16:57 29 January 2016
Vet Barbara Royal said that resisting giving certain food to your pet as they stare at you from under the table could be beneficial to their health. Sharing her experiences on Oprah.com, she listed all the food she has seen cause problems in dogs and cats.
· Peanut butter – Dr Royal said that this item is what owners surprised the most. She explained: "I have a lot of animals that will come in [with] allergies or chronic problems, and then I find out that they've been giving all the medications in peanut butter.
"So we stop the peanut butter and everything gets better."
· Pizza crusts – Dr Royal said that processed food containing white potato often uses the skin, which as a toxic substance called solanine.
She said: "Other things that people feed are, like, Friday evening pizza crust - that comes under my long list of things which is: no corn, no wheat, no soy and no white potato in foods."
· Crisps – Crisps and pretzels or other salty food is not good for pet.
Dr Royal explains: "The salty foods are things that are going to be more inflammatory. You don't want to be feeding these to your pets."
She then advises that we should stick to things that "make sense to [our pets] evolutionarily." You really should stick to things that would make sense to them evolutionarily. You're only going to be sticking to treats that are meat treats or that are going to make sense to their body.
"Cats - even more so. They're obligate carnivores so they absolutely shouldn't really be eating food other than mostly meat - they should have high protein, high fat and low carb - not more than 5-10% of their food should be carbohydrates.
"So when you're feeding treats, a lot of the treats have a lot of sugars and things in them. You wan't to get rid of those."