Pet food has some dietary advantages for people and is a viable survival meals, however consuming it long-term may adversely have an effect on your well being.
Is Canine Meals Protected for People to Eat?
Pet food is a viable choice if you happen to’ve nothing else to eat and, offered it’s saved in an hermetic container, ought to be protected.
Learn: How to store dog food long term
Canine and people have comparable dietary wants, which is why canine can survive on scraps and byproducts of human meals. Meaning a serving of canned pet food or kibble may have dietary advantages for people.
As each all these pet food are designed as full sources of diet, they include all of the vitamins and micronutrients a canine wants. It could present a extra dietary and balanced weight loss program than many survival meals!
The pet meals trade should adjust to a inflexible algorithm and security processing requirements, however they’re not fairly as rigorous as those governing human meals processing.
Nonetheless, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act require that every one animal meals
“be suitable for eating, produced beneath sanitary situations, include no dangerous substances, and be honestly labeled.”
Canned canine meals are the most secure due to how they’re processed. Earlier than canning, the meals is heated, killing off any food-borne pathogens. The hermetic can protects the meals towards future contamination, fats oxidation, and rancidity up till its expiration date.
Kibble isn’t canned and is subsequently inclined to contamination. Over the previous six months, the FDA has recalled 4 merchandise, three on account of doable salmonella contamination.
If the fat within the kibble are uncovered to air, it may well trigger oxidation, resulting in rancidity. Consuming contained or rancid kibble is doubtlessly harmful, inflicting vomiting, diarrhea, and different digestive points.
How Lengthy May You Survive on Canine Meals?
You possibly can survive for weeks, if not months, consuming solely pet food, however you could expertise some well being points.
Canine’ stomachs are way more acidic than people, permitting them to digest bones and protein effectively. As pet food incorporates extra protein than human meals, you stand a very good probability of gaining weight on a pet food weight loss program.
Canine additionally produce their very own vitamin C, so it’s hardly ever included in any business pet food. People get their required vitamin C from meals, and with out it might undergo irritability, anorexia, pores and skin issues, and even scurvy.
Not solely would pet food depart you vitamin C poor, however it might additionally overload your physique with vitamin A.
If a can of pet food incorporates “5000 IU of Vitamin A per kilogram,” and the common human wants round 1.3 to 1.8 kgs of meals per day, their every day consumption of vitamin A could be between 6,500 and 9,000 IU per day.
That’s 3 times the recommended dietary allowance for men! Consuming this a lot vitamin A could cause aching muscle mass, complications, nausea, and poor coordination, none of that are very helpful in a survival scenario.
Dana Hunnes, an assistant professor on the Fielding College of Public Well being on the College of California in Los Angeles, recommends limiting your pet food consumption to “a brief length — ideally not more than a few days.” Any longer than this, and also you threat dietary deficiency.
Does Canine Meals Style Good?
Simply because you already know one thing’s suitable for eating doesn’t imply you wish to eat it. Pet food might supply dietary advantages however incorporates belongings you wouldn’t normally discover in your plate.
Pet meals is manufactured from byproducts and leftovers, so you would discover intestines and different organs in a can of pet food. It could additionally include bone meal and different grain byproducts that you simply’ve by no means tasted earlier than.
Meaning you could expertise tastes and textures which are fully new to you and will not be very nice.
The Finest Sort of Canine Meals to Eat in an Emergency
Pet meals merchandise are extensively different however normally are available three types – moist canned, dry kibble, or freeze-dried. Whereas I haven’t tried any of those myself, somebody known as Anne Kadet as soon as did and wrote about it.
In response to her, high-end kibble “has a nutty, barely bitter style” however is dry and gritty and takes a variety of chewing. Canned meals is best, particularly sure manufacturers that include complete greens however has a “metallic and disturbingly bland” taste.
On the finish of her six-day experiment, Kadet concluded that if she was in a good spot, she’d “select to reside on kibble over Kraft dinner or ramen noodles.” I ponder the way it compares to MREs?
Conclusion
For those who’ve obtained nothing else, pet food is a viable survival meals, at the least for a number of days. It has dietary advantages for people, containing lots of the identical meals we normally eat. Nevertheless, consuming it for longer may trigger nutrient deficiencies and even weight acquire.