Digestive Enzymes
What are digestive enzymes?
- Digestive enzymes are an assortment of different proteins that break down food into smaller, more easily digestible sizes so that the body can then absorb the necessary nutrients. When a wolf pack makes a kill in the wild, the alpha wolf gets the first choice of the feast and he goes for the GI tract. This is because digestive enzymes are found in the stomach of the prey.
- Digestive enzymes are produced by your pet’s pancreas but the amount of enzymes produced are inadequate for breaking down their food efficiently. The rest of the enzymes need to come from your pet’s food.
Does my pet’s food contain digestive enzymes?
- Unfortunately, today’s processed foods do not provide the proper enzymes to balance with our pet’s own enzymes. When foods are cooked above 118° the natural enzymes break down.
- When our pets are fed exclusively foods that their bodies are not designed to digest easily or efficiently (such as dry foods), their pancreas has to work over time to produce enzymes to break the foods down. This stresses out the pancreas and can lead to issues down the road.
How do I ensure that my pets are getting the enzymes they need?
- We recommend feeding a raw food diet to your pet, like Steve’s Real Raw Food, K9 Kravings, Answers, Primal, Tucker’s, Northwest Naturals or Stella & Chewy’s Raw Diet. Raw foods, by nature, contain naturally occurring digestive enzymes. Some commercially prepared raw foods have gone through High Pressure Processing (HPP) so it is important to add in a digestive enzyme supplement, like Primal Raw Goat’s Milk, Steve’s Raw Goat’s Milk Yogurt, Answer’s Raw Fermented Goat or Cow’s Kefir, Nature’s Farmacy Digestive Enhancer or Probiotic Max, Animal Essentials Plant Enzymes, or Ark Naturals Gentle Digest to aid in digestion.
Digestive enzymes are also recommended when using other supplements as they help prepare the body for absorption and boost the supplement being used.
