How to Make Holistic Dog Food

With consumer exposés recently revealing some worrying ingredients in commercially produced pet foods, many owners have turned to holistic dog food as a nutritional solution for their four legged friends. While holistic dog food is on sale pre-packaged from specialist pet suppliers, these kinds of meals can be easily prepared at home and usually at a lower cost than owners would pay for the mass produced products. Batch cooking and freezing as detailed below can be a great way to ensure dogs enjoy a healthy and varied holistic diet. Owners should always consult their veterinarian before making changes to their dog's diet.

Step 1 – Prepare Your Vegetables 

Wash your carrots, broccoli and cauliflower thoroughly then roughly chop your veg into chunks of around 2cm square. You don’t want the vegetables to disappear once cooked as they add appetizing color to the meals for dogs. Leave skin on carrots if they are clean and include both stalks and heads of the broccoli and cauliflower. 

Step 2 – Fry Off Your Meats 

Put a table spoon of olive oil in each pan and place the pans on the heat. When the oil is hot put the ground beef in one pot and the ground skinless turkey in another. It is important to ensure the turkey meat is skinless since the skin of turkey has a high fat content that can cause health problems including pancreatitis in dogs. Stir both pans, evenly browning the ground meats over the heat. When the meat is browned you may wish to drain off some of the fat depending on your own dog's needs and how much fat was in the orginal meat.

Step 3 – Combining the Ingredients 

With the meat browned, add half of the chopped vegetables and ½ lb of brown rice to each pan and stir. Pour one liter of water into each pan and bring to a boil. Roughly chop the rosemary (a helpful and flavorsome antioxidant) and add to the beef mix. The turmeric (also an antioxidant) should be added to the turkey mix. Turn both pans down to simmer for around 25 mins, checking and stirring regularly, adding more water if the mix seems to be drying or sticking. After 25 mins add ½ lb of oats to each pan and stir in. Allow to simmer for a further five minutes and turn off heat. 

Step 4 – Feeding or Freezing 

Both pans should be left to cool completely after cooking and the oats should absorb the remaining broth. Once cooled each pot will need to be stirred a final time before serving to pets or portioning out to freeze. As a rule portion sizes should be between two and three percent of a dog's weight. If you choose to freeze food it should be thoroughly defrosted at room temperature before serving.