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The desire to build an impressive physique still holds true for a lot in the fitness world. Yes, being functional and practical have their places, but we all want the byproduct to be a nice looking, muscular, strong body to showcase all our hard work.
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Dogs, like people, are animals. The dietary requirements of dogs, like the dietary requirements of people, are subject to the forces of natural selection. Just like Big Macs and French fries and white bread aren’t optimal food for humans, kibble isn’t optimal food for dogs.
If you accept that biologically-appropriate diets exist for humans, and those diets should be informed by evolutionary history and anthropology, then you must accept that dog diets deserve the same treatment.
One leading brand of kibble has listed as ingredients:
You know, this isn’t even that “bad” on paper. It looks like a decent list of ingredients if you were putting together shelf-stable MRE for pure survival to sock away in a bunker somewhere. It could be a lot worse—it could be full of plant protein, soybean oil, wheat, and other junk a dog has no business eating. But it’s clearly substandard. These are dogs we’re talking about. Canines. Descendants of wolves. Man’s best friend. “Not that bad” isn’t good enough.
And although that dog will probably get by eating standard kibble—after all, millions of dogs do, just like millions of humans “get by” eating the Standard American junk food diet—he or she won’t thrive.
How does a dog thrive?
Assuming you’re providing daily exercise, lots of chest scritches, love, and affection, and all the other pre-requisites, it is my opinion that a dog thrives eating a species-appropriate diet of raw meat, edible bones and connective tissue, organs, seafood, and supplemental foods.
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Canines for the majority of their formative development consumed raw rather than cooked meat. It’s what they’re meant to eat. It’s what they love. And because dogs by and large have not had their food reward and appetites corrupted by the modern food system, you can trust that their cravings and predilections are representative of their physiological requirements.
Put a bowl of ground beef and beef liver in front of a dog and it’ll go for the liver first, every time.
Let a dog choose between beef marrow and corn oil and it’ll go for the marrow first, every time.
Dogs know.
Humans have been cooking meat for hundreds of thousands of years. We’ve developed innate antioxidant systems designed to detoxify the compounds formed during cooking. We can tolerate some level of heat-damaged fatty acids and cholesterol. We can handle some smoke (though inhaling it directly is still a bad idea).
Dogs have not. Dogs split off from wolves at most 30000 years ago. That’s time enough for a small amount of adaptation to cooked foods, but just like humans exhibit some level of adaptation to agricultural foods but do better on a Primal, ancestral way of eating, dogs still look, feel, and perform better on raw meat.
Ok, so how do you do it?
It’d be great to feed whole animals to your dogs, but that’s tough for most people to pull off. The Prey Model allows you to construct a “whole animal” out of constituent parts. Here’s how it breaks down, roughly:
All those percentages are by weight.
A dog should eat between 1.5-3% of its ideal body weight in food per day. Older and more sedentary dogs can do the lower end, younger and more active dogs the higher end. If a dog needs to lose weight, drop the food volume a bit. If a dog needs to gain weight or isn’t as energetic as it should be, increase the food a bit. Every dog is different, so consider these guidelines, not laws.
If you’re feeding a puppy, you’ll want to feed between 5-10% of their bodyweight spread through 2-3 meals.
This is the model that makes the most intuitive sense to me because it’s how canines eat in the wild.
Muscle meat provides protein, fat, energy, vitamins and minerals. It’s the basis of the diet—the unsexy workhorse. Muscle meat includes:
Favor ruminant meat over poultry meat, simply for the nutrient density and fatty acid composition (more saturated, less polyunsaturated).
Edible bones provide calcium and micronutrients, keep their teeth clean, and provide a productive outlet for their chewing urges.
As a general rule, do not give your dog an edible bone he or she can swallow whole. It should be something the dog has to work for.
Bones must always be raw, or else they risk splintering and getting lodged in the throat. No cooked bones.
If your dog is just learning to eat edible bones, monitor them as they eat. Be ready to leap in and prevent choking. Another way you can actually show a dog how to eat a bone properly is to gradually hand feed it, slowly revealing more of the bone once they’ve chewed the first part. Works well with turkey necks.
You can also give “recreational bones”: beef and pork feet, big beef joints, legs, marrow bones. These are bones that the dog can’t actually eat. They don’t contribute to the 10%. Just for chewing (and marrow and cartilage).
This provides collagen and glycine for the dog, helping to balance out the muscle meats in the diet and improve joint health and function, as well as sleep. I’ve also noticed that giving chicken feet for the nighttime meal leads to deeper sleep and more doggie dreaming. Connective tissue sources include:
There is no strict connective tissue requirement, but it should be fed regularly or even daily for best outcomes.
Organs are the multivitamins of a dog’s raw diet. They are essential, but easy to overdo. Keep organ meat to 10% of the diet by weight, and feed as broad a variety as you can.
A great source of omega-3s and minerals, seafood can usually be counted as muscle meat and sometimes as edible bones, depending on what you’re feeding.
IMPORTANT NOTE ON SALMON: salmonids, which include salmon, trout, char, and a few others, can carry a deadly parasite that can kill dogs.1 Only salmonids from the Pacific Northwest (California, Oregon, and Washington) are potential carriers; as of now, Alaskan salmonids are not said to be carriers. Still, it’s a good idea to deep freeze any salmon for 2 weeks before feeding to eliminate potential parasites.
These are foods that provide micronutrients more than calories. Feed regularly but don’t try to build an entire diet based off of them.
Heed the calcium:phosphorus ratio: You want a 1:1 to 2:1 ratio of calcium to phosphorus in the diet. In general, hitting that 80/10/10 ratio of meat/organs/bone will get you the right C:P ratio. Don’t neglect either ratio!
Minimum protein intake: A dog needs at least 1 gram of protein per ideal pound of bodyweight per day from muscle and organ meat (connective tissue protein is important but doesn’t count toward the total). So if you’ve got a big fat dog who’s trying to slim down, use the weight he should be to determine how much protein to feed. Going over the minimum protein intake is fine.
Fatty acid composition: Limit omega-6s. Favor ruminants like lamb and beef over higher-PUFA meats like poultry. The bulk of a dog’s dietary fat should come from saturated and monounsaturated animal fats, along with omega-3s from fatty fish and whatever omega-6s you get from incidentals. Sounds familiar, eh?
Try to remove some or all the visible fat and skin when feeding poultry to your dog. Most poultry these days is just loaded with linoleic acid and it adds up quickly.
Fasting: Adult dogs tolerate fasting very well. And although there aren’t any “long term clinical trials” on the safety and efficacy of fasting in dogs, I suspect it will make them healthier and possibly extend their lives.
Feed once a day, and don’t be afraid to skip a day or two from time to time. If your dog is very active or a working animal, two meals are a good option. But even in a working dog one big meal will usually do the trick.
Carbohydrates: They’re unnecessary in a dog’s diet. In studies where dogs are given ad libitum access to foods of different macronutrient ratios, they always minimize carbohydrate intake and emphasize fat and protein intake. The average “self selected” macro ratio of dogs was 30% protein, 63% fat, and 7% carbs.2 Note that all the food choices contained some carbohydrate, so it’s possible that dogs would choose not to eat any carbs if there were 100% carnivore options available.
Let me say this: I don’t feed my dogs this way anymore. I researched this heavily back in the day, and even did it for awhile (and got great results, the dogs loved it!), but nowadays I simply don’t have the time to make it work. Too many days on the road means I’d be inconsistent with it and relying on someone else trying to do it. No go on that.
So what I do these days is feed Orijen. It’s a “kibble,” but it’s the best I’ve found. Loaded with a range of raw or gently-cooked meats and seafood and completely grain-free.
I also add some turkey or beef to the meal. For treats, I’ll give raw egg yolks, chicken feet, marrow bones, and dried minnows. Maybe a beef knuckle from time to time. Maybe some liver or the juice from a can of sardines.
So don’t think that just because I wrote this article you need to switch your dog over to a raw diet. I recommend exploring that option if it appeals to you, but it’s not necessary.
Do any of you feed your dogs a raw diet? If so, what model do you follow? If not, do you think you’ll give it a try?
Let me know down below!
The post Raw Food Diet for Dogs: a Primal Feeding Practice appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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Sometimes the foods you enjoy the most are the worst foods for your body — especially when combined. Actually, combining any foods that are high in fructose corn syrup and refined carbs is incredibly bad for your health and may lead to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and more. Here are two foods you should never […]
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Great news: If you’re already using collagen peptides for your hair, skin, and nails, you’re likely getting a bunch of other whole-body benefits.
Clearly we humans are meant to consume a good amount of collagen. Our ancestors ate nose-to-tail, consuming skin and connective tissue, and boiling down bones to make broth. Gelatin and collagen would have been abundant in the human diet. They provide amino acids needed for a dizzying array of metabolic functions. The amino acids also serve as blocks for collagen in the body.
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body, providing structure and support for the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems. Crucially, we need glycine from collagen to balance the lifespan-shortening effects of methionine in meat.1
Today I’m going to highlight some potential benefits that have nothing to do with skin, nails, or hair. I’ll say up front that I’m firmly on the pro-collagen train. I’ve noticed great results personally from taking it. That said, I’m not trying to make wild claims about collagen as a miracle supplement. These are areas of research I’m watching with interest. I hope to see more studies that help us understand when, why, and how collagen is most useful.
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When you purchase collagen, you’ll get either collagen peptides or collagen hydrolysate. These terms are interchangeable. Gelatin and collagen peptides have the same amino acid profile, and they should confer the same benefits. The difference is the proteins in collagen have been broken down into smaller chains (peptides), so they are more easily absorbed.
There are at least 28 types of collagen. The collagen peptides you buy at the store are mostly types I and III unless they specify otherwise. I’m not going to talk about studies that focus on types you can’t readily get in supplement form (like type IV, which is potentially relevant for Alzheimer’s disease).
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at some potential benefits.
Collagen has a different amino acid profile than meat, and that’s important here. Specifically, collagen is rich in the amino acid glycine. Among its many functions in the body, glycine is known to improve sleep.2
Human studies show that just 3 grams of glycine taken before bed improves sleep quality and daytime alertness for individuals with chronic sleep issues,3 insomnia,4 and sleep restriction.5 It might work by enhancing serotonin production, which is needed to produce melatonin.6 Glycine also facilitates the drop in core body temperature that promotes a healthy sleep cycle.7 8
Sleep experts generally recommend taking 3 to 5 grams of glycine before bedtime. You can buy glycine supplements, but collagen is about one-third glycine. A heaping scoop of collagen peptides will net you those 3 grams of glycine, plus other important amino acids.
When talking about body composition, we usually mean the amount of body fat and muscle mass an individual carries. What about the other stuff—the bones and connective tissue that give our body structure and allow us to move around? In fact, the entire musculoskeletal system benefits from the amino acids in collagen.
Lots of people use whey or soy protein supplements to enhance the effects of resistance training and build muscle. Collagen, on the other hand, has been largely overlooked because it’s not a complete protein. In particular, it doesn’t contain the levels of BCAAs found in whey protein.
I think collagen deserves a second look, though. For one thing, the high amount of glycine plus alanine in collagen provide building blocks for creatine. Creatine boosts energy production in muscle cells, and it’s probably the most widely used supplement for increasing muscle mass.
Also, in a series of studies, elderly men with sarcopenia,9 healthy young men,10 and premenopausal women11 undertook 12 weeks of resistance training. Half the participants in each study supplemented with 15 grams of collagen post-workout. Across the board, the collagen + training groups gained more fat-free mass and strength compared to training alone. The older men and the women also lost more body fat.
However, when the researchers measured the young men’s type II muscle fibers, they found no differences between the collagen and no-collagen groups. That said, in an interesting follow-up using the same protocol, researchers also performed muscle biopsies. The collagen + training group saw upregulation of proteins and pathways associated with positive training adaptations in contractile muscle fibers.12
What does this mean? Collagen ups the effectiveness of resistance training. More research is needed to understand precisely how—whether it increases muscle synthesis, tendon integrity, both, and/or other. In any case, though, adding a couple scoops of collagen to your post-workout routine seems a worthy experiment.
Speaking of tendons, there’s evidence that collagen supplementation helps strengthen and maintain connective tissue. Connective tissue is made up of collagen, so it’s not really a big surprise. I first become enamored with collagen after rehabbing a serious Achilles tendon injury. I’m convinced that my recovery was accelerated thanks to loading up on collagen peptides.
Studies back up my experience:
Collagen likewise shores up your joints and reduces joint pain:
More than 90 percent of the organic matrix of bone is collagen, mostly type I.21 Scientists believe that collagen plays a central role in regulating the growth and maintenance of strong, healthy bones.22
It should come as no surprise, then, that collagen supplementation seems to improve bone health. This has been demonstrated repeatedly with rats.23 24 In humans, adding 5 grams of collagen peptides per day for 12 months increased bone mineral density in postmenopausal women at risk of osteoporosis.25
Another cool study compared female identical twins. In each pair, one sister’s typical diet contained significantly more of the amino acids alanine and glycine. The high-intake twins had better bone mineral density in their spines and forearms.26
Many animal studies suggest that supplementing with collagen can improve cardiovascular health. Glycine, specifically, may be cardioprotective thanks to its known anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties.
All promising stuff, but what about for us?
It might sound like a stretch at first, but individuals with low glycine are at greater risk for developing diabetes,37 38 while high glycine is associated with normal blood sugar control.39 Glycine supplementation may improve insulin sensitivity.40 A handful of studies further show that glycine can reduce certain diabetic complications in rats and humans.41
I’ve yet to see good evidence that collagen can reverse the course of prediabetes or diabetes in humans, though. Something to watch for.
First things first, if you’re only eating muscle meat and avoiding the rest of the animal—skin, organs, bones—you need to diversify. Turn those bones into collagen-rich broth. Throw in some chicken feet while you’re at it. Make chicken skin chips. And yes, you do get some collagen from meat, too, as well as eggs.
Collagen peptides can be derived from cows (bovine), chickens, or pigs (porcine). Marine peptides come from fish parts such as bones and scales. There’s really no such thing as vegetarian collagen, although researchers are working on engineering collagen from algae.
I usually use one or two scoops per day of collagen peptides or Collagen Fuel per day. That’s enough to cover my bases. If I’m healing from an injury, I’ll increase it and throw in some extra vitamin C for good measure. Vitamin C is needed for collagen synthesis, and I figure it can’t hurt.42
I’m interested in your experience. Did you start incorporating bone broth or collagen peptides in your routine and notice any unexpected benefits? What’s your favorite way to get collagen in your diet?
References
The post Collagen Benefits for Your Bones, Heart, Sleep and More, Backed by Science appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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