You might be what you eat—and your pup is just too! Yep, they’re greater than love on 4 legs. Their our bodies are superb issues that run, play, snuggle, snooze, and stretch to hold their heads out the window on each automotive trip. And for them to get the very most out of their life with you, they want the most effective vitamin to maintain these our bodies sturdy and tails wagging.
In fact, what counts as wholesome and nutritious could be a complicated query for canine dad and mom. It’s a wild, marketing-saturated world on the market, and whilst you wish to feed them the most effective, it’s exhausting to chop via the buzzwords to determine what your pup actually wants and what affect it might probably have on their high quality of life. However don’t fear—that is what we make a day-to-day examine of right here at Ollie. And we’ve crafted a meals philosophy that not solely informs our recipes—it nourishes our canines and yours. As a result of they rely on us too.
Right here’s the short information to Ollie’s meals philosophy, outlining what to search for, what to be careful for (and why), and what we cook dinner up as an answer.
The constructing blocks: What to search for in pet food
The pet meals trade is too-often plagued with lengthy ingredient lists, however your canine’s dietary wants are finally primarily based on just some key components:
- Meat—particularly organ meat: Your snuggly finest buddy descended from carnivores, so high-quality, animal-based protein sources like beef, lamb, rooster, and turkey will present mandatory constructing blocks. Understand that when a wild carnivore eats a prey animal, they devour greater than the muscle—they depend on the prey’s organs, such because the liver, coronary heart, and kidney, for very important vitamins.
- Carbohydrates: Whereas your pup’s largest dietary building-block is meat, carbohydrates from non-meat substances ship loads of worth within the type of nutritional vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Excessive-quality carbs like pumpkin, oats, squash, kale, rice, and berries get the job accomplished deliciously.
- Wholesome fat: Fat pack a punch with high-energy vitamins that assist your pup really feel good and satiated after a meal. Intention for simply digestible, high-quality fats sources together with Omega-6 fatty acids (from issues like animal fats, sunflower oil, and coconut oil) and Omega-3 fatty acids (reminiscent of these from flaxseed, canola, and fish oils).
- Fiber: A vital ingredient for GI perform and well being, your pup’s each day fiber consumption ought to embrace soluble sources (like oats and fruits) and insoluble sources (like potatoes, legumes, and different root veggies).
- Nutritional vitamins and minerals: Full and balanced pet food incorporates ample quantities of vitamin A, D, E, Ok, and B, together with hint minerals and choline. You shouldn’t have so as to add different nutritional vitamins or mineral dietary supplements except your veterinarian prescribes them.
- Superfoods: Simply as superfoods wealthy in antioxidants, fiber, and fatty acids are nice for people, they’re excellent for our four-legged finest mates, too. They embrace meals like candy potatoes, lentils, cranberries, blueberries, pumpkin, and kale.
Be an knowledgeable pup dad or mum: What you’ll discover in typical pet meals
Sadly, a lot of the kibble you’ll discover available on the market technically hits the baseline nutrient necessities, however it does so whereas overlooking an entire host of icky (and downright unhealthy) points that accompany their substances and their processing strategies.
It’s fairly actually an unappetizing topic, so we’ll simply contact on the important thing issues to concentrate on:
- “Feed-grade” meat goes into most pet meals, which suggests elements like hooves, bones, and organs with low dietary worth are going right into a rendering facility for processing into one thing that appears extra palatable.
- Talking of rendering … The method contains transporting these animal elements, usually in questionable sanitary circumstances, to a facility the place an industrial course of known as rendering makes use of excessive temperatures and excessive pressures to transform “low-value” scraps and byproducts into ground-up “meal.”
- The meal will get blended with fillers, chemical preservatives, and dietary supplements, then will get extruded right into a kibble form and coated with fats and flavorings for enchantment. By this level, there’s nonetheless technically animal protein within the meals, however little or no precise meat. And lots of the added substances are scary—like BHA, a chemical preservative that may adversely have an effect on canines’ kidneys and livers, and corn syrup, which might put your pup in danger for diabetes and weight problems.
We all know, none of these items sounds in any respect like what you need your pet to eat. Making issues more durable to parse out, most pet meals labels gloss over these gritty particulars with hazy buzzwords. It’s why we dug into the science behind what most manufacturers do, evaluating that with what all canines want. And that’s how our philosophy was born: a recipe for goodness, well being, and transparency. Proper right down to substances you may see.
Our take: Ollie’s meals philosophy
The dog-loving workforce of consultants at Ollie embrace some across-the-board values and requirements concerning what belongs in pet food, then we tailor choices and parts on your pup’s exact wants.
We do it proper as a result of it’s about greater than substances … it’s about love and belief. Our four-legged companions eat the identical factor each day, not like people. Which implies they should get all their vitamins in each meal. That places a bit stress on us individuals to get it proper for our pups. However don’t fear—we’ve labored it out. And it begins with the ability of contemporary meals.
- We use clear, actual substances in balanced mixtures.
Keep in mind the yucky (but typical) food-processing we talked about above? You’ll discover no “feed-grade” byproducts right here. We consider canines deserve healthful human-grade meals—the stuff match for our family members to eat. And we cook dinner these high-quality substances gently, preserving the vitamins intact.
Ollie makes use of human-grade kitchens that meet the best trade requirements. Then we distribute our meals all the best way to your pup via our community of FDA-registered, temperature-controlled success facilities for security and freshness.
- We feed responsibly on your canine’s superb weight and physique situation.
Each canine is exclusive, so when individuals create an account at Ollie, we ask all about their pups—their age, weight, exercise degree, and well being. Then, we tailor our suggestions and dimension our parts on your canine. - We make wholesome meals style nice so canines love consuming it.
No want for taste components right here. We’ve obtained the total energy of actual meals at work, together with a workforce of canine food-testers who give their paws-up of approval on our recipes.
- We guarantee the fitting nutrient ranges for canines to thrive, not simply survive.
Our recipes are a minimize above what pet dad and mom will discover on-line—they’re accepted by vet nutritionists and meals scientists who understand how necessary it’s that each mandatory nutrient makes it into each meal. On prime of that, Ollie meals is scientifically categorized as “extremely digestible,” which suggests considerably extra vitamin will get delivered to your canine than typical kibble. - We embrace transparency round our substances, course of, and recipe selections.
It’s so you may relaxation simple understanding your floppy-eared buddy is consuming the most effective constructing blocks for a wholesome physique—with nothing scary or exhausting to pronounce thrown in. In truth, Ollie’s meals is formulated to fulfill the AAFCO vitamin requirements for all canine life levels, together with large-breed pet development.
Ollie shines by human-grade meals requirements too. Your canine’s dinner meets or exceeds all FDA and USDA requirements for human-grade meals manufacturing, together with USDA Course of Verified certification.
The Ollie resolution: Meals you—and your pup—really feel nice about
“Feeding your canine a contemporary food plan is really a robust act of affection and vitamin, serving to your pup stay his or her finest life. The analysis is obvious, and in reality we’re nonetheless simply scratching the floor in understanding all of the methods it provides them the most effective probability of an extended, wholesome life,” says Bridget Meadows, Head of Meals at Ollie.
A contemporary, healthful food plan has been proven to ship an entire host of advantages, together with more healthy pores and skin and coat, a extra numerous microbiome, extra compact poop, and a leaner weight. Meaning you’re considerably upping your canine’s possibilities of a better high quality of life. Statistically, it provides as much as elevated longevity, too—wholesome physique weight has been linked to a 20% longer life expectancy for canines (Salt, Morris, Wilson, Lund, & German, 2018).
“It actually is solely about being a very good pet dad or mum. All of us wish to do proper by our canines, they usually can’t communicate for themselves. So we search out issues which are nice for them, issues we are able to belief. And it places our minds comfy, as a result of we’re taking the most effective care of them,” says Meadows.
The perfect deserve the most effective. As a result of, hey—with all of the love they create into our lives, it’s the least we are able to do.
