🍰 We look at, Can Dogs Eat Pop Tarts?

Summary

No, we wouldn’t advocate giving this tasty treat to your dog… Pop tarts aren’t particularly good for us humans either 🙋‍♀️. In fact, they’re not very healthy at all! In the short read below, we’ll give you some insight into what can go wrong when your dog eats one.

Ingredients

Pop tarts are made with wheat flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, vanilla extract, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chocolate chips. They also contain corn syrup solids as well as artificial flavors and colors. The ingredients list is pretty long, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t any bad things about them.

The main ingredient in most pop tarts is wheat flour which makes up about 70% of their weight. Wheat flour is used because it provides structure and texture to baked goods like bread and pastries. However, it’s important to note that wheat flour is considered by many experts to be a highly processed grain product.

Wheat flour is often treated with chemicals such as bleaching agents, emulsifiers, enzymes, preservatives, stabilizers, thickeners, and dextrins. These additives help improve the shelf life of foods and prevent spoilage. Unfortunately, these same chemicals can affect the nutritional value of foods. For example, bleached flours tend to lack nutrients like iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium, fibre, protein, and B vitamins.

Sugar

The main problem with pop tarts is their high sugar content. Sugar in excess of 10% of the total weight of food has been shown to cause obesity in animals. This means that if your dog consumes more than this amount of sugar per day, he or she could become overweight. If your dog does consume too much sugar, then his or her teeth may start to decay, this would be super bad for our diabetic pups out there.

Another thing to consider is how many calories are contained within each piece of pop tart. A single slice contains around 180-200 calories per bar. That’s quite a lot considering most people don’t even have an average small meal containing 400 calories. So while eating these treats might be fun, it isn’t necessarily going to make you or your dog healthier. That amount of sugar will likely cause an upset stomach for your pooch.

If you want to keep your pet fit and trim, try feeding him or her something else instead. There are plenty of other options out there that won’t harm your pooch. You should always consult your vet before giving your dog anything new though.

Can dogs eat Pop Tarts?

No, dogs shouldn’t eat poptarts, just like they shouldn’t eat cookies, cakes, pies, ice cream, candy bars, etc. While we know that dogs love sweets, they need to stay away from those sugary snacks. Just like us, dogs get hungry every once in a while so they’ll naturally look for ways to satisfy their hunger pangs. But unlike us, they don’t understand why they feel hungrier after eating certain types of junk food.

It won’t harm your dog as a one-time thing, however, your pup eating poptarts frequently will likely cause weight gain and other issues associated, sharp increases in blood sugar can alter your pup’s behaviour.

What about strawberry Pop-Tarts?

While there isn’t anything specifically listed as “poison” in the ingredient list, strawberries do contain oxalic acid which is poisonous to dogs. Oxalic acid is naturally occurring in plants but when used in food products like jams, jellies, syrups, and other fruit preserves, it becomes concentrated. This means that consuming too much of this type of product will cause kidney damage in dogs. Whilst it’s not listed_how_much real strawberries are in each poptart (we suspect a very small amount), you’re best avoiding it.

Oxalic Acid

Strawberries are one of the few fruits that contain significant amounts of oxalic acid. According to WebMD, 1 cup of fresh strawberries contains approximately 0.5 mg of oxalic acid, whereas 1/2 cup of cooked strawberries only contains 0.1mg. While both quantities are small enough not to pose a threat to humans, they’re still dangerous to dogs.

So what exactly happens when a dog eats too much of this stuff? Well, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, it causes vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, and sometimes death. It also affects the kidneys causing crystals to form inside the body. As mentioned above, this leads to problems with urination and increased thirst.

Conclusion

Overall we wouldn’t recommend giving this your dog, it’s bad enough for us humans 🤦‍♀️. Other options would be giving your dog something with protein such as chicken breast, beef jerky, etc., which will help keep their energy levels up throughout the day 💪.