Your dog is not a rabbit. Your dog may be omnivorous, but your dog cannot live without meat proteins. Just. That. Simple. Which is why we strongly warn against so called "Vegan Dog Food".
No matter what the label is telling you, vegan dog food is designed to pander to the human owners sensibilities. It certainly isn't in the dogs best interest.
Ingredient Spotlight: Vegetables!
Before we go any further and you give me grief about my headline, I’m not saying anything against humans choosing to eat a vegan diet. In fact, we actually have something pretty fundamental and important in common. We both love animals (or neither of us would be here). And, if you’ve chosen the vegan lifestyle, you probably also care about your body, your health and your diet. Excellent. As it should be. I suspect, if your dog could talk, he would want you to find a source of food that’s as clean, natural and well-suited to his needs as the great food you are putting into your body. I bet, too, that you care about the environment, sane farming practices that don’t damage our precious Mother Earth, and doing something about food waste. See? I knew we would get along!
So we've explain that vegan dog food is far from the best option for your dog, let’s have a look at a great dog food option for you, one that you can feel good about and one that you know will provide your dog with all the nutritional support she needs to be as lively, vigorous and energetic as you know she deserves to be.
Lady with green vegetables on her head grinning widely with perfect teeth while holding a carrot to her chin. Possible victim of the vegan movement.
Know Where Your Food Comes From
At Rawmate we have a nose-to-tail philosophy when it comes to sourcing our ingredients (which are, by the way, organically produced and human grade…). We respect the protein source and, yeah, that usually means we pay a premium for the proteins we include in our customised meals. As a vegan, you know what I’m talking about when it comes to farming practices. I have a conscience too, and that’s why we go to so much trouble to partner with farms and other suppliers that we can trust, where we can trace the origin of every single ingredient we put into our dogs meals. We, like you, want your dog to be healthiest version of himself that he can be!
Dogs Need Their Veggies, Too
What I really want to do, though, is have a chat about a subject I know you hold dear to your heart: vegetables. As we discovered on an earlier blog, Dogs are omnivorous NOT carnivorous as many people mistakenly believe. While we don't advocate a BARF or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food approach, Rawmate IS biologically appropriate and raw. Funny how that works. (Turns out BARF diets can be a tad hit or miss and often make up the deficits with the liberal use of supplements. We are actually really careful to to make sure our meals are complete and balanced according to AAFCO standards for an adult dog and that all nutritional requirements are met by sourcing a wide range of ingredients, using as few supplements as possible).
Our Rawmate Original formulation contains quite an extensive list of ingredients.
We've found through extensive palatability testing that dogs really enjoy our veggie components.
This post takes a closer look at some of the 100% natural vegetable ingredients that go into making our naturally raw pet dinners and the reasoning behind the inclusion of each.
Your mother said it to you, now you can say it to your dog, “Eat your broccoli!” Broccoli is a great natural source of many vitamins including Vitamin K, essential for optimal calcium absorption. Vitamin C an E are also found in broccoli as well as healthy amounts of roughage, essential for good digestion.
Bring on this superfood! Yep, it’s good for us, but it’s good for our dogs too. In the same family as broccoli, kale provides many of the same benefits including keeping your dog’s skin, coat and bones healthy. High in fibre and containing plenty of potassium, this powerhouse vegetable is full of antioxidants, which are thought to have cancer-fighting properties. Vitamin K and Calcium contribute to bone health and help build strong teeth.
Green Beans
Green beans are a good source of natural iron, calcium, manganese and potassium. The antioxidants they contain (in flavonoids) have anti-inflammatory properties and are thought to improve heart health. Low in calories and high in fibre, we should all be eating more of them!
Rawmate Ingredient Pyramid
Pumpkin
The ultimate comfort food for dogs also happens to be chock full of vitamins like Vitamin A (good for vision health) and Vitamin C (a natural immune-system booster). Excellent for maintaining good gut health, pumpkin’s soluble fibre content helps take care of loose stools by absorbing water, and helps prevent constipation precisely because it has plenty of fibre and is naturally moist.
This source of carotene really is good for your dog’s eyesight (see, Mom was right again!). The antioxidant beta-carotene is needed for Vitamin A production, necessary for good eye health. Carrots also contain Vitamin A which is also useful for boosting the immune system and keeping your dog’s coat in good shape. Turns out, though, that raw carrots are not well digested by dogs. That’s why we lightly cook our farm fresh carrots so the nutrients they contain can be absorbed by your dog, even though at first glance that may seem contrary to our Raw Food Focus.
The benefits of this gentle cooking far outweigh any ‘define raw’ squawks we might hear from holier-than-thou detractors. If they want to feed raw carrots and watch orange chunks being pooped out the other end, let them. The point is, dogs benefit from the carotene and other nutrients that carrots contain, so we found a way to provide that.
Rawmate Complete and Balanced
Vegetables Are Just Part of the Menu
Yep, we (and our dogs) love what vegetables bring to the table. But they are the side dishes served up with the assorted muscle meats, offals, seeds and oils that go into making what we believe to be the cleanest, healthiest dog food available. Just when you might be thinking you’ve lucked out and found an awesome option for your dog, here’s an added bonus. We deliver! You don’t even have to assemble the meal. Just pull the portion from freezer, defrost and serve it up!
Meanwhile though, check out our Rawmate subscription program. We believe we’ve created the cleanest whole food diet for dogs available anywhere.
The ‘secret’ is we don’t have any secret ingredients! We supplement as little as possible unlike so many other commercial dry foods out there.
Our team is working hard to change the status quo. You can help us to tackle this problem by taking a few minutes and sharing this article among your friends, family and work colleagues who are responsible for one or more of the 4.2m dogs in Australia.
We're accepting applications across Australia to join our third BETA pack.
See if your dog qualifies by taking our 3 minute Brand Quiz and get an entry into the draw for a month worth of free Rawmate for your dog.
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