How to Make Healthy Food for Your Pets

Kindness of Strangers homemade pet food recipes
Current mood: busy
Category: Pets and Animals

Warning for those animal rights purist friends i do suggest feeding companion animals some flesh in this blog, it is not my preference, and many alternatives are also suggested

Thank you Wolfdreamer for this info about pet food companies testing on animals! * Wolfdreamer *

"Hi Nan, Please help me in speaking out against animal testing. Share this information and tell people about the testing and the ongoing pain and cruelty these poor animals go thru.
Blessings, Wolfdreamer

Feeding dogs and cats a plant based diet is doable and healthy—there are some problems and naturally i get to experience them! My "companion animal friends" are NOT vegan or vegetarian, as feeding them right and in an environmentally sensitive way can be expensive or time consuming, that is the direction we've been going though. My part pit-bull rescue, Angel has grain allergies and i see from both doggies poop that unless beans, nuts, and veggies are ground up it just goes right through them!

100% Organic dog poop, healthy for the Planet but my wallet says "Ouch"

Since i feed our brood all expensive organic veggies, nuts, fruit, etc i have been trying to grind their food rather than have 100% organic poop! But then i spend more hours in the kitchen cleaning the blender, the majority of my kitchen time already spend caring for them that is not acceptable!

A friend correctly stated "saying feeding dogs and cats raw is dangerous is 'bullshit'" he is right, in nature dogs eat rotten carcasses and really smelly garbage, they are natural scavengers. Cats are too picky to eat meat that is not fresh. i have been feeding my animals mostly a raw meat diet for over twelve years, they do very well on it. However, the "bullshit" part is true for another reason. We animal lovers do not like to think about it—but animal waste from factory farms is the chief culprit in global warming!

Here are alternatives that are more Earth friendly and humane,

The best solution thus far i have found to feed my companion animals a healthy, less meat diet. i will soon do a video with more detail.

1. My pet rescued chickens "Thanks" and "Giving" provide egg yokes and shells for calcium. Although the egg white is toxic and not safe to feed to dogs or cats, the eggshells are easy to handle as i freeze them and grind them in the blender after i have enough to add to the homemade pet food.

2. i have used Feedthis! Inc. raw food for the last nine years, it is convenient for a busy person, delivered, fresh frozen to my door every two weeks. Best of all for a conscientious environmentalist, Feed This Inc. recycles the plastic food containers, coolers, ice packs, boxes and liners in which the food arrives, (if i throughly washed and dried everything.) Eventually i just got tired of washing all those plastic containers so carefully — and with multiple rescued animals it was just too expensive—Angel alone weighs 92 pounds and needs a lot of food. So i stopped having FeedThis! deliver the raw meat mix.

3. Now Feedthis! delivers just the ground 100% organic veggie mix every two weeks. That means a lot less plastic containers filling up my freezer or to wash and dry and it is a lot less expensive to buy my own meat. And it is less work!

4. i purchase the best quality ground meat i can, if it is ground cows i make sure it is grass fed, and if it is chicken or turkey i shop ahead of time to get the best deals on organic meat when available. I mix enough in a big bowl to last a few days, and as much as i hate touching raw meat with my hands that is the best way to really mix it well, otherwise the cats will just eat the meat and leave their vegetables! i have been alternating this with plant based pet foods. And begging my friends who produce pet food to come up with a raw plant based grain free meat substitute like this Raw Organic Homemade Grain-Free Dog Food

http://www.thehonestkitchen.com/products/preference.shtml

5. i now give my old 17 year old Now Brand vegan glucosamine and her limp has gone away

My good friends at David and Darrell of V-Dog are developing three new products;


1. 100% organic vegan dog food

2. Grain free for allergic pets and

3. Vegan cat food

Right now V-dog is close to carrying their products in Whole Foods and all products are in the planning stage—however they will need our support to do as soon as we would all like.

If you are an environmentalist and care about the effects of using products most corn and soy are genetically modified. that are not organic like my family, you can try what my friend Martha of MotherNature researched for us:

I just looked into the V-dog food ingredients...from what I have researched in relation to my pets' health, I have learned that any wheat, corn, or soy product has been linked to cause allergies in animals. My feeling is due to the fact that all these products are now GMO'd these days, and unless they are USDA organic, should NOT be consumed. Here is Holistic Company I found:

Raw Organic Homemade Grain-Free Dog Food

It is a grain-free, meat-free, dehydrated form, which means all the enzymes are intact! They will deliver to your door.

i will be ordering this product and trying it asap however still want to support my friends at V-Dog so they can also go organic, which is very expensive for a small company like them.

How to Avoid Foods Dangerous for Your Dog

The following information is from Feedthis! i do not agree totally with everything they say, i do think a grains can be okay but if you observe your animals poop you can often see that corn and rice are not being digested, why pay for something that is not being digested? And as i said before most corn and soy are genetically modified
No grains No animal would ever choose in the wild to eat cooked grains. Grains are a cheap filler to make your pet and the kibble company execs pockets feel full. And like with humans and carbs they become addicted. Also grains plus yeast (see below) equals alcohol.....hmmmm I wonder if this can explain some of the bad behavior we see. Also in large breeds grain will stretch the stomach and loosen the muscles that hold the stomach in place and can cause bloat as well as the stomach or other organs to twist or fold (torsion) Lastly grains deposit a mucous in the intestinal tract...A beautiful environment for parasites to grow and thrive. Sometimes the intestines are so badly coated with mucous your pet may not get most of the nutrients in their food and are begging for more or eating stools that they find a the dog park

No Yeast if you have an itchy dog or a dog with runny eyes or smelly ears this is probably why

No Dairy human dairy products are supplemented with vitamin D which can cause problems. In addition dairy can cause runny stool and most dairy has all sorts of hormones and antibiotics.

No Raw Salmon There is a parasite that can be fatal to dogs found in Pacific salmon [Note from Kindness of Strangers i do not give my animals any fish, the tiny bones are a chocking hazard, have you ever seen a dog eat a fish in nature and the oceans are overfished
and we cannot control the heavy metals fish flesh is so high.]

No Grapes or Raisins there are a few considerations. It was thought that it may have been the enormous amounts of pesticides that growers use on their grapes however I have heard that even organic grapes can cause problems. In talking with grape growers, veterinarians and bacteriologists it seems that some of the molds/fungus that grow on grapes that give sweeter wines their nice flavor may be similar or the same as molds that can cause kidney failure in dogs.

No Nightshade Veggies (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, peppers) These foods wont kill your pet but they can trigger arthritis in pets who are prone to that. Also they can trigger autoimmune problems.

No Mushrooms of any kind (some can be eaten by humans but not dogs or cats)

No Preservatives why keep dog poop in the environment for 20 years. A preservative free stool dissipates in 2-4 days naturally.

No Colors come one the colors are for humans not the animals they don't care what color it is.