Is White Flour
What's Wrong With Fido's Diet?
There are many reasons I won't let my dogs have white flour. I don't care if you call it white, wheat, all purpose, or cake flour. It's bad stuff and here's why.First of all, it is not a food. I keep pretending it is, because I like white dinner rolls, pizza dough and pasta, but I know its not. It has no nutritional value whatsoever. They only start with wheat. Unfortunately, the wheat is stripped of all nutrients and fiber; then bleached.
Who cares if they ‘enrich’ it now? It is dead, dead, dead - so why try to revive it? Humans like it because it makes fluffy food. Too bad for us, because here's what it does.
White Flour--The Other Sugar
We know eating a lot of refined sugars can affect blood sugar and cause diabetes in people and dogs are no different. Even though this flour doesn't taste sweet, it breaks down into sugar (glucose) and can lead to the very same problems caused by eating too much refined sugar, including dog diabetes. For signs and symptoms, see Symptoms of Canine Diabetes.
Gluten
If you mix flour and water – you get a sticky paste. If you've ever rolled out pastry dough, you'll know what I mean by that sticky residue left on your counter top. When I was a kid, my mom made paste for me with flour and water to glue paper together for my various works of art. Ah the power of gluten.
More Bad News - The Dog Colon
Your dog's colon can be really impacted by the food he eats. Pun intended. The most common challenge includes any type of gluten refined grain, especially all purpose flour. This flour literally sticks to the villi of the intestines and stays on the colon wall. The villi are tiny finger-like protrusions to help absorb nutrients. Your body absorbs nutrients through the wall of the colon.
How can you absorb nutrients through the colon wall if the villi are all stuck together and covered with white paste? (To visualize the villi, think of a hair comb all gummed up.) Dogs who eat white flour tend to have digestive distress and even bloating. Common sense tells me, this must be at least partially responsible for dog colitis, which is a swelling of the colon or large intestine. Maybe even dog inflammatory bowel disease. Just as we are what we eat, our dogs are what we give them to eat.
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