What Is This BARF Diet ?

The BARF Diet:  Sounds Yummy but What is it?

One way to achieve the best dog health possible is to feed them the BARF diet. While it sounds absolutely disgusting, it is actually a great way to help your dog’s health. This diet is an acronym, and there are actually two different types: biologically appropriate raw food and bones and raw food. This type of diet is thought to create better dog health by feeding domestic dogs in nearly the same manner that a dog in the wild would eat. Cutting out the preservatives in store bought dog food, this type of diet is thought to promote dog health by allowing your dog to eat what they were biologically created to eat. Many people believe that this type of diet can promote dog health for the immune system, teeth, and more. The intense heating required for packaging typical dog foods is thought to reduce the nutritional value in these foods, and so the natural feeding used in this type of diet is said to create better dog health. There are many variations on this diet, and some involve feeding organ meats from prey as well as the bones and entire animal bodies (much like you would feed a mouse to a snake), while there are some variations that involve the use of prepackaged frozen foods. Whichever type of raw food diet you choose to feed your dog, it is very possible that your dog will reach a higher level of dog health through this natural feeding process.

However, there are opponents to the BARF diet and other types of diets like it, and their reasoning for opposing the diet are well-founded. It is believed  that this type of natural dog food is a little too natural, which promotes the possibility for food borne illnesses. Diseases that would otherwise be cooked out of meats when processing of regular dog food takes place can remain present in this type of natural dog food. By giving your dog uncooked meats and bones in extremely natural dog food, their risk of developing food poisoning and other illnesses is increased. In some studies, salmonella has been found not only in the foods fed in this type of natural dog food, but also in the feces of the dogs eating it. This has been a subject of wide debate on the topic of natural dog food because it is believed that, if the illnesses are passed through the dog, they can pose a contamination risk, potentially even causing humans to get sick. At the same time, however, this type of natural dog food is thought to reduce gastrointestinal problems that often occur in dogs due to a diet of processed and packaged dog foods. This is why so many dog owners are turning to more natural dog food forms, even if they don’t go to the extremes of the BARF diet. This type of natural dog food can include organic foods or holistic foods, and both are said to help create better health for any dog.