Not always, anyways.
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Anybody who has read my rice post (My Beef with Rice) probably thinks I hate all grain. It’s not totally true.
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If you reread my rice post, you’ll see that what I’m talking about in that post relates to when your dog is sick, and you are not sure why. In this case, the last food they need to be eating is a carbohydrate like rice, because it’s possible they have something like pancreatitis. The reason for this precaution is because of the job of the pancreas is to digest carbohydrates. I don’t care what your vet has been telling you for the last 10 years. The primary job of the pancreas is carbohydrate assimilation.
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Grain isn’t always bad. There could even be beneficial uses of grain. Certainly when I learned Traditional Chinese Food Therapy, I learned a lot of benefits to using grain in the diet. Usually, we limit this grain too, about 20% of the diet.
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I’m gonna give you some practical examples of when grain might be useful and when it’s not (beyond my beef in pancreatitis cases).
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There are some dogs who flat out NEED to eat fiber. Without the fiber, their stool might be too hard. In other dogs, it’s to opposite, and the stool is too soft without fiber.
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Some people swear to me that X brand of horrible kibble prevents diarrhea. So to get the dogs off the horrible kibble, we mimic the kibble using real food. If brand X is primarily rice and salmon, that’s where we start. Stop the kibble. Figure out the specific salmon/ rice ratio for the one individual dog. Boom. Another dog saved from the effects of kibble and we minimize how much grain they are getting.
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Ask yourself. (Look at your own dinner plate.) What is the purpose of grain? It’s a cheap filler. So it’s an inexpensive source of calories. Not very much in the way of nutrition. And it makes sauce taste really good.
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So why do you think it’s used in pet food diet? Because it’s a cheap filler! And it’s why dogs have giant bowel movements when they eat kibble. Because it’s mostly filler. Literally, most kibble is 75% grain! This is far too much.
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OK, so situations where grain is totally not appropriate. Dogs who have wet, gooey skin! We often say these dogs are yeasty. It might be yeast. It might be a combination of yeast and bacteria. But that wet gooey skin is fed by grain.
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You have now been provided with a few more examples of why there are times when grain can be useful and when it is not useful.
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I don’t hate ALL grain.
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Still seeing patients in Tampa, Clearwater, and virtually.