Synthetic vitamins and minerals in your dog's food
- florence-guyon
- Jun 1
- 4 min read
Vitamins and minerals are not just things that make us tired when we are deficient !
Well... yes, very often when you are deficient in a vitamin or a mineral you are tired, and some other little benefits...
Vitamins and minerals play a great role in how your body functions.
I am a dog nutritionist not a human nutritionist, so we're going to talk about our furry friends not about your magnesium deficiency, woops 😁
As the title of this article shows, we are going to talk especially about synthetic vitamins and mineral, but we're also going to rapidly mention the why of vitamins and minerals in your dog's diet 😉
A summary to know where we're at 😉
Vitamins and minerals
These are nutrients your dog absorbs from he's food and that contribute to good functioning in his body. For example, vitamin E is a know antioxidant, vitamin A preserve vision and sodium maintains normal blood pressure.
Unlike us humans, dogs do not synthetized vitamin D from sun exposure ! It must be present in the right amount in his diet.
These vitamins and minerals don't act alone. They work together to maintain balance in your dog's body. 🫱🏻🫲🏻
I won't describe every vitamin, every macro or micro mineral and every nutrient in your dog's body or in her diet. The goals here is to talk about these vitamins and minerals but with a different type : synthetic vitamins and minerals.
Synthetic vitamins and minerals
They can be from naturel origin or synthesized in a lab, and can be found in complex or alone. The point of these synthetic vitamins or minerals is to compensate a deficiency or the lack of nutrient in a diet, by an addition other than food, sometimes in pathological quantities.
Bioavailability is not the same as for vitamins and mineral found in food though. These substitutes do not beneficiate from absorption facilitators as the food can provide.
Because nature is generally smart (everything comes with exceptions) some vitamins and some minerals work hand in hand to facilitate absorption and some work by regulating this absorption (they fight for the same spot). This create balance in the guts where most of the absorption takes place.
Basically because they're working together they are absorbed more easily.
For synthetic vitamins and minerals, the form is slightly different and and they don't behave the same way, so they're not as easily absorbed.
The form is different so they can be stable on shelf and that when you buy your bottle you can actually beneficiate from the supplement not just the sugar in the tablet. 😉
Now that you know the main difference between "natural" and synthetic vitamin and minerals, let's talk about how that may affect your dog (yes I know that's why you're here 😉)
Synthetic vitamins and minerals in your dogs food
We already established that synthetic vitamins and mineral are not absorbed as effectively as those find directly in food.
We also established that, technically synthetic vitamins and minerals can fill in for some missing nutrients in your dog's diet.
But, of course, when your dog needs pathological doses of certains nutrients, synthetic supplements are way easier and effective to add in great quantity to come back from a large deficiency than adding a ton of food.
What is I told you it's also a great way to save money in dog's food ? Not for you though 😅
For the kibble, canned food or "fresh food" manufacturer, who can "forget" to put some food in he's mix...
There is a part of manufacturers that make the effort of calculating and replacing nutrient that have been destroyed during processing (especially B vitamins that are particularly sensible to heat).
There is another part of manufacturers that put food of their mix in a calculator and "fill" missing nutrients with synthetic vitamins and minerals. It is true for kibble, canned food and fresher food...
No liver in a fresh food ? No problem ! there is iron in nutritional additives...
It's a good name though !
But... well... paying good money for a fresh food subscription (raw or cooked) and receiving not a complete but a completed food is not the most honest -- my view only !
So how to choose ?
Usually, synthetic supplements are listed after the ingredients in the food, either in another paragraph (nutritional additives), or right after the ingredients.
To choose an okay food for your dog :
Look at the ingredients list
Look at the nutritional additives list
Take a moment to think about what matter the to you in a dog food (there is little chances you can find the perfect industrial food)
In the ingredient list, look for whole fresh food, named and without "things" (foods you cannot picture without help from your imagination)
"Things" include among other things meals, hydrolysas, by-products (by-products are not all bad but lack of transparency can make for something not so good)
In the nutritional additives list look for the number of minerals and vitamins, and if they are replacement or supplement.
For example, if there is no liver in the ingredient list and iron the nutritional additives list, it is possible that it is a replacement because liver provides iron and that iron is not really heat sensitive (unless really high cooking temperature). Iron is also present in legumes but absorption rate is very low for dogs.
And if you wan to cook for your dog without adding synthetic vitamins and minerals you can check the follow-ups 😉
It's right here
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