Yumwoof Natural Pet Food Helping Displaced Dogs In Maui With Partnership

After discovering his skin allergies were food allergies, Jaron Lukas began a "nutrition deep dive" to review thousands of clinical studies. After writing the book, "The Canine Cocomega Effect," he felt compelled to create a new dog food that included high-quality GMO-free ingredients.

His dog food efforts have paved the way to being able to help thousands of displaced dogs in Maui due to the recent wildfires.

When the Maui wildfires happened, Lukas knew they were going to need as much help as they could get. One connection led to another which led to helping out thousands of displaced pups in Maui.

A friend, Irvin Gelb, an L.A. based talent manager, began the connections.

"He kindly connected me with Shep Gordon, Alice Cooper's manager and pretty much the most interesting man alive, who was able to connect us with everyone else, including ROAM Maui, our partner transporting our food there, and Maui Human Society, where our donation is being made and our boots on the ground," Lukas told The Blast exclusively.

"But what really made me decide to donate such a large amount of food? I've spent the last year-and-a-half visualizing the impact I'd like to make on the world that Yumwoof's nutritious food can support. I knew I wanted it to be climate-related, but one we were invited to get involved, everything clicked for me."

Lukas said that since climate change is a bit out of his control and only getting worse, he felt the best way to make an impact was by helping people displaced in climate-related disasters. That's why they decided to donate $30,000 last month and are now working on raising outside funds to send even more food later this month.

They also are planning to start the YUMWOOF CARES Charity Foundation so that they can continue to support climate-related disaster relief in the future.

Yumwoof was founded by husband-and-wife duo, Lukas and Ana Padilla in 2020. The human-grade dog food is on a mission to improve the gut health of dogs with anti-inflammatory nutrition.

"Our premium dog food is GMO-free, air-dried, and boosted with Cocomega superfats backed by clinical studies supporting benefits for skin allergies, joint pain, seizures, constipation, diabetes, and inflammation," Lukas said. "In many cases, customers have been able to take their dog off allergy medicine by switching to Yumwoof. We're obsessive about what goes into our low carb recipes without seed oils."

The company supports sustainability through their EcoPup Sustainability Mission by "utilizing biodegradable bags, carbon neutral shipping," and also plant a tree with every order.

Each recipe takes about eight to 16 months to formulate and bring to the market. It's not the easiest process, and Lukas said he's a "perfectionist." He said he wants people to understand how important it is to pick dog food for your furry best friend.

"Check the label to see if seed oils are in your dog's food. If you see sunflower oil, safflower oil, or canola oil in there, it's a sign that the omega-6 balance is too high and is causing underlying inflammation," he said. "Yumwoof is formulated to have closer to a 1:1 omega 3-to-6 balance, which is anti-inflammatory and very rare to find in dog food."

For more information on Yumwoof, visit their website. To donate to Yumwoof's Maui efforts, visit their GoFundMe page.