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Keto Dog Food: How to Feed Your Dog a Keto Diet

Keto Dog Food: How to Feed Your Dog a Keto Diet

KETO DOG FOOD

We’ve come a long way since the days when not much was known about optimal canine nutrition. And while the dog food market is still mostly dominated by cheap kibbles with high carbohydrate content, there is certainly cause for optimism. And that’s because we now live in a world with REAL low carb, ketogenic dog food available for dogs of all life stages!

Thats right. I’m talking about Visionary Keto Pet Foods :)

And to best understand how amazing it is that our easy, affordable keto dog food is finally available to dogs everywhere - let’s look at the history of keto dog food and how we came to develop the first real innovation in dog food since the invention of kibble over 80 years ago!

KetoPet and the Science of Low Carb, Keto Dog Food!

In 2014, members of our team helped open KetoPet Sanctuary in order to rescue dogs with late-stage cancer and investigate the potential benefits of a low carb, ketogenic diet for dogs. Once a dog arrived at KetoPet, they were placed on a low carb ketogenic diet (high fat, adequate protein, and very low carbohydrate content) and cared for by a team of trained professionals.

Based on their research, KetoPet concluded that not only should a ketogenic diet be a standard adjuvant therapy for any dog dealing with cancer, but all dogs (regardless of cancer) should be powered by fat and protein - not carbs. We launched Visionary Pet to give dogs everywhere the benefits of optimal nutrition - by making delicious and affordable keto dog food for dogs of all breeds and life stages! 

keto pet sanctuary investigating ketogenic diet for dogs

Pictured: KetoPet Sanctuary in 2015

Why is Low Carb, Keto Dog Food the Best Food for All Dogs? 

This may surprise you, but here’s the truth:

Dogs have no nutritional need for carbohydrates

It’s true! So...why then are most dog foods so high in carbs? The answer is simple. Carbs are cheap, carbs are easy to manufacture with, and if you make a cheap, carb-rich kibble, people will still buy it for the ease and affordability that comes with high-carb (and minimally nutritious) kibble. 

There’s also one other important factor at play here, which is that before Visionary Pet, no one thought you could make a very low carb kibble! But once we understood how important it was for a very low carb, keto kibble to exist, we put in the time and effort to make it exist. 

In fact, it took us over 2 years to finally create an easy and affordable keto dog food. And despite the years of effort and countless iterations, we succeeded in creating the first real innovation in pet food in over 80 years: a low carb, keto dry food with real meat protein and less than 1g net carbs per cup! 

But now that we know keto dog food finally exists, let’s focus more on exactly why all dogs should eat low carb, keto dog food!

Keto Dog Food Helps Manage Blood Sugar

A keto diet is unlike any other diet for several reasons. But perhaps the most interesting reason is this: you can directly measure and validate if the diet is being implemented correctly!

Just like with humans, if your dog is eating a low carb ketogenic diet, they’ll have lower average blood glucose and significant levels of circulating ketones. These two aspects can be directly measured to validate the diet, and they also do amazing things for your dog’s health! 

At KetoPet, we found that dogs eating a standard high carb dog food had an average blood sugar value that was over 50% higher than dogs fed a keto dog food! And this number matters, because managing blood sugar and insulin sensitivity is one of the most important things you can do for life extension and optimal health! 

keto blood glucose vs standard kibble dry dog food

Keto Dog Food Significantly Raises Circulating Ketones!

If you feed your dog a high carb dog food and measure their blood ketones, you’ll likely get the following result: nothing.

It’s true, and when you consider all the amazing health benefits of circulating ketone bodies, you can easily understand why pet parents report such amazing health improvements when they switch from a high carb dog food to a keto dog food.

We find that dogs eating keto dog food have average blood ketone readings over 0.3 mMol - compared to essentially 0 for dogs eating a high carb diet. This means that dogs eating Visionary or a homemade ketogenic dog food enjoy all the amazing benefits of circulating blood ketones - with none of the downsides of a high carb diet! 

What to Look For in a Keto Dog Food

Now that we know why all dogs should eat keto dog food, it’s important to discuss how to evaluate whether your dog’s food is keto or not. 

The simplest way is this: feed Visionary. We only make very low carb keto dog food, and all of our recipes have been validated as ketogenic in countless dogs. But for the sake of curiosity, let’s look at how to evaluate whether a dog food is truly keto. 

Very Low Carb Dog Food

This is the most important aspect when evaluating a dog food. Before you look at anything else, you need to determine if the food you’re feeding is actually low carb. And while this may seem like an easy task, it’s actually quite difficult given this one simple fact…

Visionary Pet is the only brand that lists carb content clearly on the bag. 

You might be wondering why this is, given the significance of a low carb diet for your dog’s health. And the answer is quite simple…

Dogs have no nutritional need for carbohydrates. And so, dog food companies choose to obscure and omit this important information. In fact, they’ll make misleading claims like “grain-free” while at the same time calling out undesirable ingredients like corn, sweet potatoes, and blueberries! 

Many pet foods claim to use high-quality ingredients but use cheap carbs and fillers like corn, soy or sweet potatoes...

There’s only one real way to evaluate the carb content of your dog’s food: send it to a reputable laboratory for nutritional analysis. But this is expensive and time consuming, so we’ll make it easy. Instead of wasting time and money confirming that there are no real low carb, keto dog foods on the market aside from Visionary, try this simple step instead…

Feed Visionary Pet :)

High in Fat. Moderate in Protein. 

Protein is critical to building and maintaining lean muscle in your dog. It’s also essential to just about every aspect of health and wellness in all animals. That’s why it’s so important to feed a dog food that has an adequate amount of high quality, animal meat protein. 

But while having enough protein is important, too much protein can disrupt the ketogenic nature of a given food. To provide adequate protein without disrupting ketosis, we recommend feeding a diet that is roughly 60% fat and 40% protein as a percentage of total calories. 

keto dog food

And if this is at all confusing, don’t worry! There’s an easy solution that you’ll know from the section above…

Feed Visionary Pet :)

Visionary Pet: Keto Food for Dogs! 

Since you’ve made it this far, you no doubt understand that dogs should be powered by fat and protein - not carbs. You also understand that Visionary Pet makes high quality low carb, keto dog food for dogs of all breeds and life stages. But to give you an even better understanding of why our food is so important, let’s look at why Visionary is better than the rest :) 

Very Low Carb

Unlike other dry dog foods, which are often over 30% carbohydrates as a percentage of total calories, Visionary Pet is less than 1% total carbs. In fact, our low carb keto dry dog food has less than 1g net carb per cup! 

Real Meat Protein

Many brands claim to use “high quality” protein but then add inferior protein sources like pea or soy protein to their products to keep costs down. Visionary uses only animal meat protein in every one of our low carb, keto dog foods. 

Here’s the truth: if you’re not using animal meat protein, you’re failing to provide optimal nutrition for the dogs that consume your food. Dogs thrive on animal meat protein because it contains the right mix of amino acids to support their needs. Inferior sources like pea or soy protein are insufficient in key amino acids like taurine, and this can lead to nutritional deficiencies and serious health consequences when fed over a long period of time. 

Thus...when evaluating your dog’s food, be sure to evaluate the type of protein and not just the amount. 

Keto Dog Food

All Visionary Pet recipes have been validated as ketogenic and contain a macronutrient breakdown of roughly 60-70% fat, 30-40% protein, and less than 1% carbohydrates as a percentage of total calories. 

canine nutrition keto dog food pyramid

When evaluating the best dog food - use the enlightened pyramid of canine nutrition!

That means you can rest assured knowing that when you feed Visionary Pet, you’re feeding a very low carb, ketogenic dog food with less than 1g net carb per cup real, animal meat protein! 

And unlike a homemade ketogenic diet, you don’t have to worry about your dog’s nutritional needs. All Visionary Pet recipes are formulated with the vitamins and minerals your dog needs to thrive.

The choice is clear. But if you have any questions at all - we’re here to help! Email me at info@visionarypet.com or reach us on any of our social channels. 

And remember…

Smart dogs eat low carb!

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2 comments

  • Why is the freeze dried beef food unavailable? Will it be available later?
    I have a 14 year old diabetic Maltese. I’m concerned about his food. Since the freeze dried food, he will not eat the pellets. His teeth prevent him eating them whole so I have to blend them into a powder to mix in his wet food. Now he won’t go near the ground up pellets. The freeze dried is so expensive, I’m considering changing to another brand Keto food for him. Can and will you please give a price change to make it a more reasonably priced food.
    I don’t want a sales pitch or reasons why i should just suck it up and pay your price in order to feed him your product. You have a good product but you’re pricing yourselves out of new customers or keeping the ones you already have buying your products.
    Thanks, R Jenkins

    REBECCA JENKINS
  • I have been ordering through Amazon and feeding my dog chicken and beef varieties of Visionary Keto Pet Foods for about 6 months with good success. Then I had a delay in the beef variety, but continued with the chicken. Now that the beef arrived, my dog will have nothing to do with it. Did you change the formula or taste? I serve the food with home made beef or chicken bone broth and have not changed anything.

    Rebecca

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