Corn Myths and Dogs

Corn is dangerous in cats and causes several diseases and conditions, but it is completely safe as well as being extremely beneficial to your dog’s health.

Corn and Dogs

There will always be debates if dogs are carnivores or omnivores, but the fact is they are really both. There are three classifications of animals based and their diets: carnivores eat meat, omnivorous eat most anything edible, and herbivores eat primarily plants.

Have you ever met a dog that will not eat almost anything? Certainly we, as owners, must watch what they eat and be careful in what we feed them, but they are not cats.

If your dog ate only plants and grains, it would jeopardize their health. But they don’t and they need several different foods in their diets, including corn products.

Here are some of the myths and the actual benefits of some corn; the key word is some, in your dog’s diets.

Corn Myths:

Corn is filler and your dog can not digest it:

True, if the corn used in your pet was whole corn. Most of us cannot digest whole corn either. But the truth is that all corn in dogs food is ground, meaning that it is finely ground and designed specifically to digest in your pet’s stomach. Ground corn is 99% digestible and this in one of the corn myths.

Corn is perhaps the best source of carbohydrates for your dog.

Your dog does not need carbohydrates:

False, dogs do need carbohydrates, as the linoleic acid in complex carbohydrates like corn provides your pet with both fiber as well as amino acids. It is also essential for helping your pet with keeping the skin and coats healthy as well as several other benefits.

Carbohydrates also help your pet’s liver, heart, brain and nerve tissues function properly. They also regulate how much starch and fat is broken down and utilized in their digestive tract. It is than stored in the liver in the form of glycogen and released as energy as your pet needs it.

Here is yet another one of the corn myths; corn gluten is extremely bad for your dog

Corn gluten is extremely bad for your dog:

Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, it is not corn, but is a product that goes through an entire series of corn wet milling processes and has numerous benefits for your dog, and is yet another one of the corn myths.

Raw food diets are much better for your dog than commercial dog foods as they contain absolutely no corn products:

Absolutely false, as raw dog food diets put your pet at a very high risk of infections as well as potential poisonings, especially from salmonella, and this is one more of the corn myths.

Corn causes allergies in your dog:

Amazing how wrong this one is. Several studies have shown conclusively that over 70 percent of all dog food allergies are caused by dairy, beef, or wheat products. 25 percent are caused by chicken, eggs, lamb, or soy products.

That leaves about five percent. All dogs, just as humans may be allergic to something, but corn cannot be found in 95 percent of all the causes.

Benefits of Corn:

Corn is by far and away the best form of a carbohydrate that your dog could get. It is 99 percent digestible according to Animal Science, August, 1999, as well as holding more protein content.

The protein content is also 87 percent digestible, and is literally twenty times less likely to cause allergy reaction in dogs as wheat does.

Corn also contains five times as much essential fatty acids as rice, and has extremely high levels of luceine and lucopene, which are both very important forms of antioxidants for your pet.

But the best benefits of corn or corn by products come from corn gluten. Corn gluten is actually a co-product of corn wet milling. In this milling process, corn is cleaned and then steeped in a water and sulfur dioxide mixture which breaks down the corn seed.

Once it is broken down, it is than dried into a mush form called protein gluten.

So exactly why is it used in dog food?

It is used because of its protein content, and it is also very economical. It also has high levels of methionine, which is instrumental in breaking down fats as well as removing heavy metals from your pets system.

It also converts to cysteine, which helps to detoxify your dog’s liver.

Corn gluten is also very low in ash and has a full complement of vitamins as well as lutein, critical for your dog’s eye health.

There are other benefits to having some corn products in your dog’s food. Because of the reduction of other fillers, corn products in your pet’s food will help protect against skin and food allergies as well as helping their coats to become softer and shinier.

It also helps their eyes brighten and clear up, as well as increasing hydration in your pet. There are also several people that claim that corn causes stool problems in dogs, when it actually helps to reduce stools in their size.

There are several internet sources that bash any type of corn filler in dog food in every way imaginable. But, it is simply not true.

WELLNESS KITS FOR DOGS

The real problem is the other fillers that are added. Unless you make your own dog food, the vast majority of people will buy commercial dog food.

Commercial dog food is going to have additives and corn is going to be one of them. Ask yourself, which is the better additive?

Always check the ingredients, but understand that the myths about corn are just that, corn myths.

Natural Sources that Can Help Corn Myths

Return to Vitamins for Dogs