Benefits of Heart In Pet Food
|
Tiempo de lectura 6 min
Why Choose Heart for Your Pets?
When you own a typical cat (typical in the sense that most cats are difficult to feed) or an atypical dog (atypical in the sense that most dogs are very easy to feed), you know that there is one thing that most of the above cannot say "no" to - and that is heart. Whether raw, lightly cooked, freeze-dried, baked, or dehydrated - most dogs and even the pickiest cats love it! But heart is not only a true delicacy and thus a popular treat choice. The heart also contains some nutrients, or rather combinations and amounts of certain nutrients, that make it superior when compared to, for example, liver or regular muscle meat. This highlights the benefits of heart in pet food in comparison to other options.
Heart as a Unique Source of Amino Acids
The term "regular muscle meat" is chosen because the heart is actually also a muscle. And although many dog and cat owners would classify the heart as offal, it is nutritionally somewhere between muscle meat and offal - leaning slightly towards muscle meat.
Overview
The Benefits of Heart In Pet Food for Amino Acids
The benefits of heart in pet food
include its proteins with high biological value, similar to muscle meat. The biological value of a protein is determined by the protein's amino acid composition and how well it matches the dog's amino acid requirements. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and although we often talk about the protein needs of dogs or cats, dogs and cats actually have an amino acid requirement. Dogs have an essential need for ten different amino acids, while cats have eleven. The essential amino acids cannot be produced by the dog or cat themselves, which is why they need to be supplied through their diet. If the dog or cat gets too little of one or more of these amino acids, this can eventually lead to various health deficiencies, including muscle wasting, a weakened immune system, hormonal and enzymatic disturbances, growth disorders in puppies and kittens, skin and coat problems, digestive issues, neurological problems, and reduced wound healing ability. Prolonged amino acid deficiency can even lead to fatal organ damage. The reason why the list of potential consequences of amino acid deficiency is so long is that amino acids are involved in a myriad of different metabolic processes and are part of many body tissues and substances circulating in the dog and cat's body. To get back to the issue of protein and amino acid requirements: A dog or cat can easily get sufficient amounts of protein but still get too little of one or more essential amino acids. An increased amount of another essential amino acid cannot compensate for the lack of another essential amino acid. Therefore, the dog or cat may develop the aforementioned deficiencies despite an adequate supply of protein.
Taurine: Important for Cats and Dogs
As already mentioned, cats - unlike most dogs - have an essential need for eleven amino acids, as they cannot produce the amino acid taurine themselves. Taurine's main role is to conjugate bile acids into bile salts to make them sufficiently water-soluble so they can dissolve in intestinal contents. This is important for fat digestion. Additionally, taurine plays an important role in, among other things, heart health, normal vision, reproduction, and cellular metabolism. Taurine deficiency in cats can lead to very serious health issues, including heart disease, blindness, and reproductive disorders. The heart contains significantly higher amounts of taurine than regular muscle meat and thus resembles offal like liver, which also contains large amounts of taurine. Therefore, the benefits of heart in pet food include being a good source of taurine. However, processing and storage are important factors. Taurine is sensitive to strong heat treatment over long periods, as can occur in the industrial production of pet food, treats, and snacks. Light and moisture will also affect taurine's nutritional value. To ensure that your cat (or dog) gets a taurine-rich snack, it is therefore a good idea to choose raw, lightly cooked, or freeze-dried heart, which is stored in a dark, dry, cool place for as short a time as possible..
"it is therefore a good idea to choose raw, lightly cooked, or freeze-dried heart, which is stored in a dark, dry, cool place for as short a time as possible"
Risk of Taurine Deficiency in Dogs
The attentive reader may have noticed that the above section says "unlike most dogs." Dogs, as a rule, do not have an essential need for taurine, as they can produce taurine from the sulfur-containing amino acids methionine and cysteine. Methionine is one of the essential amino acids that the dog must obtain through its diet. Under the right conditions, the risk of taurine deficiency in a dog will be negligible. However, there are several factors that can increase the risk of taurine deficiency and thus also the risk of developing, among other things, heart disease. An increased risk of taurine deficiency can arise, for example, when the dog's diet contains too little methionine, cysteine, and/or taurine. Protein digestibility in the dog's food is too low. The dog's diet contains too much fiber.
Animal vs. Plant Protein
Methionine, cysteine, and taurine occur in greater amounts in animal protein. If the dog's protein needs are mainly met through plant protein, it may be that the dog's methionine needs are met, but there are not enough amounts of methionine left to synthesize cysteine and taurine. It is important to note that the dog's need to produce taurine itself will be greater when the taurine content in the food is low. A dog that mainly gets its protein needs met through animal protein will therefore have a lower taurine synthesis requirement than a dog that mainly consumes plant proteins - simply because animal protein contains significantly higher amounts of taurine than plant protein. Additionally, the amino acid methionine is very heat-sensitive, and its biological availability and thus also the availability for taurine synthesis are significantly reduced when the food is heat-treated. If the dog only eats heavily heat-treated food, it may very well be that the dog's methionine supply is insufficient to also produce adequate amounts of cysteine and taurine.
The Importance of Protein Digestibility
Protein digestibility in the diet is also of great importance. Industrial processing of food can significantly reduce protein digestibility. Strong heat treatment (at high temperatures over a long period) will affect the protein structure, making it less available to the dog's body. Additionally, the processing of protein-rich feed materials together with starch-rich feed materials will lead to the production of AGEs (advanced glycation end products), which are the name for reaction products from the so-called Maillard reaction, when amino acids react with sugar molecules. AGEs are difficult to digest, and the undigested AGEs will pass further into the colon, where they promote the growth of taurine-degrading bacteria. This will result in a reduced amount of taurine available for absorption and reuse in the body.
Fiber and Taurine Absorption
AGEs are not the only factors that can reduce taurine absorption. Large amounts of fiber in the dog's diet can reduce taurine availability for the body, as some of them can bind to bile salts, making them unavailable for absorption. Dogs are quite efficient at recycling taurine after it has done its job and helped with fat digestion. However, this absorption cannot occur once the fibers have bound to the bile salts. In that case, these are excreted along with the dog's feces. Overweight dogs undergoing weight loss or dogs with very low metabolism and thus significantly lower energy needs than the average dog are often fed high-fiber diets, and therefore have an increased risk of taurine deficiency.
Supplementing with Heart
If you have an overweight dog or a dog with low metabolism, or if you feed your dog heavily processed food or food that contains large amounts of plant protein, it may make sense to supplement the dog's diet with taurine-rich heart as a treat. The benefits of heart in pet food are clear in these scenarios, where it can help ensure sufficient taurine intake.
Why Heart Instead of Liver?
But why is it specifically the heart, and not, for example, liver, which is also rich in taurine, that can be used to supplement the diet of dogs and cats? It is because the heart, unlike the liver, contains significantly smaller amounts of some other nutrients, which can lead to health problems if consumed in excessive amounts. Here we are talking about the mineral copper and vitamin A. To avoid overdosing on these nutrients, it is therefore better to choose heart as a supplement rather than liver. This further emphasizes the benefits of heart in pet food .
Note: Limitations on the Use of Heart
Heart - like offal - is rich in purines, which is why it is not suitable as a supplementary feed for dogs with a defect in uric acid metabolism or dogs that are medicated with allopurinol.
The Author: Ann-Kristin Meyer
M.Sc. in Animal Science from the University of Copenhagen, specializing in dog nutrition, Owner of HundeFoderNørden