The answer is yes, without a doubt. Dogs can eat pork, and are perfectly adapted to consuming this type of food. Dogs are facultative carnivores, and Dogs can meet their intake of animal protein from various sources. Pork is one of the most popular meats. Due to its low price, and its outstanding offer in the market, it is easy to acquire this type of meat for food. But if you have ever wondered if dogs can eat pork, we will tell you everything in the following text.
Pork Meat
Pork meat is a type of tender meat. Pale pink in color and firm in texture, it has a mild flavor, although it depends on the piece chosen.
In addition to the piece, there are many forms of preparation and types of meat products made from pork on the market. For example, we can find ham, shoulder, or loin, such as sausages. But we can also find steaks or chops.
Regarding the nutritional value of pork, the leanest parts, without fat, have about 8 g of fat per 100 g. On the other hand, the fatty parts reach 30 g per 100 g of product. Semi-fat meat contains 17% protein and does not contain carbohydrates.
As for nutrients, pork is a source of minerals such as zinc, potassium, phosphorus, and selenium. On the other hand, in terms of its vitamin content, it is one of the meats with the highest amount of thiamin and is also a good source of vitamin B12, vitamin B6, and niacin.
Can dogs eat pork?
Dogs can eat pork and are perfectly adapted to consuming this type of food. However, if we want to include it in their diet, we must follow some recommendations.
- First of all, always give him cooked pork meat. If we offer raw pork, we run the risk of bacterial infections, for example, salmonella.
- Another aspect that we must take into account is the cooking process. For example, we should not cook with sauces or too much oil. We can choose to make it cooked or fried on the grill with a minimum of oil. This is because excess fat can cause indigestion or gastrointestinal problems in the dog.
- Another aspect to consider is the meat product that we are going to choose. If we want to give our dog pork, it will have to be meat as such. Dogs should not eat sausages or processed products, which may have harmful additives, such as salt or paprika, for example.
- Similarly, the amount of pork that we will give our dog should not exceed more than 10 percent of his diet based on feed.
Pork meat and allergies
While it is true that dogs can eat pork, some of them may suffer from an allergic or hypersensitive reaction to this type of protein.
Regarding this aspect, many authors consider that pork, chicken, beef, dairy products, and eggs are the proteins of animal origin most frequently implicated in allergies. On these animals, it may be necessary to use a grain-free feed based on another protein, such as fish.
However, this does not mean that the pig is nasty for the dogs. Only, quite simply, some animals develop a hypersensitivity reaction to pork proteins.
