Nutrient Retention Issues with Commercial Dog Foods; Why You Should be Making Your Dog’s Food At Home

Nutrient Retention Issues with Commercial Dog Foods; Why You Should be Making Your Dog’s Food At Home

Article Summary: 

  • Many commercial dog food brands are using poor cooking methods that rapidly deplete nutrients in favor of profit.
  • Even with the rare few companies that treat their ingredients with respect, between their high costs and non-personalized care, many dogs can see significant improvements in their health with a fresh diet cooked right at home.
  • ChefPaw makes homemade meals personalized to your dog’s health a breeze, doing all the prep and cooking for you, nurturing ingredients while whipping up a fresh meal in just 40 minutes. 

It’s alarming to think about it, but unfortunately, there is a good chance the food you’re buying for your dog isn’t providing them with a complete and well-balanced diet. But it doesn’t stop there! 

With commercial foods, you’re often paying for ingredients that aren’t delivering their best. 

Nutrient retention issues with commercial foods are a glaring problem in the pet world that’s not being fixed by big pet food. In fact, nutrient retention issues are happening because more and more commercial brands are putting profit over good nutrition. 

What is Nutrient Retention? 

The goal of nutrient retention is to bring out the max amount of vitamins and minerals an ingredient has to offer. While cooking can often unlock vital nutrients, the method used to cook can have the opposite effect that we want. 

Those lovely nutrients that nourish us all are easily destabilized when exposed to heat, oxygen, and water and need a cooking method that nourishes them. Unfortunately, you won’t find these cooking methods used with your traditional commercial dog foods.

This is a shame, because not only are they easy to do and not only do they retain the most nutrients, one, in particular, can bring out the best flavors and textures too!

But that’s their loss, because thanks to ChefPaw, pet parents can easily take advantage of the best cooking method that saves money and gives their dog an optimal diet!

Gently Cooked Sous Vide Style Cooking  

Popular among chefs when looking to bring out maximum flavors in their meals and loved by veterinary researchers due to its unbeatable nutrient retention, sous vide style cooking is adored by many.

Researchers agree that sous-vide gentle cooking nature is likely the healthiest way to cook food. In a study on cereals and legumes, it was revealed that sous vide cooking had a significant increase in minerals like iron, copper, magnesium, zinc, and potassium compared to traditional cooking methods. This included peas, red lentils, and pearl barley, which are all great ingredients to use when making your dog’s food at home.

And this is over traditional cooking methods such as steaming that are praised for their ability to cook foods with high nutrient retention. But sous vide doesn’t stop there, sous vide allows flavor to blossom and textures to shape into luxurious bites. Many of the best steakhouses in the world prefer sous vide for cooking steaks. You can’t say the same about steaming!  

But the way many commercial dog food brands are cooking their food fails to even come close to any of the cooking methods we’ve mentioned. 

Why You Should be Making Your Dog’s Food At Home

Manufacturers love cooking their pet food using methods that can quickly turn them out so another batch can be started sooner. They do this using high heat and rapid cooking times for extremely large batches of food. 

All of this is a detriment to nutrient retention, however. In fact, the temperatures they use are so aggressive, they include gums, gels, and other preservative fillers to prevent the ingredients from completely breaking down. 

While poor nutrient retention is more common in dry kibble-based foods, it's a problem in commercial fresh foods, too. This is one of the big reasons you should be making your dog’s food for them at home! 

In the past, that wasn’t always easiest, making it completely understandable why most dog parents choose commercial foods instead. But ChefPaw streamlines the process of making optimal dog food right in your kitchen. 

Maximizing Nutrient Retention With ChefPaw 

Thanks to ChefPaw, pet parents can take advantage of all the benefits sous vide cooking can provide. 

ChefPaw is the pet food maker that does it all. Creating customizable and pre-programmed recipes that always satisfy AAFCO standards and your dog's unique needs, ChefPaw does all the prep and cooking for you too! This makes it easier to make your dog’s food than your own! 

With its automatic mixing blades and precision slow cooking, ChefPaw ensures your dog gets all the nutrients their food has to offer for better digestion, coat, cognitive, and immune system support. 

Create meals free from byproducts, fillers, preservatives, and artificial chemicals that truly give our dogs the best!

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