home cooking Archives

Veggies for Dogs: 15 dog-friendly vegetables and how to prepare them for your pup

03•05•19

Do you feed your dog fresh veggies?

There seems to be some degree of controversy around “people food” for dogs circulating at all times. (Read: The trouble with table food, a post from 2015!)

I truly believe that hesitation around sharing food with dogs centers around decades of marketing–you must feed dog food, which is specially formulated to meet your dog’s needs–and decades of undeveloped training theories–if your dog tastes people food, he’ll beg forever OR sharing your resources doesn’t assert your dominance. None of those, of course, are true. Your dog needs to eat a varied diet of healthy, wholesome foods–just like we do. A taste of people food won’t turn your dog into a chronic people-food begger–unless you’re feeding him from the actual dinner table each night. As for resource sharing, well, you dog doesn’t give two hoots if his treats come from a bag from Petco or from the produce section of Fresh Thyme. How on earth can a pup decide one is your resource and the other isn’t?

I could go on and on about those three topics for ages, but let’s get into the fun stuff!

Healthy, safe veggies for dogs!

No matter what you feed your dog, I guarantee he can benefit from adding fresh vegetables either as food toppers or treats, or as a partial meal replacement for a weight-loss plan. (BTW, I’m guessing you could benefit from more veggies in your diet, too, so think of this as a bonding experience with your dog!) Veggies provide fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and more. So-called “superfood” veggies like spinach and broccoli provide even more benefits, like iron and calcium.

Of course, not all vegetables are safe for dogs to eat. The ASPCA maintains a full list of people foods to avoid feeding your pets, but read each entry carefully!! They’re for all pets including animals like horses and goats rather than just dogs and cats.

OK, so we’ve covered the health benefits of vegetables and that some aren’t safe to eat… it’s time to dig into what veggies ARE safe and healthy for our dogs to eat!

15 Dog-Friendly Vegetables:

Asparagus
Sweet Potato
Pumpkin: Stock up on after-Halloween deals and turn them into purees you can freeze and use all year!
Spinach
Green beans
Brussels sprouts
Parsnips: A bit too starchy to feed often, but if you’re preparing something for your family with parsnips (or other root veg) feel free to treat your pup to a bite
Broccoli
Carrots
Cauliflower
Cucumber
Peas
Zucchini
Beets: Feed these in moderation and remember that it’ll turn your pup’s poop red.
Kale: We give Cooper the stalks as “indoor sticks” and he goes bonkers for them!

How to Prepare Vegetables for Dogs:

Most veggies can be served raw to your dog. HOWEVER, because of their fiber content, dogs who haven’t had a varied diet might experience some discomfort (read: gas). As for cooking them, a light steam is usually sufficient and best for preserving all the veggies’ nutrients. If you cook dinner for your family and prepare a veggie side–we make steamed broccoli or asparagus several times a week–leave it unseasoned. Steam the veg, set aside your dog’s portion, then season your human family’s portion as desired.

We also keep a ton of frozen veggies on hand in the freezer. While fresh is usually best, if it’s not available, frozen is great! Skip canned for your dog, though, because it usually has too much salt added to preserve the produce.

For those of you who are focused on cutting down kitchen waste, your dog serves as an amazing zero-waste assistant! Kale stalks, asparagus butts, sweet potato skins–all those non-skin trims you usually compost make a great treat for your dog!

3 Ways to Serve Your Dog Veggies:

As a treat: Keep chopped up carrots or peas on hand to serve as awesome, healthy, low-cal treats! We also use stalks, like kale stalks or broccoli stems, as a safer, healthier alternative to a stick.

As a food topper: Whether your dog eats a commercial kibble, a home cooked diet, or anything in between, topping his dish with fresh veggies aids his digestion and adds tons of wholesome goodness!

As a weight-loss helper: If your dog needs to drop a few pounds, chat with your vet about this, but swapping out a portion of his regular meal with fresh green beans, for example, fills his belly with healthy fiber without the added calories.

Do you feed your dog veggies?

Fresh or frozen, home-grown or store-bought, do you feed your dog vegetables? What are his or her favorites? How do you prepare and serve them? I’d love to learn what works for YOU and your pup! Or, if you don’t feed veggies, have you ever considered it? Have I left you with any questions? Leave it all in the comments below!

Read more about dogs and food:

The trouble with table food

03•13•15

This is something I’ve been thinking about lately, and I wanted to throw it out there and see what you guys think. It’s often-repeated advice, “Don’t feed your dog table food.”

Sure, there’s a list of stuff that dogs should never eat. But what’s really wrong with feeding your dog table food?

“The trouble with table food? I think the trouble with table food is that yogurt containers are too small to fit my whole face!”

I think there are two different issues:

First, there’s a legitimate concern that dogs might not get all their needs met from a diet of scraps. And I agree. If you’re feeding your dog “table food,” it’s needs to be healthy, nutritious food. Little bites here and there are fine as treats, in my opinion. Discounting Cooper whose food is 100% home cooked “table food,” the big boys are eating Petcurean, a commercial dog food, but also get lots of bits of veggies, some meat, scrambled eggs, the last bite of pretty much any sandwich I eat, and fruit – oh, how they love blueberries.

Second, there’s a big difference between feeding your dog table food and feeding your dog from the table. The latter results in unwanted begging behavior. The first, though, I’d argue isn’t that big of a deal. Table food is just… food. Right? And commercial dog food should just be food, too. All the ingredients in a bag of dog food should be whole foods (aka table foods). Commercial dog food is just processed “table food” ingredients made bite-size for convenience.

I suppose if someone’s table food consists of, I don’t know, Hot Pockets and Pop Tarts, then feeding that to your dogs probably isn’t a good idea. (Of course, as much as I love brown sugar Pop Tarts, it’s not a good idea for me to eat them, either…) But if your diet consists of whole foods and you skip the stuff that’s on the toxic list, I guess I don’t get the hubbub about not feeding table food.

What do you guys think?? This isn’t a right or wrong, in my opinion, but I’d love to know your experience, ideas, and opinions on this!

Home cooking for your dog: FAQs

02•16•15

Since I wrote the first post about cooking for Cooper, I’ve gotten a ton of brilliant questions. I spent some time combing through the comments of the first, second, and third posts, and I decided to tackle the top 5 FAQs about home cooking for your dog. If you have more, please ask away in the comments, and I will happily answer them!

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Before I get into the nitty-gritty, a disclaimer: I am not a vet. I am not a nutritionist or a chef or anything that certifies me to give advice on this topic. All I’m sharing is what we did and what our experience has been. Yours may be completely different (and, if so, share yours in the comments, pretty please, so we can all learn even more). This post is for informational purposes only.

That said, let’s dive in, shall we!

Question 1: Where do you find your recipes?

We started with a ton of research online about what ingredients in what proportions made up an “ideal” diet. All that initial research is in the second post in the series (linked above). We also had a few books on hand, and I ordered one additional one off of Amazon. They were useful and had a ton of fabulous information, recipes, quantities, etc. IF you have a “normal” dog. Even one of the allergy-friendly diets in one of the most popular books gave him an extremely upset stomach. In fact, that was our first major setback in this journey. I’ve linked to my favorite books in the resources question (#5). I know this doesn’t really answer the question, but what I mean to say is: Experiment. Figure out what works for your dog. Then craft your own recipe. Here’s ours (this is per meal): either lamb or salmon, boiled potato, steamed apples, quinoa, steamed green beans, a scoop of pumpkin puree, and supplements. Which leads me to the next most frequently asked Q…

Question 2: What supplements do you use?

This was setback two: We purchased two different supplements after extensive research. Neither worked for Cooper. Both made him VERY sick. Of course, both had small amounts of flavoring (liver in one, turkey in the other), which I hoped would be trace enough not to affect him. Nope. The big boys are getting them, though, so it wasn’t a total waste. Anyway, I found two vegetarian supplements. They are NOT as complete as the others. He’s been 100% fine on this one. In addition to the multi-vitamin/multi-mineral, the one thing that came up in every resource was that calcium deficiency is a real risk with a home cooked diet. The number one recommendation (after raw bones, which we clearly can’t do) is a bone meal supplement. I worried that it would be too much for him since it’s an animal source, but the one we picked (from the Pitcairn book below) KAL Bone Meal Powder is fabulous. It contains nothing but bone meal, and he’s done perfectly on it! We’ve also added coconut oil back in.

Question 3: How much do you feed your dog?

I wish I had an easy answer for this. So much depends on which ingredients you’re using, how active your dog is, how old your dog is, etc. Also, for Cooper, we’re desperately trying to put weight on him – after several intense GI problems in a row, he’s significantly underweight. Here’s the best suggestion I have: Before you start a new diet, weigh your dog. Feed your dog the new diet for a week, then weigh him again. Repeat weekly until you know if he’s gaining/losing/holding steady. Adjust up or down as needed. We may actually be adding lunch back in for Coop because the amount he needs to get enough calories for his high-energy level AND to gain weight exceeds what is reasonable for one single meal!

Question 3: Should I rotate proteins?

I think so, which is why we alternate between salmon and lamb. We do for the big dogs with their kibble, too. I think it helps cover some bases for fat/protein. If we could get a third protein in his rotation, I’d be thrilled, but I’m starting to realize that may never happen. And that’s okay. Two is good.

Question 4: How much time does it take?

If you have a dog with a strong stomach and no health problems, it’ll take you no time at all! You can whip up a month’s worth of food for the freezer on a Saturday afternoon! If you have a dog like Cooper, though, be prepared for a huge time commitment for the first few months. Every new ingredient required a trial period, so we couldn’t shop or cook in bulk. We were cooking for him nearly every day for the last three-ish months. Now that we have a solid recipe that works, we make a week’s worth on Saturday – the quinoa, potatoes, apples, and green beans go into one big jar, the meat is separate (this week is salmon) so we can monitor it more exactly, and the pumpkin is in a glass storage container. So, we scoop from the three containers (see below) and two supplements.

Yeah, it takes up a whole shelf in the fridge, but once a week has been a lifesaver! Also, we’ve been shopping for his ingredients about every other week at Sam’s Club and freezing them (uncooked) in batches.

Question 5: What resources are you using?

Truthfully, at this point we’re just sticking with what I outlined above because we can’t risk another bout of GI distress. However, the three books I used for the foundation and research are:

Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats: I’ve had this book for years and reference it all the time. Unfortunately, the allergy recipe in this made Cooper super sick. However, it’s full of useful advice for all life stages, conditions, etc. so I highly recommend it, even if you aren’t cooking for your dog!
Feed Your Best Friend Better: Easy, Nutritious Meals and Treats for Dogs: I ordered this one after the allergy fail from the first book because it has a section on allergy-friendly meals. We haven’t been able to try many recipes yet, but all the “info” sections, like nutrients and conversions and quantities, have been incredibly useful. My copy has a million sticky notes popping out of every chapter!
The Healthy Hound Cookbook: We got this book for review last year, and I really enjoyed it. The recipes are super simple to follow and use easy-to-acquire ingredients. I’ve dog-eared all the salmon and lamb recipes to start trying on Coop once we’ve put a few pounds back on him.

Also, early on we met with our vet, which I strongly recommend for anyone considering this. Beyond that, I started a Pinterest board to gather online research, especially for treats, but that’s about it!

There ya have it! I really hope I addressed your questions, but please don’t hesitate to ask anything else that comes up in the comments below! And those of you who are home cooking, please share your insights, too!!

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Home cooking for your dog? Don’t make this mistake! (We did. Shoot.)

01•21•15

Does this ever happen to you? You figure out something GREAT! So great that you can’t help but get EXCITED! And the more excited you get, you find yourself getting a smidge… carried away?!?

Welp.

That’s what happened with home cooking for Cooper.

{{If you need to catch up, here’s why we decided to home cook, and here’s how Coop was doing at last check-in.}}

He was doing phenomenally well. His system was actually digesting his food (gasp!) and he had consistently solid poops. We wanted to take photos and frame them, they were so good. Better than being solid? There was no more blood!

Victory!

Well, for a little while anyway.

Because we had so much success with a range of grains, carb sources, and veggies AND he was doing well with a couple different proteins, we decided to mix things up.

All at once.

There’s the mistake: When you are trying your dog out on a totally home-cooked diet, especially if that dog has digestive problems, stick to one change at a time. One. For real.

Sigh.

We started him on pork, and it seemed to be going OK, so we switched out his veggies and his carbs. Then we decided to give oatmeal a whirl. Then, two of the supplements that I ordered came in, so we stirred those in, too. There were five new things in his bowl all at once. Here is where I have to smack my head and ask, “What were you thinking, lady?!?”

And then he got sick.

Like, really, really sick. Like, worse than before.

Back to having emergency accidents around the house. {{Incidentally, he had a big one directly in front of our CritterZone, and I didn’t smell it until it was already… dried… That thing is pretty sweet. I’ll have a post and coupon code about it soon.}}

The blood was back, and he actually dropped about three pounds. In a week.

The big problem, of course, was that we didn’t know what it was that he reacted to so violently. The pork? The oatmeal? The supplements? No clue.

We had to clear out his system, so he ate boiled potatoes and steamed apples – and literally nothing else because he couldn’t keep anything solid in him – mixed with water to keep him from dehydrating. He ate nothing but that for over a week.

Once we were clear that he was clear, we started adding items back in, one at a time.

It’s been several weeks, and we’ve shifted one bite at a time from the potatoes and apple to his current mix: salmon, quinoa, green beans, apples, and supplements. We’ve been slowly shifting out the salmon and adding in lamb, which has gone perfectly. So far. But I’m not going to push it. I learned my lesson.

Let this be my warning: If you’re home cooking for your dog, especially a dog as sensitive as Cooper, never ever add more than one ingredient at a time. Give that ingredient a few days (or even a week – our new plan) to settle, then add something new.

So that’s the update and our cautionary tale! As we work out other combinations, I’ll be sure to share. I’ve gotten tons of amazingly good questions via email and on Facebook, which I’m compiling into an FAQ-style post. My plan is to tackle the supplement piece in a post by itself first (that’s been the most-asked question), so look for that next week!

Thanks for sticking with us through this! Please join in with your insights in the comments or on Facebook! I’d LOVE to hear your experiences and ideas – the more info we can all get, the better we can serve our pups!

Home cooking for our dog: What we’ve tried + resources

12•03•14

Yesterday I started out explaining why we’re home cooking for our dog. In short: his health was a mess. We’ve been at it for a while now, mostly experimenting, but we’ve seen incredible results already.

The first thing we did was to throw out all our previous “insights” into what he could and couldn’t eat. We had been working on one thing, one issue, one symptom at a time for so long that we no longer felt confident that any of our notions were correct. I pulled a couple dog cookbooks off the shelf and flipped through. The pattern that emerged was, essentially, mixing a meat protein source, starchy stuff (like sweet potatoes), fruits and veggies, grains, and supplements. I found this article from Whole Dog Journal to be useful in weighing ingredient possibilities, especially this:

It’s important that the diet you feed your dog is “complete and balanced,” meaning it meets all of your dog’s nutritional needs. It is not important, however, that every meal be complete and balanced, unless you feed the same meal every day with little or no variation. Home-prepared diets that include a wide variety of foods fed at different meals rely on balance over time, not at every meal. Similar to the way humans eat, as long as your dog gets everything he needs spread out over each week or two, his diet will be complete and balanced.

Our next step was to start testing ingredients to see what he tolerated. We started with a base of quinoa and mixed vegetables, which we steamed, because we had fed those to him in the past with no reactions, then we futzed with the proteins. Keeping the base the same, we tested tuna, pork, and lamb. All those were good, so we added in some whole wheat pasta, then varied the vegetables. Who knew that Cooper loved Brussels sprouts so much! We then added steamed spinach to the base, which went well, then we tried steamed kale, which did NOT go well. In fact, the kale experiment was the first time in nearly three weeks that he had diarrhea. So, kale is off our list! He’s also good on sweet potatoes and white rice. Next up: brown rice and squash. We’re also going to try turkey and salmon in the next round of proteins. As for ingredient testing, this chart has been incredibly useful.

But here’s our key: We are only changing ONE ingredient at a time. We isolated a few things that we could count on and only make one change at a time. Yes, it’s making this process take forever (we need to cook a new batch of food nearly every day), but it’s helping us isolate what works and what doesn’t.

While we’ve been working through our ingredients list, I also downloaded this PDF guide from The National Academies that details the minimum daily requirements for vitamins and minerals. I know that ultimately he will get much of his requirements from his food, but while we’re testing and to be extra safe, I wanted to get him on supplements that would get him to his daily minimum. Using the guide, I downloaded the labels for a handful of supplements. I’d be happy to share my comparisons with you if you’re interested, but after a lot of number crunching, we decided on these vitamins with this calcium supplement. Combined, the two get him almost to the full daily requirements outlined in the guide. He also gets a scoop of pumpkin with breakfast and a scoop of coconut oil with dinner.

My ultimate goal is to nail down a few proteins, a variety of fruits and vegetables, some of the carbs, and a couple grains… then go to Sam’s Club and buy them in bulk. Ideally, I’d like a freezer stocked with daily portions so that we aren’t cooking every day, but I’m not willing to do that until we have a solid rotation of possibilities. On Facebook, Lisa suggested preparing batches in the Crock Pot (genius!!) and on yesterday’s post, Pamela recommended Dr. Pitcairn’s book (which I actually have), so I’ll be doing a bit more tweaking before that stage.

I read tons more, in addition to talking to our vet, but the resources I’ve linked here are the ones I found most useful.

Preliminary results: His stomach is the best it’s ever been. Ever. In four years. His coat is shiny, and his eyes look clearer. I think he seems happier, too, but John says we can’t quantify that. (But, trust me. He seems happier. 😉

So, there you have it! I’ll let you know how everything progresses, but thank you to everyone who shared your experiences yesterday. So helpful! If you have any more questions or comments or have a favorite recipe, please do share in the comments!