Let's Talk Peanut Butter

Good morning friends! 

As we wrap up canine wellness month, we wanted to address a final element of treating habits- the items you use to stuff a dog toy or spread onto a lick mat. When you have a less active, senior, or sensitive dog it is important to choose your spreads and extra treats very wisely. We are all about promoting education as a way to benefit the health and wellness of dogs across the globe. Let's dive into the topic of peanut butter so that you have the best tools to decide on the best options for your pets health. 

There’s no doubt peanut butter is a popular treat for dogs. It’s creamy texture allows it to be easily stuffed into Kong toys or spread onto lick mats. But did you know the secrets in most Peanut Butters can make it less than appetizing for your dog’s digestive system? A lot of the processed peanut butters you can get at the grocery store today are delicious to humans, but they are delicious for a few reasons that are not beneficial to your pet's health. Peanut Butter goes through a lot of processing to get it to be as shelf stable as it is for human consumption. We can store it in our cupboards for months and months and it will still be fine for us to eat. But this requires a lot of extra ingredients...sugars, oils, and salts. These may be fine for us to consume in moderation, but they are not species appropriate for our dogs.

Fig 1: Ingredients of popular peanut butters; Planters, Jif, Kraft, & Skippy.

You may think you can just swap it out for a low-sugar option, but unfortunately they can be a dangerous substitution for your pets. Many low-sugar, low-fat peanut butters substitute the sugar for an ingredient called Xylitol. Unfortunately, xylitol is highly poisonous to dogs and can lead to lowered blood sugar, liver failure, and even death. 

So what do we do when our dogs love peanut butter and we’re looking for a tasty but low fat healthy snack? We make it natural! Here at Amelia, we make our own brand of peanut butter...Lickmix! Lickmix is a powdered peanut butter made specifically for dogs. Lickmix boasts only one ingredient: peanuts! Lickmix is a low fat, gluten free, powdered peanut product that makes a butter by just adding water. And the best thing is, it’s made right here in Canada! Lickmix is awesome as a kong filler, cookie ingredient, a pupsicle when frozen, and even just a healthy snack on its own! 

 Ditch the other butters for your dogs, the healthier option is Lickmix. 

Author - Paige Kennedy B.Sc. M.Sc.

After graduating from the University of Guelph with a B.Sc. in Animal Biosciences and an M.Sc. in Animal Nutrition, I really found my passion for learning as much as possible about our non-human friends. My experience ranges from hobby breeding and pet keeping to scientific research in the agricultural industry. At home, I’ve cared for cats, rats, hamsters, mice, freshwater aquariums, geckos...and even an axolotl! My job of researching pet care will never end and I hope to share it with all of our Amelia readers.