We know that the more green vegetables we have in our own diets, the better, but what about our dog’s diet? Green beans provide plenty of vitamins A, K, and C, as well as fiber and folate, and are an essential part of any diet—and it turns out, our puppies are just as much as we are!
Benefits of Green Beans for Dogs
Veterinarians have been recommending green beans as a safe and healthy snack for dogs for years. That’s because in addition to being packed with all the good-for-you nutrients, green beans are also very low in calories and have a crunchy texture and slightly sweet taste that most dogs really love. Whether your dog needs to lose weight and you’re looking for an alternative to a fancy, high-calorie cookie, or you’re just looking for some more unique ways to sneak healthy treats into your furry friend’s diet, green beans are excellent s Choice.
Smart Snacks
As with any human food you feed your dog, it’s important to put safety first. If your dog has never eaten green beans before, introduce them slowly and pay close attention to make sure everything goes well. The high fiber content in these green vegetables may not be ideal for dogs with already sensitive stomachs (though it may actually be very beneficial for those with gastrointestinal or intestinal problems). The key here is to take the time to introduce the green beans and guide your dog in how you go about it. If they don’t like them or react badly, there’s no reason to force it.
How about the “mung bean diet”?
The fad diet does not belong to the human world. You may have heard of the mung bean diet for dogs, which consists of switching 10 percent of your dog’s traditional diet for mung beans and gradually increasing to 50 percent. The idea is that this will aid in rapid weight loss in overweight dogs, especially those struggling to lose weight through other methods.
How is it judged? As with any popular, severely restricted diet, it’s not going to be a long-term solution for weight loss — it could even be detrimental to your dog’s health. While mung beans do provide a good amount of key vitamins and minerals, they lack many of the essential nutrients that make up a balanced dog’s diet, including protein, and can lead to serious nutritional deficiencies in dogs. It’s also not sustainable; once you go back and feed your dog a proper diet, they will almost certainly regain the weight.
How to Feed Mung Beans to Your Dog
Now that we’ve hoped to put the idea of feeding dogs into practice a lot of of With green beans in their diet, let’s look at some ways you can give them something good without going overboard.
First, make sure to only give your dog pure green beans. Salt, sugar, and other spices can irritate your puppy’s tummy and cause digestive problems. With this in mind, you can feed your dog canned, steamed, boiled, roasted, dehydrated or raw green beans. In all cases, trim off any slender ends and cut each mung bean into bite-sized pieces that are appropriate for your dog before feeding. Many local pet health food stores also sell premade mung bean treats, if you’d rather grab them and go.
If you’re feeding your dog green beans for weight loss, use them as a snack replacement, not a full or partial meal replacement. And since low-calorie treats alone are often not enough to help with weight loss, make sure to boost your efforts by giving your dog plenty of exercise. Work with your veterinarian to develop a daily diet to meet your dog’s nutritional needs while reducing their daily calorie intake.
Other Ways to Feed Your Dog Mung Beans
If your dog is wary of eating mung beans on their own, try sneaking it into their diet in another form. For example, mixing canned green beans into your favorite homemade snack recipes, or chopping them up, mixing them with plain yogurt, and freezing them in ice cube trays makes for quick and easy pups.
Whatever you choose to feed them, your dog will most likely enjoy adding green beans to their rotation.
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