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Top ten reasons why spirulina should be in every dog's diet
Before I dive into the miracles of spirulina and how amazing it can be for your dog, I would like to talk about travel.
Most people love to explore the world because it is an exciting, eye-opening and life-enriching experience. Traveling overseas usually starts with getting the best flight connections for the best price.
Let's dream a little
Imagine that dogs and people could travel in the cabin together. In this dream you would like to travel from New York to Amsterdam with your dog. You go online and type in the destination, choose the best flight and because New York and Amsterdam are big air travel hubs, you are likely to find a direct connection for a very good price.
Now imagine you ask a travel agent to book your flight and he comes back with an itinerary from New York to Sydney, Australia then to Bangkok, Thailand and then on to Amsterdam. Plus, your dog would not be allowed to fly in the cabin and instead, he or she would have to travel in the cargo hold.
Not only that, the flight would be crazy long and many times more expensive that the direct flight, and your dog would be under much higher stress so the risks of such travel are much greater. Plus, dogs coming to Australia have to spend weeks in Australian quarantine, which means than rather the normal six hours to get to Amsterdam from New York, it would take many weeks.
Would such itinerary be crazy?
Of course it would, except this is exactly what happens in veterinary and human medicine.
Practitioners are often unaware of the simple and inexpensive solutions because they are not taught. Cheap and effective methods are not studied often enough because the medical model is focused on licensed drug-based treatment protocols.
In my experience, this approach to disease treatment rarely provides a complete disease cure. More often, it causes an improvement of one symptom or a problem and causes other side-effects that lead to more need for drugs to treat the drug inflicted disease.
So, what can you and other dog lovers do to make sure that treating your dog's problems does not look like the trip to Amsterdam via Sydney?
After almost three decades in practice, I have no doubt that the cornerstone of good health is good nutrition. If you want to keep your dog healthy, you must stay away from processed food (kibble) and feed your dog a wholesome cooked or raw diet based on your preference.
But even if you feed such diet, there is no guarantee that your dog's food will be complete. There are certain nutrients, your dog can't make (synthesize) within his or her body. They commonly carry the adjective "essential" such as essential minerals, essential amino-acids, essential fatty acids - (omega fatty acids) or vitamins.
Before the days of intensive agriculture, these nutrients were readily available in the diet of wild canines. The problem is that most soil around the world is depleted, farm animals are raised in highly stressful conditions and the animal feed is often poor quality and no different than, let's say, dog kibble.
Putting all the dots together, it is clear that your dog's health and longevity depends on the presence of these essential nutrients and expecting good health when they are missing is as naive as trying to build a house without timber or bricks.
The best possible solution
Naturally, the best way to feed your dog would be to let it hunt in the wilderness, where it is not affected by civilization, but how easy is that?!
That is why so many dog lovers see a profound difference when they start supplementing essential nutrients such as minerals and amino acids, vitamins, omega oils, and probiotics.
So, why did I use the example of travel from New York to Amsterdam via Sydney and how does it connect with medicine? The reason is that most conventional medical treatments include complex and expensive protocols while the simple, inexpensive and direct (flight) solutions are ignored or forgotten.
Over the years, I have seen most sick, depleted and chronically ill dogs responding very favorably to a blend of plant-based minerals and spirulina because these nutrients jumpstart the body's healing cycle or prevent disease in the first place.
Spirulina is one of the most complete sources of essential nutrients on the planet and NASA has considered it one of the most important food components in food travel. In addition, it also has the ability to detox and remove impurities from your dog's body.
That is why I formulated GreenMin, my all-natural mineral supplement, contains all-natural, kosher Californian Spirulina. It is abundant with chlorophyll, essential amino acids, omega oils, beta-carotene and countless other phytonutrients that nurture, cleanse the body and help eliminate heavy metals.
What is spirulina?
Spirulina belongs to the family cyanobacteria, which is more often called "blue-green algae." In fact, the term algae is a misnomer because spirulina, despite the name, is not true algae. It is one of the richest source of nutrients in nature, containing up to 60 to 70 percent protein, B-complex vitamins, phycocyanin, chlorophyll, beta-carotene, vitamin E and numerous minerals.
Ancient Aztecs and the people of west Africa recognized the benefits of this super food thousands of years ago and many studies have been published on the benefits of spirulina. It is also one of the reasons why so many people see such dramatic positive change in their dog's health when they start taking GreenMin.
Here are the reasons why every dog's diet should include spirulina:
- It is complete protein source with all nine of the essential amino acids - the building blocks needed for the health of every cell in your dog's body.
- Spirulina contains phycocyanin, a photosynthetic pigment with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
- Dogs and people taking spirulina show greater endurance and are able to run longer and exert less energy.
- Spirulina is one of the most chlorophyll-rich foods in the world. It helps remove toxins from the blood and boosts the immune system.
- It is shown to have very positive effect on the immune system and reduce the incidence of allergies.
- Spirulina has been shown to improve fatigue, anxiety and depression in humans and I have seen it having a similar calming and balancing effect on dogs.
- Spirulina contains ten times more beta-carotene than carrots.
- Some clinical studies have shown spirulina to reduce the size of tumors and prevent cancer formation in clinical studies.
- Spirulina absorbs heavy metals and other toxins, which is so important at times of increased environmental and food pollution.
- And finally, this super food is a great source of essential fatty acids, so-called omega oils, which are crucial for proper function of the brain, nervous system, tissue and cell regeneration and healthy coat and skin.
As you can see, it is hard not to get excited about the amazing effects of spirulina, one of my very favorite superfoods. People often ask me, why I combined spirulina with Alga Calcarea, the mineral rich species of algae in GreenMin.
The reason is combining these nutrient rich foods creates synergy of nutrients unlike any other. As I said at the beginning of this article, the best solutions to health and travel are simple. It makes no sense to make healing more complicated than it needs to be.
One more thing. The quality control of spirulina production is crucial to its quality. Poor quality spirulina may contain toxic by-products of production. This is why I use only top-quality, human-grade Californian spirulina in GreenMin.
Recommended reading:
Spirulina for dogs - what you need to know
© Dr. Peter Dobias, DVM
