Chapter 11

Fruit as Dog Food

Yes, dogs can and do eat fruit.  Wild dogs, foxes, dingoes, they all do it.  They all eat fruit.  Eating fruit is totally natural for dogs.  Remember, dogs are omnivores.  They can eat anything.

Quite a few clients over the years have told me how their dogs love fruit.  I have clients whose dog’s fight over fruit in the same way that many dogs fight over bones.  Many new clients seem almost afraid or ashamed to tell me their dog eats fruit.  It is as if they think I would disapprove.  They have this image of vets as only approving of people who feed their dogs commercial dog food.  How wrong they are.

So do not be worried if your dog likes fruit.  That's’great !  Raw fruit is excellent as another nutritious part of your dog’s diet.  Just as it is for you.  Notice I said raw fruit.  Cooked fruit, canned fruit, is processed fruit and almost does not count.  In common with all other cooked foods, much of it’s nutritional value had been lost.

What Nutrients do Dogs get From Raw Fruit ?

Fruits are mostly water.  After that, the major nutrient in fruit is soluble carbohydrate.  That is simple sugars.  Energy foods.  Fruit contains lots of fibre, both soluble and insoluble.  It also contains vitamins, enzymes and anti-oxidants.  Because fruit is a whole food, it also contains minerals, small amounts of protein, and small amounts of fat.

Two nutrients present in most raw fruits, vitamin A as carotene, and vitamin C, make fruit a valuable food for your dog.  The enzymes present in raw fruit, also make it important as part of your dog’s diet, particularly if your dog is past middle age, and starting to show the beginnings of degenerative disease.

The simple sugars are of course present in both raw and cooked fruit, as is the fibre.  However, like other foods, once cooked, fruit looses most of it’s vitamins, all of it’s enzymes and most of it’s anti-oxidants.  I suspect that the fibre from cooked food is probably less valuable than the fibre from raw foods.

Is it Essential that Dogs Eat Fruit ?

No, definitely not.  All of the nutrients present in fruit can be obtained from other sources.  However, by adding fruit to your dog’s diet, you do one more thing to ensure it is fed on a wide variety of foods.  This gives it the greatest chance of receiving a balanced diet with plenty of those longevity and immune system promoting nutrients.

What Fruit Should a Dog Eat ?

That’s simple.  Any fruit.  However, tropical fruits are a particularly valuable food.  They contain high levels of enzymes, and lots of anti-oxidants.  The cancer free, blemish free skin of dark skinned people living in the hot tropics, owes a lot to a diet chock full of raw tropical fruits.  Studies done on these races have shown that when they abandon their traditional diet, and adopt a cooked western diet, their health declines dramatically, with a huge rice in the incidence of degenerative diseases.

Fruit is Youth Food

The modern scienfitic study of life extension is revealing why fruit is such a valuable food.  Why it is able to keep humans and animals, youthful in mind and body into advanced age.

Scientists have discovered that between them, the enzymes and the anti-oxidants present in fruit, mabny of which have not yet been identified, keep the skin and indeed the whole body free of degeneration and old age diseases.  One of the ways fruit does this is to reduce cross linking, a major cause of ageing.

The older the dog, the more important it is that fruit form a part of it’s diet.  Fruit is youth food for your dog.  It is particularly valuable for arthritic dogs.  Another reason that fruit is youth food, is because it is low in fat and low in protein.

Whole ?  Green ?  Ripe ?  Over-Ripe ?

Which is best ?  In nature, the dog being a scavenger, browses on fruit that has fallen from trees, or gulps down half-digested fruit from the belly of it’s prey.  In other words dogs require to eat very ripe to over-ripe fruit … raw of course !

The over-ripe fruit, unlike green fruit, will not cause digestive upsets.  Instead it will contain maximum levels of simple sugars, valuable fibre, particularly the soluble kind, vitamins, enzymes, and anti-oxidants.

Really rotten fruit should not be fed.  It may produce botulism in your dog.  This is a disease caused by bacteria which paralyses your dog and can kill it. 

If the fruit you have is not fully ripe, either let it ripen, or if it is ripe but firm, put it through the juicer and feed it to your dog that way.  Once again, like feeding vegetables to your dog, with under-ripe fruit, you are battling cellulose cell wall.

To release each cell’s contents for your dog to digest, you need to somehow physically break down the cells…and the juicer is the best way I know of doing it.  (see feeding vegetables.. previous chapter.)

Fruit can be fed at any time.  We tend to feed fruit by itself, either as a large meal of fruit, or as snacks, or before other food.

If a dog has not eaten fruit before, you may need to use a little bit of hunger to induce him or her to start.  Alternatively, mix some in with what your dog will eat, and gradually increse the amount of fruit offered in the mix.

What About Dried Fruit ?

Dried fruit, particularly sun dried fruits are an excellent addition to the canine diet.  Apart from their intrinsic food value, they are an excellent natural laxative, which can be valuable when large amounts of bones have been eaten for example.

Both raisins and sultanas, but particularly raisins are an good source of iron.  This is important for those folk who prefer not to feed their dogs any animal products.

Honey as Dog Food

Honey as raw food for dogs is excellent.  Unfortunately, ninety nine percent of the honey in shops, and this includes a lot of so called health food shops has been heat extracted as opposed to cold extracted.  This means that once again, many of the health promoting attributes have been killed, making it basically just one more source of soluble carbohydrates.  However, even in the heat extracted form, it is still far more nutritious than straight sugar or straight glucose, and less likely to be a cause of sugar diabetes.  This is because of the types of sugars it contains.

Honey is an excellent source of instant energy for mothers, sick dogs, young dogs, old dogs, in diabetic crises etc.

• Note that in general, soluble carbohydrates are not good foods for racing or hard working animals, immediately prior to the exercice bout.

Raw honey, in common with other raw foods contains many more health giving nutrients than cooked honey.  This includes enzymes and B vitamins.

For humans, and one would therefore assume for dogs, there will be the occasional individual who is allergic to the pollens in raw honey.