Oats in Dog Food - Dog Nutrition DB

Oats in dog food are a source of carbohydrates in grain-inclusive food. The are a natural source of nutrients and dietary fiber linked to some potential health benefits.

Contents

About Oats

The common oat (Avena sativa) is a grain grown for its edible seeds.

In the past, oats were more important than they are today.

With industrial and agricultural development, oats were largely replaced with higher-energy cereals such as barley and corn.

Oats were a common horse food and much of the harvest was and is still used mainly as animal feed.

Oats are unsuitable to make bread but are commonly used in basic simple foods such as oatmeal, breakfast cereal, or porridge.

In recent years, oats have come back into fashion as a component of plant-based diets and oat milk.

Today, Europe is the largest producer of oats.

Grains are very common in dry dog foods, but oats are not the most common grain used in pet foods. While they are rarely used compared to corn, wheat, or rice, they are growing in popularity.

The lack of previous exposure makes them an interesting choice for hypoallergenic dog foods and elimination diets^[2].

Manufacturers that include oats in their products like to highlight their many nutritional benefits as a healthy grain option.

Oat ingredients are almost always used in their whole-grain form. The indigestible hull but not the bran and germ.

Oat bran is a term for the combined thin protective layers called aleurone and pericarp that surround the oat kernels.

Dehulled oats are called oat groats. Whole oat groats can be further processed into oat flour, rolled oats, or oatmeal.

They contain various bioactive plant metabolites such as phenolic compounds, phytoestrogens, avenanthramides, flavonoids, flavonolignans, saponins, sterols, and tocols^[13].

Oats are sometimes used as a functional ingredient, for example, to relieve inflammatory skin conditions.

Oat compounds can have a wide range of beneficial properties, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, wound healing, immunomodulatory, antidiabetic, etc.^[13,14].

Whole oats, oat flour, rolled oats or oat bran are a source of ß-glucans. These sugar polymers have the potential to reduce serum cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease^[8,9,14].

A 2018 study examined the effects of oat beta-glucan on dogs.

Not only did it effectively reduce blood concentrations of cholesterol, but it also lowered the overall nutrient and dry matter digestibility of diets^[5].

Additionally, oats increase satiety and can aid in weight management^[11]. This demonstrates the potential to be used as a supplement in the feeding of obese pets.

To be fair, not all of the health benefits identified for humans might directly translate to dog food. But oats may indeed be beneficial in preventing obesity and diabetes in pets^[2].

Oats are high in starch but contain much less than corn, wheat, and barley. But they are primarily a carbohydrate ingredient^[6].

Cooked starch is digestible to dogs. It provides lots of energy and is important to manufacture dry extruded dog food.

Oats also have one of the highest lipid contents among grains and are much richer in gross energy than other cereals.

Their oil is mostly found in the endosperm (the large starchy part of a grain kernel) and is high in unsaturated fatty acids such as linoleic acid, oleic acid, and palmitic acid^[6].

Oats contain more protein than corn, but less than wheat and barley^[6]. They are considered gluten-free and safe to eat for most people with gluten intolerance. Instead of gluten, oats use avenalin as their major storage protein.

But oats do in fact have some small amounts of avenin which qualifies as a glutinous protein similar to wheat gluten.

Not that it matters, gluten intolerance in dogs is super rare despite some anecdotal and self-diagnosed cases found online.

Oats don’t require as much weed and pest control as other grains. Though oats are less prone to fungal diseases compared to other grain cereals, mycotoxin contamination can still be an issue.

In summary, oats are a nutritious ingredient and one of the better grain ingredients for dog food out there.

Oat Groats

Oat kernels are harvested with their hard outer hull attached.

Oat groats are cleaned oats that had their inedible outer hull removed^[1]. They are still covered by the bran and a whole grain.

Oat groats are rich in fat. But once the hull is removed lipase enzymes begin to break down the fat into free fatty acids.

This can cause the oats to go rancid. To deactivate self-digesting enzymes raw oat groats are often lightly heat-processed.

Oat groats in dog food are a nutrient-rich ingredient.

Oats are a natural source of various essential nutrients. They provide starch, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals.

They contain several B vitamins such as thiamine and pantothenic acid, manganese, phosphorus, and beta-glucans.

Oatmeal

Oat groats are often further processed by steaming, rolling, and flaking. Flattened rolled oats can be milled into oatmeal.

Oatmeal still contains the bran and its beta-glucans, it is a type of lightly processed whole grain.

Oatmeal in dog food is a source of carbohydrates and fiber with some small amounts of protein and fat.

It also provides manganese, phosphorus, and zinc.

Oat Bran

Oat bran is a by-product of oat milling.

It is produced when whole oat groats or rolled oats are ground and separated from the bran to make refined oat flour.

The bran layers surrounding the oat seeds are very nutritious. They are an especially rich source of insoluble and soluble fiber as well as B vitamins, protein, fat, and minerals^[14].

The ß-glucans found in oat cell walls are a type of soluble dietary fiber. These polysaccharides are indigestible but can be fermented by the gut bacteria giving them prebiotic properties.

Beta-glucans occur naturally in grains, yeast, bacteria, algae, and mushrooms. Chemically, they are pentosans, polysaccharides made from many simple pentose sugar units. They

Beta-glucans can bind water, increase diet viscosity and slow down digestion. But like any fiber source, too much oat can cause digestive upset in dogs.

Oat Fiber

The coarse hulls of the oat kernel get removed before processing oat seeds into food. These high-fiber husks can be finely ground into a source of insoluble fiber.

Oat fiber is very low in protein and fat^[2].

It is mainly rich in insoluble fibers such as lignin, meaning the fiber source is neither digested by your dog nor by its gut bacteria^[4].

The lignin content in oat hulls is twice that of wheat or barley. But for oat fiber in dog food, the lignin content is reduced by continuous wet and dry processes^[1].

Indigestible ingredients such as cellulose or oat fiber are what some dog owners consider a “filler”, a calorie- and nutrient-free ingredient that just adds volume.

But some dietary fiber is thought of as a necessary addition in commercial dog foods to improve gut motility, healthy digestion, and output regularity and quality.

Oat fiber can be used as a substitute for beet pulp in dog foods. But in comparison, beet pulp is higher in soluble fiber and moderately fermentable^[3,4].

High amounts of fiber can reduce the nutrient and energy digestibility of a diet^[3]. For this reason, inclusion levels in dog foods are typically low except for weight management diets.

Feeding Oat Meal

Some brands of dog food use an ingredient called feeding oat meal, a by-product of rolled oat production.

Feeding oat meal mainly provides starch and some protein.

It consists of broken oat groats, oat grot chips, and floury portions of oat groats. It can contain some hulls but can not exceed 4% of crude fiber^[1].

It’s basically a combination of broken kernels and oat dust and a cheaper alternative to regular oat ingredients.