As a dog owner, chances are that you’ve had to deal with puppy dog eyes when sitting down for a meal. But can you give in to a request for chicken nuggets?
Dogs can eat McDonald’s chicken nuggets, however, it’s best if they don’t. The ingredients aren’t healthy for them, and while they are not toxic they can create long-term health issues if regularly consumed or cause discomfort if eaten in high amounts.
This article will cover why feeding your dog chicken nuggets may not be the best idea. Some of the long time health risks will be briefly discussed.
Chicken Nuggets and Dogs
Dogs love to do things with their owners, and sharing food is one of those activities almost every dog likes. It doesn’t help that it also makes us feel good when allowing our dogs a taste of our meals. This means that even when consuming something that probably isn’t that good for our furry friends, we still wonder if they can have a bite.
While most plain cooked or boiled foods are perfectly fine to share, heavily processed or fried foods often are not. For chicken nuggets, there are several things that make this an incredibly unhealthy snack for your dog. To start with there is a greasy shell of fried batter around the nuggets. But even without the batter, there is a high amount of fat, a high amount of salt, lots of calories, and added chemicals in these nuggets. While none of that is toxic to your dog, it doesn’t exactly live up to its nutritional needs either.
Health Problems
Besides the chemicals, there don’t seem to be any ingredients that could cause much harm and it’s safe for human consumption too, right?
What is often forgotten is that the digestive system of a dog and a human are two very different things. Because of these differences, we can handle the high amount of fat and salt better, yet consuming too much of it can cause long-term health issues for us too.
The batter around the nuggets contains a lot of fat from the oil the nuggets are fried in. This can heavily block up a dog’s arteries and raise their cholesterol. If you would still decide to give a small piece of the nugget to your dog, it’s better to at least take the batter off.
The amount of fat in the actual chicken might upset the stomach of your dog and cause discomfort in its digestive system. However, a high amount of salt is what you need to look out for in the long run. A high dose of salt that the dog is ingesting regularly can lead to heart problems or kidney problems.
Final Thoughts
It’s only natural that we sometimes like to share bits of our meals with our best friends. And even though we are all aware that some food that is safe for human consumption can be highly toxic to dogs, chicken nuggets can be viewed as not that harmful for dogs.
When taking a look at the ingredients of the nuggets the same things that make them unhealthy for us, make them unhealthy for dogs too. However, dogs can get problems faster when consuming chicken nuggets, especially when it is something they eat regularly.
It’s best to just keep the Mcdonald’s chicken nuggets for yourself, especially if your dog already has a sensitive stomach. But if you really do feel like sharing, make sure not to overdo it.
Hi! My name is Joan. I’m 25 years old, and I live in The Netherlands. I work in healthcare and study applied psychology. Besides this, I am helping my dog Chester recover from a bad start in life.