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Pumpkin is a natural food with many benefits for humans and pets alike. Rich in fiber, vitamins A, C and E, antioxidants and minerals, it can be an excellent dietary supplement. One of pumpkin's main assets is its high fiber content, making it a valuable ally for digestive health. Whether it's to relieve constipation or to help with diarrhea, pumpkin helps regulate intestinal transit. It's therefore an interesting, economical option for promoting healthy transit, particularly beneficial for dogs and cats with sensitive digestive systems. Simply add a small amount of cooked pumpkin to your pet's food!
What is fiber and what role does it play in the body?
Fiber is a type of carbohydrate of plant origin that cannot be digested by the enzymes of the human, canine and feline digestive systems. Fibers have a strong capacity to absorb water and swell up in the intestines, adding volume to stools and facilitating their passage through the intestines. This helps prevent constipation by increasing the frequency of bowel movements and making them easier to evacuate. They also have a regulating effect on transit by absorbing excess water in the intestine, helping to make stools more consistent and reduce their liquidity, thus reducing the frequency of loose stools, which is crucial during diarrhoea.
It's important to feed pumpkin in appropriate quantities. The golden rule of animal nutrition in this context is: when adding non-nutritiously complete foods to your pet's diet, whether treats or fresh food, limit these additions to a maximum of 10% of the daily caloric intake, to avoid nutritional imbalances.
Of course, pumpkin, while an interesting addition to your pet's diet, is unfortunately not always enough to solve a digestive disorder or to treat digestive symptoms linked to health problems. This is where the cause of gastrointestinal problems becomes particularly important! Your veterinarian may recommend various tests to find the source of the problem, such as stool analyses, blood tests or medical imaging tests, in addition to a virtual medical consultation. However, like any first line of treatment, pumpkin, often recommended in combination with probiotics and/or gastrointestinal food, can benefit animals suffering from temporary diarrhea or constipation. It can also be fed to healthy animals to maintain their digestive health on a daily basis.
Here's how to prepare your pumpkin for your furry friend: it must be cooked, unseasoned and unsalted!
