 The Short Answer is:
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Meringue made only with egg whites and sugar is safe for dogs to eat. Sugar in any meringue recipe makes it an incredibly unhealthy food for your dog to eat but a simple meringue won't hurt them. Sugar in any product just means calories. |
The purpose of this research is to explain “Can Dogs Eat Meringue?“.
Simple meringue is simply a mix of egg whites and sugar that is vigorously mixed until the mixture is stiff enough to hold its shape.
This simple recipe hides a hotbed of controversy.
In the early nineteenth century some people claim meringues were invented in Meiringen a village in Switzerland.
Some people (including the Oxford dictionary staff) believe that the French word meringue has no known origin.
But the products that we know today as meringues can be traced back to England at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Can dogs have meringue?
Meringue made only with egg whites and sugar is safe for dogs to eat.
Sugar in any meringue recipe makes it an incredibly unhealthy food for your dog to eat but a simple meringue would not hurt them.
Sugar in any product just means calories.
For instance 100g of meringue contains more than 300 calories.
Even a 100g serving of vanilla ice cream is relatively low in calories.
You can find out by calling 207.
There is a need to be more cautious when making or purchasing sugar-free and flavored meringue nests since these may contain ingredients that are dangerous for your dog.
I will conclude this section with some good news.
You can feed dogs lemon meringue pie the worlds most popular meringue recipe.
Yes!
While it isnot the healthiest snack dogs can eat none of the ingredients are harmful to them.
I would like to talk about egg whites next because there is some confusion over whether they are suitable for dogs.
Can dogs eat egg whites?
Egg whites cooked in the oven are safe for dogs to consume.
The risk of giving your dog raw egg whites or yolks is greater due to the bacteria that may be present in poultry products.
As far as eggs are concerned Salmonella is the scariest.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) eggs were responsible for 53% of all salmonella cases reported between 1995 and 2002.
Once the egg white is cooked it can be eaten.
After discussing the ingredients you will need to make your own meringues I will quickly scan the Internet to find out if shop-bought meringues might contain any ingredients that are not suitable for your dog.
Meringues from the store
Stunning! It never occurred to me that there was such a wide range of meringue products.
Thats without even trying to find lemon meringue pies!
There are vanilla meringues chocolate meringues cappuccino meringues and key lime meringues to name a few.
All of these products are sugar-free.
Can my dog eat sugar-free meringues?
In general we expect a label such as sugar-free to signify a healthy product but when it comes to giving your dog these products you need to take care.
A sugar-free product replaces ordinary sugar (or sucrose) with another sweetener.
Sugar has more calories than sweeteners which is why sweeteners are healthier.
Dogs are not poisoned by most of these sweeteners but one of them is.
It is widely used as a sweetener but it is extremely toxic for dogs in even small amounts.
The good news is that the sugar-free meringues at Walmart are made with isomalt and stevia as sweeteners.
It is a sugar derived from beetroot. Because it does not caramelize when heated it is used in meringues.
The food is safe for your dogs to eat.
In a clinical trial isomalt was fed to a group of dogs.
Although the dogs were all fine the scientists discovered that if they consumed too much isomalt they would likely have diarrhea.
Other sweeteners include stevia or sugar leaf which comes from a plant.
Dogs can eat it without any problems.
The discovery that dogs can eat sugar-free meringues as long as they contain xylitol has prompted me to look at whether all of these flavors of meringues are safe for your dogs to eat.
Can my dogs eat chocolate meringues?
Dogs should not be served chocolate or chocolate-flavored food.
Toxic to dogs is chocolate or more precisely cocoa which contains the chemical thiamine.
One particular chocolate meringue contains defatted alkalized cocoa powder along with egg whites isomalt and stevia.
In this recipe we do not know how much cocoa powder was used.
The fact that it is listed as the third ingredient may mean that quite a bit of it has been used.
There is a lot of theobromine in cocoa powder and this site indicates that if a dog that weighs only 10 kg were to consume a few grams of cocoa powder it could kill it.
A lot depends on how big your dog is and how many meringues they have eaten.
However looking at the ingredients I would not let your dog consume them.
Can dogs eat cappuccino meringues?
In the wrong amounts caffeine can be poisonous to dogs. Therefore dogs should never drink lick or sip on coffee.
Coffee is probably harmless to most dogs after a few laps.
My cappuccino meringues contain real coffee as one of their ingredients.
The amount used will be small enough for your dog to not get hurt- just do not let them eat too many!
After examining some of the most popular flavors of shop-bought meringues I want to discuss whether lemon meringue pie is a good treat to give your dog.
Can dogs eat lemon meringue pie?
Rather than repeat to me the ingredients that go into making a meringue let me just summarize them.
I will instead focus on the ingredients used to make the lemon filling and the pastry.
Based on the ingredients in a very popular recipe for lemon meringue pie it seems that most of the ingredients are dog safe- in the sense that they would not poison or kill your dog.
Lets examine each of these ingredients one by one.
Flour
Egg yolks
Cornstarch
Salt
Lemon juice
Unsalted butter
Flour
You should not give your dog flour but it would not harm them either.
Flour does not contain any nutritional value.
In the amount that is in a pie crust your dog will not be bothered.
Egg yolks
Egg yolks are primarily composed of protein (16%) and fat (27%) which are two essential components of your dogs diet.
Additionally they contain vitamin A vitamin B2 and vitamin B12.
Cornstarch
In order to thicken the lemon filling cornstarch is used.
Your dog will not be harmed by this natural product.
Salt
Although dogs need salt in their diet they do not need extra salt.
Although the recipe contains a small amount of salt it would not harm your dog at all.
Lemon juice
In addition to being safe for your dog lemon juice also gives him a taste of the sourness of lemons.
Butter
Almost everyone knows that butter is high in fat but you might be surprised to learn that it contains about 81% fat.
Your dog might be ill if it ate a few sticks of butter on its own but if they just have a bite or two of lemon meringue pie it should be fine.
If you want to read more about dog food tips read here: Dog Food Tips and Tricks.
