It may be a really stinky and gross proposition, but there are now a growing number of dog owners and pet parents who give their dogs green tripe. The idea is strongly grounded in traditional Chinese veterinary healthcare and medicine practices whereby organ meats are strongly encouraged to help promote tissue repair in dogs. It should be fairly obvious that not all dogs will benefit from green tripe or any tripe for that matter. As such, you should still seek your veterinarian’s advice just to be sure it won’t bring any harm to your pet.
A Look at Green Tripe
Tripe is nothing more than the stomach of farm animals like cows, sheep, goats, and lambs. The animals that are chosen for their tripe are those that graze the fields and eat grass. As such, tripe can also be sourced from antelopes, deer, and giraffes as well as other ruminating animals. Pork tripe – the stomach of pigs – is not usually called as ‘tripe’. Instead, they are referred to as hog maw or paunch. Since tripe is essentially the edible stomach of an animal, any animal that can be butchered and deemed edible can have tripe; although the use of the term is mostly restricted to those that feed on grass.
The reason why they called it green tripe is not because it is colored green. As a matter of fact, the color of the green tripe is a lot closer to olive drab or brownish-green. It’s called green tripe because it has never been fully processed yet. Since the sources of tripe are animals that feed on grass, you can expect it to have a greenish hue. When you combine this with the fleshy brown color of the insides of the stomach, then you get a greenish-brown coloration.
But that’s not why it’s called green tripe. Since it is not yet processed, it still contains many of the residues from the animal’s last meal. These residues and particles are filled with enzymes and other nutrients that give green tripe its amazing health benefits. It does look yucky and icky and gross and can be quite smelly, too. But considering it’s filled with beneficial bacteria, enzymes, and nutrients, you’ll know that it’s good for your pet.
That being said, you should be careful when buying supermarket tripe as these are already treated and processed to be safe for human consumption. You can still give your pet this kind of tripe as it is still a good source of proteins and fats as well as minerals and vitamins, but you will no longer be able to give your pet the gut-friendly bacteria and enzymes that it needs for improved digestion and immunity.
Green tripe contains high-quality proteins including 7 essential amino acids. It’s got probiotics and digestive enzymes as well as a bevy of vitamins and minerals especially calcium and phosphorus.
How Your Dog Can Benefit from Green Tripe
Giving your dog fresh, raw green tripe, or even raw green tripe frozen dog food that has been thawed and allowed to warm to room temperature can provide a number of benefits for your pet. These include the following:
- Improved Digestion
Green tripe contains lactobacillus acidophilus, a probiotic that is well-known for safeguarding the integrity and optimum functioning of the stomach and the small intestines where most of the digestion and all nutrient absorption take place. It works together with other gut-friendly bacteria in the breakdown of food particles so that these can be easily digested by the enzymes that are secreted by the dog’s pancreas. Pancreatic enzymes dissolve the digested peptides, disaccharides, and fats into amino acids, monosaccharides, and fatty acids, respectively. It is only in these forms that the nutrients are absorbed into the walls of the intestines and into the bloodstream.
Unfortunately, the intestines have other residents, too. These are the so-called bad bacteria. If they overwhelm the ‘good bacteria’ like L. acidophilus, then digestion can be impaired. These bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella species, and Listeria monocytogenes do not necessarily care about breaking down the food particles that are moved from the stomach. These bacteria are more concerned about wreaking havoc in the intestines, producing a variety of complaints such as inflammation, diarrhea, and pain.
Giving your dog even freeze dried green if you cannot get hold of an unprocessed, fresh, raw green tripe, can help reestablish the balance by increasing the number of good bacteria in relation to bad bacteria. This can greatly improve the digestion of dogs.
- More Responsive Immune System
The small intestine is a miniature, albeit lengthy gladiator arena where the good bacteria fight bad bacteria. There will always be instances, however, when the things that we do give bad bacteria the upper hand. For example, when we give antibiotics to dogs, these drugs not only kill bad bacteria in the gut. Even good bacteria are killed, too.
While this may seem fair, it really isn’t, considering that some bad bacteria have developed resistance against the antibiotics that we give our dogs. Some bacteria are also more prolific when it comes to repopulating the gut. This can lead to an overgrowth of bad bacteria in less time than it would take good bacteria to start repopulating.
If you supply the dog’s gut with more good bacteria, even if the antibiotic will start its bactericidal effects, it will not decimate the entire population of good bacteria. This helps good bacteria keep the upper hand.
More importantly, however, is the ability of probiotic organisms to improve the overall immune system. By simply improving digestion and facilitating the absorption of critically-important nutrients, the dog’s immune system can easily beef up its defenses by utilizing the various nutrients in the production of immune system cells like macrophages, phagocytes, neutrophils, immunoglobulins, and many others.
- More Effective Removal of Toxins
Green tripe is rich in chlorophyll, the green pigment that is characteristic of plants (remember that green tripe is mostly sourced from grass-eating animals). This substance serves more like a broom that sweeps the lymphatics, getting rid of toxins and other metabolites that may be present in the lymph vessels. Chlorophyll is small enough to pass through the intestinal walls and into the adjoining lymph vessels where it attracts metabolites and toxins so that these can be flushed outside the dog’s body through the urine.
And since it effectively ‘cleanses’ the fluids present in the dog’s body, it also helps in the maintenance of optimum cardiovascular functioning. This is in addition to its role in the formation of hemoglobin and red blood cells, two critical components of the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.
Both detoxification and improved oxygenation can spell other health benefits as well. By eliminating potentially-harmful metabolites, the delivery of oxygen is substantially improved. This translates to more energy for your dog. The improved lymphatic flow also further boosts the immune system while also facilitating more aggressive, more precise immune system responses against invading pathogens.
- Healthier Coat and Skin
Green tripe contains omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 fatty acids, especially linoleic acid which is known for its anti-inflammatory benefits. It also contains monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats in a ratio of 1:4. There’s niacin, folate, vitamin B12, choline, and pantothenic acid. Green tripe also contains calcium, magnesium, potassium, selenium, and phosphorus as well as trace amounts of iron and zinc.
The combination of these nutrients not only supports the various physiologic processes in your dog’s body, the effects of essential fatty acids can also help promote healthier and more robust skin and coat.
- Fewer Inflammatory Conditions or Less Severe Inflammation
The various nutrients, especially the essential fatty acids found in green tripe can be especially helpful in the management of inflammation. While these may not necessarily be able to eliminate inflammation altogether – that being the function of treatments that address the root cause of the inflammation – they can nevertheless provide relief for your dog so that they can go about their usual business from day to day.
This can help provide relief and comfort in dogs that are currently afflicted with inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, and even skin allergies. While green tripe can help reduce the severity of inflammation in these conditions, it is still imperative that the dog is seen and thoroughly evaluated by a veterinarian so that the real cause of the problem is identified. This will provide the backbone for the implementation of a more appropriate and more definitive solution.
- Strengthens the Bone
We all know that the best sources of calcium for dogs are dairy products and bone meals. An ounce of raw green tripe can contain as much as 20 mg of calcium. You’d think that it is not much. But if you’re going to also look at its phosphorus content, which is almost similar on a per-weight basis, you’ll know that green tripe offers one of the best calcium-phosphorus ratios on the planet.
Everyone is already familiar with the role of calcium in the dog’s body. While its principal role is in the strengthening of the dog’s bones, making it less susceptible to fractures, calcium is also important in blood clotting. This is vital in cases of tissue injuries. If there is no calcium in the blood, then it will be difficult for the blood to form clots. This can lead to profuse bleeding. Additionally, calcium also plays an important role in muscle contraction.
Related Post: Best Calcium Supplements
- Softens Dog Poop
One of the lesser-known benefits of green tripe is its ability to help dogs that are constipated. The fat content in green tripe is often enough to help provide enough lubrication for the fully-formed stool in the dog’s colon, allowing it to easily pass the feces. It is not known, however, whether this will work on all dogs. What is observed is that dogs that are constipated are able to pass stools a lot easier after a diet that’s been added with green tripe.
Giving Your Pet Dog Green Tripe
In case you’re wondering where to buy green tripe, there are now a number of suppliers of green tripe. These can be obtained either from an online distributor or from the manufacturer of the green tripe itself. We don’t necessarily recommend buying your tripe from the supermarket or grocery as this is already processed. As previously mentioned, you can still give your pet this kind of tripe, but the benefits that it provides may no longer be as great as that of fresh and raw green tripe.
When picking the right green tripe to buy, it is important to choose only those that are certified to have come from animals that are free-ranged or grass-fed. You should never go for feedlot livestock as these are typically fed using commercially available feeds. Your dog will not get the probiotics and enzymes that are only present in green tripe.
Pick one that is minimally-processed. It is okay to get freeze dried green tripe as long as you can be sure that the tripe was not extensively treated or bleached or processed before freezing. It should have been minimally-processed before being frozen dried to help lock in all the nutrients, enzymes, and probiotics that are present in green tripe.
When giving green tripe to your pet, especially when it is raw green tripe frozen dog food, make sure to thaw it properly. Do not make the mistake of cooking it because this will kill the natural probiotics present in the tripe. Heat can also denaturize the numerous digestive enzymes that green tripe contains. In simple terms – cooking your fresh frozen green tripe can strip it of its invaluable probiotics, enzymes, and other nutrients. As such, the fresher the green tripe that you can get for your dog the better it is for your pet.
Not all pet parents like the idea of giving their pets green tripe primarily because they find it repulsive. But given the fact that this minimally-processed offal can bring a host of benefits for your dog, then you really have to consider giving it to your beloved dog.
Sources:
- CJ Puotinen, Green Tripe for Dogs, Whole Dog Journal
- Patrick Mahaney, VMD, CVA, Raw Dog Food: How to Properly Store and Prepare, PetMD
