Do you want to share your favorite fruit snacks with your lovely pets or did your lovely pets accidentally ate a piece or more of fruit snacks that you left on the table or drop on the floor? well, whatever your reason I list down below everything you need to know about pets eating fruit snacks especially dogs. Can Dogs Eat Fruit Snacks?, Are fruit snacks toxic for dogs? Keep reading to find out!!
Before we start let’s tackle first what is fruit snacks, how it made, and it’s ingredient.
What is Fruit Snack?
A fruit snack is a processed food that is very similar to gummy candies. The main content of fruit snacks is sugar, especially refined sugar obtained from concentrated fruits (fruit concentrates are essentially juices that have been made by removing all the water from the original fruit).
Well-known manufacturers of chewy fruit snacks include Promotion In Motion (Welch’s brand), Kellogg’s, General Mills, and Betty Crocker.
An average fruit chew snack ingredient list will look something like the following (it will change depending on the manufacturers own or signature ingredients).
- Juice from concentrate
- Corn syrup
- Sugar
- Modified corn starch
- Fruit purees
- Citric acid
- Lactic acid
- Natural and artificial flavors
- Sodium citrate
- Gelatin
- Coconut oil
- Carnauba wax (to keep candy coatings shiny, as well as protecting them against melting)
- Red 40 (Allura Red AC – is a red azo dye used as a food coloring)
- Yellow 5 (Tartrazine – synthetic lemon yellow azo dye primarily used as a food coloring)
- Blue 1 (Brilliant Blue FCF – is a synthetic organic compound used primarily as a blue colorant for processed foods)
Can Dogs Eat Fruit Snacks?
The short answer is NO! Dogs should avoid eating fruit snacks. Fruit snack is not toxic for dogs but it contains a high amount of sugar, artificial flavors, and preservatives that can cause health problems such as obesity, diabetes, pancreatitis, periodontal disease, and more.
The common ingredients of fruit snacks is not healthy for dog:
- Fruit concentrates – (are essentially juices that have been made by removing all the water from the original fruit) is technically pure sugar that comes from the fruits and sugar is not healthy for dogs.
- Modified corn starch – Although it’s not toxic to both humans and dogs, there are no health benefits dogs can get from it.
- Corn syrups – (made from the starch of corn) is a  processed sweetener made from fructose and glucose, although it is not toxic to dogs the large amount of it is not healthy for them.
- Fruit purees – fresh fruit puree is healthy for dogs however the fruit puree in fruit snacks is commonly from the fruit that had been concentrated so it now lacks the dietary fiber that is one of the main nutritional benefits of real fresh fruits.
Again don’t give any amount/number of fruit snack to your dog, if your dog accidentally ate a piece of fruit snack don’t worry, you can expect your dog to experience some mild GI upset such as loose stool for a day or so or vomiting and just be fine after while. However, if your dog ate large amount/number of fruit snack it is better to call your vet for supervision of what should you do.
Note: Dog should not eat fruit snacks however if they did (by accident) check the ingredients of the fruit snack to make sure that it doesn’t contain xylitol (extremely toxic to dogs). If the fruit snack contains xylitol don’t waste any time and bring your dog to the vet immediately.
