they are not an essential part of their diet.

Our personal choice: Grains on occasion! We are very selective with what we feed our dogs’s, so we will opt-in and out here and there for grains. It is very unlikely that we will choose to add grains to our dog’s food. Although we will typically add oats to our homemade dog treats.

Medicine, C. for V. (n.d.). FDA investigates potential link between Diet & Heart Disease In Dogs. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/outbreaks-and-advisories/fda-investigation-potential-link-between-certain-diets-and-canine-dilated-cardiomyopathy