Is Xylitol Safe For Pets?
Experts say a commonly used sweetener found in chewing gum, candies, baked goods, and toothpaste could cause liver failure in dogs.
Even a small amount of the sugar substitute Xylitol can trigger a significant insulin release, which experts believe causes a drop in a dog’s blood sugar level. The decline in blood sugar can be fatal.
Does this mean Xylitol is harmful to humans?
Not at all. It just means that as much as people love their pets and think of them as human, they are not. Dogs and cats, for that matter, are not designed to eat human food. And Xylitol is not the only human food that’s harmful to pets. Chocolate too can kill your dog. With humans, it just makes us feel like we’re in love. For most people, those are very different responses. Note: onion, garlic, and macadamia nuts can also be deadly to pets.
Look at your teeth in the mirror, then look at your pets. Not the same. And if you could compare digestive tracts, very different too. (For more info, check out Chapter 6 of Lessons from the Miracle Doctors. (You can download a free copy at www.jonbarron.org.)
Bottom line: don’t feed your pets the food you eat. They’re not designed to handle it. (For that matter, most people aren’t designed to handle the highly processed, overly cooked diet they eat day in day out, but that’s a different story.)
Back in the “”old days”” my grandmother fed all her dogs and cats human food, simply because there wasn’t any special dog food. They got vegetables and meat chopped up together with some herbs and most of them lived to be over 14 years, two even lived to 16 years. Can you explain how they could have been so healthy? The only innoculations they got were distemper shots. Do you think it was because all the food was home grown and perhaps more nutritious than what we eat today?
Your comments would be appreciated.
Joan:
I’m not sure I’d call raw meat and vegetables necessarily “”human food.”” It’s pretty much what wild dogs or wolves eat. I think your animals did well eating a diet that was pretty much natural for them — that’s assuming that at least some of the food was raw.