Dog Food Owner Samples Product for 30 Days to Prove Quality

The owner of Muenster Milling, a dog food manufacturer, ate the company’s dog food for 30 days to show that it was not only safe for dogs, but nutritious for them.

Mitch Felderhoff ended up surprising himself, though, when his health improved measurably during the 30-day experiment.

What happened?

Muenster Milling is not an ordinary dog food manufacturer. Its products include dry dog food and freeze-dried meal toppers and treats. These products are free from gluten and high in protein. The dog food is designed to deliver all the nutrients dogs need while simultaneously addressing a growing obesity crisis among dogs.

To prove the quality of his company’s products, the president of the company went 30 days in which he only ate his company’s dog food, along with intermittent fasting. He documented the experiment online through his company’s YouTube channel.

For Fedlerhoff, this experiment was an investment. At the beginning and end of the experiment, his family’s nurse practitioner tested his blood sugar level, his cholesterol level, and his blood pressure. He was also weighed before and after the experiment. He showed improvement in all these measures after just 30 days:

• His cholesterol and blood sugar level decreased
• His blood pressure was lower
• He lost 30 pounds

Why did this work?

If you read the ingredient list for the products he ate, you will see that they are more likely to make a nutritionist say “yay” rather than “yuck.”

Some of Muenster Milling’s products are entirely grain-free. Grains like wheat and corn are used in other dog foods as a cheap filler. However, grains are primarily carbohydrates with a little bit of protein. Wheat, for example, is about 70% carbs and 13% protein. Carbohydrates are an important source of energy, but when this energy goes unused, it can cause a spike in blood sugar levels and can be stored as fat.

Some diets, such as the keto diet, Atkins diet, and other no-carb diets, are based on the theory that humans eat too many carbs. As a result, it’s thought that this has impacted the current epidemic of obesity and diabetes among humans and dogs alike.

According to this theory, replacing carbs with protein, fats, and vegetables improves the body’s metabolism and reduces its overall calorie intake. Many people on no-carb diets show dramatic weight loss, although there are questions about the long-term effects of the high-fat content of these no-carb diets.

Strictly speaking, the dog food is not free from all carbs. The dog food does contain gluten-free carb sources such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and ancient grains, like flaxseed and sorghum. Thus, the makeup of the company’s dog food is more similar to that of a low carb diet.

In fact, these proportions are in line with the recommendations from nutritionists. The current government guidelines recommend reducing carbs to less than one-quarter of your diet. With lower levels of carbs, it is only logical that eating dog food for 30 days would lead to weight loss and lower blood sugar levels.

Also, keep in mind what he had replaced dog food with. Nearly 90% of Americans have ice cream in their freezer at any given time. While dessert is fine on occasion, most deserts are high in fat, sugar, and other carbs, with little to no vitamins and minerals. This means that they give you a lot of calories for very little nutritional value. By replacing dessert with dog food or fasting, weight loss and lower blood sugar levels were almost inevitable.

The Muenster Milling dog food also has high levels of omega 3 fatty acids and omega 6 fatty acids. These fatty acids are good for heart health because they increase good cholesterol levels, lower triglyceride levels, and may even reduce cholesterol built up in your arteries that cause heart disease and high blood pressure.

Finally, he used intermittent fasting in combination with eating dog food. By reducing caloric intake, it is logical that he would lose weight and experience a reduction in blood pressure.

Heart disease is a leading cause of death in the U.S. and the leading causes of heart disease are high blood pressure and obesity. High blood pressure can have many causes, including:

• Diet: Salt can dehydrate you and cause your blood pressure to rise.
• Arteriosclerosis: Cholesterol can stick to the inside of your blood vessels, making them narrow and less flexible. This increases your blood pressure because your heart has to work extra hard to circulate your blood.
• Stress: Stress causes a release of the hormone cortisol which is designed to increase your blood pressure to prepare for “fight or flight” by constricting blood vessels. Reducing stress can reduce blood pressure. For example, employees who grind it out at work tend to experience more stress at home and at work by about 5% to 7% than those who took sanity breaks.

What does this mean for your dog?

As dogs were domesticated, they adapted to, and began to crave, human food. In fact, one of the main differences between wolves and dogs is that dogs love (and can digest) carbs, whereas wolves do not seek out carbs. Dogs evolved alongside humans, scavenging our garbage and begging for food. Most people know that it is rare that a dog can pass up people food.

This means that dogs can suffer from the same health problems that humans can. In dogs, obesity can lead to joint problems, heart disease, and diabetes. The same way nutritionists recommend against too many desserts for humans, veterinarians recommend against too many desserts for dogs. And, the same way that a diet that includes vegetables, protein, and low carbs improves human health, dog food that has a similar nutritional balance can improve a dog’s health as well.

So, while the president of Muenster Milling set out to prove that the company’s dog food was safe for dogs, he also showed what it would take for both dogs and people to be more healthy. A low carb, high protein diet with vegetables and omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids helped him to reduce his blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and blood sugar levels. Avoiding desserts and intermittent fasting helped him to lose weight.

With that said, however, the occasional dessert or indulgence will not necessarily derail an otherwise healthy lifestyle. What he did not test was the effect of exercise, reduced stress levels, and getting enough rest. All these factors can also improve health and may make up for a diet that includes more than dog food.