Dietary choices made for your dog can impact the dog’s well-being and mental health. Thereby, understanding the healthy foods that can be added to the dog’s diet and avoiding any harmful food substances is very important. The eating habits that the dogs get used to can result in a long, healthy life when managed properly. The time at which the dogs are fed, the portion sizes provided, the amount of food given at different ages are all factors that contribute to a healthy life. Some of the healthy changes that can be inculcated in your dog’s diet to make healthy dog food are as follows:

• Don’t make shelf-stable foods as a staple diet: While most of the processed food for dogs do have a high shelf life and can last for anywhere be 12 and 24 months, they are not the healthiest options for the dog. In most of the cases, shelf-stable foods contain barely any live enzymes that can help the dog’s health. The enzymes are usually not present because of the industrial processes used for cooking. Shelf-stable foods heavily rely on synthetic supplements to meet the required nutritional balance. While kibble, biscuits, and other canned foods can be used rarely when there’s a shortage of time, it shouldn’t be made a staple diet as it won’t provide the dogs with enough nutrition.
• Don’t cook the meats: Many beneficial nutrients that are present in different types of meats are usually lost when we cook these meats to make them more palatable for us. However, dogs, like all other species on the planet except for humans, are capable of eating the meat in their raw form. There are certain types of foods and some kinds of meats that may release nutrients only after they are cooked. However, that is not the case for most types and therefore, they can be given to the dogs in the raw form without any cooking required. Cooking different types of meats can also lead to the production of compounds in the meats which would further cause cancer. Therefore, even if the general habit is to cook the meat for your dogs, make sure to not exceed the cooking over the light searing.
• Choose organic green lentils in place of rice: A lot of dogs are generally allergic to grains like wheat and in most cases, dogs don’t even need grains to be healthy. So a great substitute with high protein content could be green lentils. Green lentils, similar to be rice, should be given to the dogs after proper boiling and hence there wouldn’t be much difference in the cooking process. However, it would be better if the lentils are soaked and rinsed before cooking them followed by a rinse after they are cooked. Lentils can be highly beneficial as they are also rich in minerals and have high fiber content. They are also particularly rich in magnesium and iron. Lentils also have high quantities of a particular essential amino acid known as lysine which helps in boosting the immune system.