2025/09/03 by R. A. Brociek, Dongfang Li, Richard Broughton +1 · 2 voices · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Medicine · Veterinary · #Human-Animal Interaction Studies #Veterinary Medicine and Surgery #Veterinary Oncology Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0328506
openalex publication_date 2025/09/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
BACKGROUND: Adoption of a plant-based diet is a popular lifestyle choice for many owners of canine companion animals. Increasingly, owners would like to feed their canine companions a similar diet. A plant-based dietary pattern has been reported to be associated with some micronutrient deficiencies. Complete dog foods are, by definition, supposed to be nutritionally replete in all macro- and micronutrients. Few studies have reported a full nutritional analysis of complete, dry plant- versus meat-based dog foods. METHOD: 31 dry commercially available dog foods (n = 19 meat-based, n = 6 veterinary and n = 6 plant-based) were analysed for total protein content and individual amino acids, fatty acids, major and trace elements, vitamin D and all B-vitamins. RESULTS: Nutritional composition of meat and plant-based foods were nutritionally similar, except for iodine and B-vitamins, which were lower in plant-based foods. The majority (66%) of veterinary diets with lower total protein by design, were also deficient in one or more essential amino acids. Isolated instances of non-compliance to nutritional guidelines were observed across all food-groups. Of the tested nutrients 55%, 16%, 24% and 100% of foods met all amino acid, mineral, B-vitamin, and vitamin D guidelines, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Adopting a plant-based dietary pattern for your companion canine can provide nutritional adequacy with respect to the majority of macro- and micronutrients, with the exception of iodine and B-vitamins, which could easily be supplemented. Veterinary-renal diets, purposely low in crude protein, often have less than optimal essential amino acid composition. These data provide important new information for owners of companion canines being fed plant-based or veterinary diets.