We’ve seen a growing awareness over the last decade of eating healthy and keeping fit for our overall wellbeing, but these things also enact as preventative steps to keep our bodies in the best shape possible to be able to fight disease.

At Bell & Bone, we believe it’s important to build awareness of the importance of preventative health i.e. living your best life! So below is some nutritional information that highlights the benefits of implementing superfoods (and superfood dog treats, of course!) into both your and your pups’ diet to promote overall health and wellbeing. The most important thing to remember is to keep it simple! Such that we know eating a healthy diet in our own lives can help prevent unhealthy bodily responses, such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and so on. Keeping it clean, healthy, and simple for our dogs is not too dissimilar…

Let us explain!!

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superfood
**_noun
_a nutrient-rich food considered to be especially beneficial for health and well-being.

As owners, we have the sole discretion over what we feed our pets – every morning, night, and throughout the day.

We love them and take responsibility for them – including their health and wellbeing, which starts with what we choose to feed them! Bell & Bone believes that loving our dogs means giving them the best life we can. So given the choice, isn’t it better to give your dog a superfood rather than something that is not full of nutrients to promote their health and wellbeing?

We’ve outlined below some of the advantages of switching out certain ingredients in your dog’s diets for a superfood alternative because when we take care of our bodies, they take care of us!

Ingredients to avoid

Ingredients to seek out

Wheat is one of the top ingredients which can cause allergies in dogs, causing distress. Symptoms can include itchy skin (particularly along the face, ears, legs, and feet), chronic ear infections, hair loss, and skin infections. Unfortunately, it can be found in many dog treats around the world.

An alternative for wheat flour is Chia flour. Chia seeds are full of omega-3 fatty acids which support the immune system, joints, brain, and eye development and maintenance and of course, cell production, skin, and coat health. Bell & Bone uses chia seeds in the full range of Superfood Dog Treats.

Corn flour is a very inexpensive filler added to a lot of dog foods and treats. Although not overtly offensive, it provides very little nutritional value to dogs (and humans!) The risk of feeding too much corn is that it can lead to obesity and reduce immunity if your dog isn’t getting the nutrients it needs in its diet.

Coconut flour is an alternative to grain flour, which provides far more nutritional value. It can eliminate the digestive difficulties which come with grains, not to mention coconut is full of antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids to help keep skin smooth and coats shiny. Did you know that Coconut can be found in all Bell & Bone dog treats?

Soybeans have been found to find large quantities of ‘anti-nutrients’ which can cause gastric distress, reduce protein digestion and cause chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake. The issues against soy are much stronger than the for-soy arguments – take a read of the attached for further information.

Soy for pets

Flaxseed has all the right fats for strong bones and muscles, its full of fibre for digestion and helps maintain great skin and coat… it’s basically the king of superfoods. We think Flaxseed is a key ingredient in our Superfood Dog Treats!

We hope the above helps, so that on your next shopping trip you know which ingredients you don’t want to see on the back of your pet treat bag, and the ingredients which you should actively seek out!

Our advice? Always read the ingredients before you buy!