Ditch wet dog food to reduce your carbon pawprint

FEEDING your dog dry food instead of tinned meat can help to save the planet, scientists have found.

Analysis of almost 1,000 pet diets, including both dog and cat menus, found that a wet food diet produces almost seven times as much carbon dioxide as a dry food alternative.

A 10kg dog, like a dachshund, needs around 534 calories a day and if they get this entirely from dry meal then their carbon “pawprint” is 828kg a year, the study published in Scientific Reports found.

However, carbon emissions for a wet food-only dog diet total more than six and a half tonnes. This level of greenhouse gas emissions is almost the same as an average Brazilian person’s annual emissions, the scientists write, making a dachshund’s wet dinners as bad for the climate as having another human living in Brazil.

“These results bring to light the importance of the role of pet food in the discussion of sustainability since its impact can be extensive,” the researchers from the University of São Paulo wrote in their study.

Most emissions from dog food comes from meat, as it requires lots of land and water to produce and churns out vast amounts of greenhouse gases. Almost 90 per cent of the calories in wet pet food comes from animal sources, compared to just 45 per cent for dry meal, which is more vegetable than meat but has the most energy per gram.

The scientists also said that using other ingredients may help lower pet food’s emissions, with insect protein being one viable option which “could improve sustainability” as 100 grams of protein from mealworms makes just 14kg of CO2, compared with 35kg from beef.