Food Friday: Alternative Protein Roundup, Pork Edition

My quest for Brisbane-safe foods has brought us a variety of pork-based treats and dog food over the nearly two years I've been blogging here. We've already summed up the venison- and rabbit-based goodies, so this week it's time to take a look at an often-overlooked alternative protein. I'm not a huge ham or sausage fan, but I think we can all agree that bacon is awesome. I even chop it into tiny pieces and toss it with various training treats to make them extra-awesome.

Why Aren't There More Pork-Based Dog Foods?

Photo by Erin Koski

Chicken is by far the most common animal protein found in dog food, beef is the second most common, and lamb third in my own experience reading infinite ingredient labels. Pork is supposed to be a poor-man's meat, cheap and plentiful right? So why isn't everyone making dog food out of it?

The first reason I've heard for not feeding pork to dogs is trichinosis, or trichinellosis. This is a parasite transmitted through consumption of raw or undercooked meat of infected animals. The worms live in the muscles until the meat is eaten, then they are released to infect the new host. This used to be a major issue with pork in particular until laws passed in 1980, along with good food storage and handling practices like freezing pork for several weeks before cooking it. Today, trichinellosis is extremely rare, with around 20 cases reported annually in the United States according to the CDC. Most of these are not from consuming commercially-raised pork though, they are from eating raw or undercooked wild game meats.

The second reason I've heard for not feeding pork to dogs is because it supposedly causes pancreatitis. Given that Brisbane has eating tons of raw pork bones without developing it, I'm not terribly worried. The association mostly seems to be between dogs eating super-rich fat scraps and getting pancreatitis, and obviously pet food manufacturers are monitoring the fat and protein levels in their products. It mostly seems that some companies in the industry are leery of using pork just because of their customers' outdated or inaccurate information. This is actually a good thing though, because it means most dogs have never been fed pork, so it can be used as an alternative protein and part of an elimination diet.

Pork Dog Foods

It seems that some of the very best dog food companies use pork as an alternative protein. Primal offers pork-based versions of both their Nuggets and Pronto foods, and both of these use only pork and some veggies so they can be useful for helping sort out food sensitivities. Acana Singles Pork and Butternut Squash is the only kibble we've tried so far that only used pork protein.

Companies seem to be more likely to make canned foods out of pork, rather than kibble Wild Calling offers one that is just pork and vitamins to make it a complete diet. Fromm's Four Star Shredded Pork Entree is the most appetizing food we sell at work, if a dog won't eat that they won't eat anything. Nature's Variety Instinct Limited Ingredient Diets only offers a canned pork food, but offers a kibble variety for each of their other proteins. Natural Balance offers a wild boar and brown rice canned food, but no boar kibble. We got a carton of Caru Real Pork Stew in our November BarkBox.

Pork Dog Treats

All our favorite pork-based dog treats were discovered via BarkBox. The Bixbi Essentials Pork Jerky arrived in the 2014 December box. Two years ago we got some PetSafe Indigo Smokehouse Strips in our March box, last year we got some Healthy Dogma Bacon Hearts in the March Box. The August Box brought us some Wagatha's Maple Bacon Biscuits. Surprisingly, our favorite pork-based chew, the bacon-flavored Dogswell Boundless, did not come in a subscription box. 

Treat Tuesday: Healthy Dogma Pumpkin Biscuits

The Halloween Pumpkin Biscuits  by Healthy Dogma arrived in our October Allergy-Friendly BarkBox. In addition to barley, oats, peas, and of course pumpkin, they also contain vanilla and cloves. Though not quite as amazing as the pumpkin pie Smoochers, they do smell quite tasty. They are, however, disappointingly bland to human taste buds. (Don't judge me!)

Good For: Dogs who will eat literally any type of food. Low value training treats. Hiding around the house for the dogs to discover. Stringing on wearable edible dog necklaces. Balancing on dog heads while practicing our leave-it command.

Not Good For: Super-picky chihuahuas. Little girl dogs who need to contemplate everything before they eat it. High-value training treats.

How Much We Like Them: Enough to lick them, apparently. They're really quite bland.

Treat Tuesday: Healthy Dogma Bacon Hearts

This cup of Healthy Dogma Bacon Hearts arrived in our March Allergy-Friendly BarkBox. Unlike the Jamaican Bacon Hearts found on the Healthy Dogma website, these contain no poultry, eggs, beef, corn, wheat, soy, or gluten. They are made from peas, pea flour, tapioca, canola oil, cranberry, sweet potato, and of course bacon.

Good For: Mid-value training treats. Popping into Kongs and the Treat-Dispensing Chew Ball. Find-the-treat games.

Not Good For: Lasing very long.

How Much We Like Them: They're half-gone already.

The March Allergy-Friendly BarkBox!

The theme for this month's Allergy-Friendly BarkBox is "Movie Night". The allergy-friendly version of the monthly goody box comes with no chicken, turkey, beef, corn, soy, wheat, or gluten ingredients...usually.

My favorite thing in this box is the LollyCadoodle Wool Snake. It's a good two feet long and made out of felted wool. It's also super cute! Ru likes to grab and shake it, and newly-returned foster puppy Darla has been carrying it around all evening.

The Pet Qwerks Pawpcorn toy is getting significantly less love around here. Like the flat penguin, it crinkles. I'm trying to convince Darla that it is super awesome, but we may use the Scout's Honor system to swap it for something more fun.

We got three different edible goodies in this month's box. The Healthy Dogma Bacon Hearts are adorable. They remind me of the Superior Farms grain-free biscuits, and are made in the USA.

The Etta Says Toasted Coconut Bitz look like they will be excellent training treats. These are also made in the USA.

The Nature's Bits Salmon Recipe turned out to be a bit of a disappointment because they contain chicken fat. Fortunately I happen to have a spare dog at the moment. I'm really hoping Darla gets adopted before I can feed all of these to her. In that event, I will send them with her to her new home.

The July BarkBox, a Celebration of Chicken

Yesterday I canceled Brisbane's BarkBox subscription after opening our July box. Two of the four items inside were treats containing chicken, and after last month's disappointment I decided I was done. Our first two boxes were wonderful assortments of goodies that were all Brisbane-safe. After that, things started to go downhill.

I think the problem lies in the number of items contained in the box. The two most recent boxes contained only four items each. The March BarkBox contained five. My rating system for items in simple, they are either good, ok, or unusable. Good items are tasty, fun treats and irresistible or stuffable toys. Ok items are kind of blah, the dogs might be mildly interested or may just leave them. Unusable items contain Brisbane's allergens, chicken, turkey, duck, and eggs. To illustrate the decrease in BarkBox satisfaction, I am awarding each month's box one point per good item, zero points for ok items, and subtracting a point for each unusable item.

The March BarkBox contained three kind of tasty treats, one stuffable toy, and one stuffy. The treats and stuffable toy each earn one point, with no points awarded for the Stuffy, giving the March box an overall score of four.

The June BarkBox contained one small bag of tasty treats, one bag of unusable chicken treats, and two toys from the same company that I ended up giving away because my dogs ignored them even after repeated attempts to get them to play. No points for the toys, one point for the small bag of treats, and negative one point for the chicken treats gave the June box an overall score of zero.

This month's box contained a large bag of Bixbi Daily Essentials Chicken Breast Jerky Treats that are sourced and produced in the USA. They look awesome, but get a -1. Bixbi also makes Briz-safe beef and pork jerky. The PetSafe Indigo Triple Chews also look like fun and are also made from chicken and get a -1. Those don't come in any other flavors. We also got a cup of Healthy Dogma Blissful Banana Crisps, which Brisbane does not find very exciting, zero points. The last item is a P.L.A.Y. Under the Sea Crab stuffy, which Brisbane thought interesting enough to squeak once. They totally make a squid stuffy, and if it had been a squid I would have given it a point, but neither I nor the dogs are a huge fan of the crab so it also gets zero points. This brings the July BarkBox score to -2, hence my disappointment.

I canceled Brisbane's BarkBox subscription and sent the company an email explaining exactly why, and how they had failed to meet my expectations for the last two months. They responded by informing me that they started an allergy-friendly BarkBox last month, and would be happy to switch my subscription to one of those. Our August BarkBox will not contain anything with chicken, turkey, beef, corn, soy, wheat, or gluten. We could still get something with egg or duck in it, but I am hoping our odds of getting something awesome are a little higher.