These days more and more people are considering cooking for their pets. Many have concerns over the quality of ingredients, contaminants and GMO’s, or worse yet, toxins leading to pet food recalls. As my free gift
to you, here follows my easy recipe template that will guide you to cooking hundreds of recipe’s for dog and cat food! When you love your pet like family, if you care about what goes on your families plate, chances are, you care about what goes in your pet’s dish. Most of my best clients cook for their pets, at least some, if not all of the time. It is easy to do, and easy to feel good about. It is often a lot cheaper too when you consider the high price needed for all that packaging, marketing, shipping, and distribution of your commercial pet food.
As always, discuss the recipe’s you want to cook and feed to your animal, with your vet, before doing so. This should be a quick, easy, relatively painless conversation at your next yearly or semi-annual visit. If your vet is discouraging, perhaps it is only because they are unaware of the health benefits. A good veterinarian will be open to the discussion, willing to learn more, and address all your legitimate concerns. For example, here is a link to a study discussing adding fresh food to your dog’s diet, and it’s affects on cancer http://tiny.cc/ivkc7x. This should come as no surprise to those of us that realize how much good nutrition is essential for good health. Once you have your vet’s blessing to try adding home cooked foods (generally not more than 25-50% at first, or additional supplements are needed such as egg shell calcium) to your pet’s nutritionally complete diet, then it is time to get creative, and have fun!
Keep in mind that all of these recipe’s can be equally fed to anything that will eat it; cats, dogs, people, and bearded dragons included. It is pretty hilarious when the kids ask for a second helping of dog food!
The real simple base for any meal is:
1/3 veggies+
1/3 grain (rice, bulgar, millet, quinoa, etc.) +
1/3 legumes (red or green lentils, garbanzo beans, black beans, butter beans, etc. ) = nutritious and delicious!
Possible combinations include green lentils, bulgar, and sweet potatoes, or black beans, rice, and carrots, and finally millet, red lentils, and butternut squash. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination and your pet’s pallet! The health benefits include absorbing all the bioflavonoid antioxidants (the bright colors in vegetables) as nature intended, before it was processed, put in a bag, and shipped in a truck. The diet includes lots of fiber which is excellent for digestive health recalling that 80% of the immune system is in the intestinal lining (if introduced slowly as directed should cause minimal gaseous discharge), and without having to be a chemist, or a nutritionist, you will be most likely providing a complete protein, and well as nearly all the essential amino acids any animal needs. You can add additional protein if you so desire (or not, and not worry about overdoing it), multiple types of fresh, preferably organic veggies known to be safe for pets, fresh milled golden flax seeds, or just about anything else that sounds healthy and nutritious, for you.
Here is today’s recipe:
In a sauce pan, saute 1/2 cup chopped celery in a small amount water until translucent with one pinch of salt. Optional, add 1 TB Organic Olive Oil.Add 1 cup diced yellow unpeeled potatoes, 1 cup chopped organic unpeeled carrots, 1 cup rinsed bulgar wheat, 1 cup rinsed green lentils, 4-5 cups water, and simmer until root vegetables pierce easily with a fork. Done. Serve warm spooned over commercial kibble, or serve in a dish sprinkled with nutritional yeast for extra vitamins, texture, and flavor. It’s as simple as that!
Quick, easy, delicious, cheap, and healthy. Your animals will love you even more for it! Use this guide to create your own homemade recipe ideas, and share with us here or on Facebook or Instagram. For specific questions about types of veggies to choose, what grains to choose for different conditions, or other questions you might have about cooking up your own pet food, please join us at http://www.stealmoreyears.com starting in January, where one of our 7 Secrets to Outwitting Your Pet’s Lifespan lessons will focus on diet and nutrition.
Looking forward to to seeing what you have ‘cooked’ up! I’m DrQ, here to help you, take control of the health of your beloved animals!