Tag Archives: pet food recall

My Dog’s Dinner: Lamb & Rice with Mint Sauce

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The Main Ingredients…

And Dinner is served!
Warning! Long post ahead. Skip to the end if you just want the recipe :)

My mother-in-law wanted BBQ’d lamb chops for her birthday lunch, so I picked up some thick juicy ones from the butcher shop to take to her place. There were a couple left over, and you know I was all over taking those home for The Boys. Home cooked dog food is great in terms of repurposing your leftovers. A leftover lamb chop is not going to be in my lunch the next day, but it’s definitely drool worthy stuff for you know who!

From time to time, I’ll share what I would make in place of a processed meal, so I looked up the ingredients for a very popular brand of Lamb & Rice kibble. One of the more expensive ones at the grocery store. This is the ingredients label (without the list of vitamins, additives etc.)

Lamb Meal, Brewers Rice, Corn Meal, Ground Whole Grain Sorghum, Corn Grits, Chicken By-Product Meal, Ground Whole Grain Barley, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E), Dried Beet Pulp, Chicken Flavor, Dried Egg Product, Potassium Chloride, Brewers Dried Yeast, Salt, Dicalcium Phosphate, Monosodium Phosphate, Caramel, Choline Chloride, Fructooligosaccharides PLUS a bunch of Vitamin and Mineral supplements.

Here are my own thoughts on these ingredients:

Lamb Meal: Lamb meal is rendered lamb tissues such as skeletal muscle, some bone and internal organs that have been dried and ground. I guess thats why it’s meal, not meat! Brewers rice: This is considered a by-product or leftover rice that is created when rice is milled, for beer making or pet food. This is neither a human grade ingredient nor is it a good source of nutrition. Corn Meal:  Commonly used as an inexpensive protein source, corn is difficult to digest. Not a fan of corn in dog food. Ground Whole Grain Sorghum: Sorghum is the ground grain of the sorghum plant. This is ok, from what I gather, but have you ever bought it to cook for your own meal?  Chicken By-Product:  By-product is a “meat” mixture that includes other animal organs such as intestines, lungs, liver or any other kind of animal part. There are only three exceptions – hair, hoof, and horn. Bones, eyeballs and even underdeveloped baby chicken eggs could quite possibly a part of the animal by-products listed in many commercial pet food ingredients. I’m gonna barf. Ground whole grain barley: Good, would like to see this higher on the list. Corn Grits: Again, not a fan of corn fordogs. Chicken Fat: sounds ok, depending on how much.Dried Egg Product: sounds ok, but why is it listed as a “product” rather than simply Dried Egg? Dried Beet pulp: ok Chicken Flavour:  Artificial Flavourings -If this food tasted any good it wouldn’t need fake chicken flavour added. Hello, 3 dressed up as a 9. Brewers Dried Yeast: cool Caramel: Assume for colour – mmm all brown pellets. Fructooligosaccharide: conflicting research on this “sweet thing”. Various vitamin and mineral supplements: I don’t think supplements are a replacement for whole foods – otherwise I’d be at the drive through for myself more often!

Are you grossed out yet? Well, here’s what I wish was in that bag of dog kibble!
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Grain-Free GoodBites

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Greetings, fellow passengers!

I know a lot of you are looking for recipes for dogs with allergies, so I’ve come up with this grain-free duck and potato treat. I did my best to stay away from other food items that some dogs are allergic to, such as eggs. Instead, I used some “no sugar added” applesauce in place of the egg as the binder in the recipe. It’s a sticky and wet dough without flour – but the results are worth it, especially if your little one can’t handle grains.

INGREDIENTS:
1 duck breast
1/4 cup no sugar added applesauce
3/4 cup instant potatoes. Look for the ones with as few additives as possible. Try to use the granulated ones (they look kinda like sugar) as opposed to the flaky ones. I had the Paradise Valley brand from Costco. I believe that the Idahoan Originals are granular too.
Tsp Rosemary
Tsp Parsley (fresh/dry)
1/4 cup to a cup of chicken broth or water.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. If you have a food processor, (I lived a full & happy life without one, but I bought one 6 months ago and man, I wish I had gotten one a long time ago!) roughly chop the duck breast before putting it in. If you’re going manual all the way, chop the duck breast into little bitty bites.

Either in the food processor or in a big mixing bowl, add the chopped duck, the potato, the applesauce, rosemary and parsley. Pulse or mix together. As you go along, slowly add as much water (my preference, to keep them lower in fat/sodium) or broth if that’s what you think your dog would prefer – as you need to get them to a spreadable consistency. You shouldn’t need very much at all. This is a wet dough – it’s without flour after all – so don’t worry if it looks like a big brown blob. It’s supposed to!

Spread onto a parchment lined baking tray. I get right in there with my hands rather than using a spatula. Use a knife to cut squares in the raw dough. I cut big squares for The Boys, you should make them the appropriate size for your dogs.

Bake them at 400 for forty minutes. I like to leave them in the oven for an extra hour or so to dry out even more as the oven cools down. When you take them out, you can flip them over on the parchment to let the bottom dry out even more as they cool on the counter.

Store these GoodBites in your fridge for 3-5 days, and freeze the rest. I have taken to keeping all of my treats in the freezer because this way, my piglets eat them in two bites rather than gulp them right down the hatch without tasting them :)

I’m going to experiment with other meats as I know a lot of you are looking for grain free goodness for your pups! FYI – this recipe didn’t work as well with a chicken breast, I will have to play with the ratios and come up with a lovely grain-free chicken GoodBite.

xo/J
* Please note that I’m neither a vet nor an animal nutritionist, so it’s advisable to consult with your own authority when trying new foods, and also to ensure that your dog’s home cooked diet is balanced & includes all of the nutrients that are necessary for your dog’s health.

A Real Dog’s Breakfast

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Hey there! What a fabulous Sunday morning it is as I write this post. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and I’m going to meet one of my best friends for all-you-can-eat sushi. We’ve made a pact to wear our “loose pants”, as in our yoga pants. It takes very brave girls to wear them out to lunch.

Ok, so as it turns out, a lot of you are quite literally looking for Doggie Breakfast recipes. My very first recipe posted here was Breakfast of Champions, and I think its time for another. This is truly a dog’s breakfast – a smorgasbord of dog-friendly food items. The beauty of it is that you can probably make it out of leftovers. Or at least, you probably have the right stuff kicking around in your fridge. What I’m going to do here is tell you what is in this particular bowl of fun, and I’m also going to offer you other options/substitutions. This is a great every day meal, but dogs do need you to provide a variety of foods, so you just have to change some of the elements up every couple of days. Simply switch up the meats, carbs and veg. Don’t worry, this is not complicated!

This particular Dog’s Breakfast is about 1/3 meat/protein, 1/3 carbs and 1/3 fruit/veggies. You can play around with the ratios and tailor this recipe to suit your own dog. Some like more veg, some don’t eat carbs, etc. etc.

I used leftovers from our supper the night before: just toss ‘er into the dish. No need to make it pretty like my picture.

INGREDIENTS:
One cup of baked salmon.
One cup of cooked brown rice.
2 hard boiled eggs. (No yolk for my senior dog)
1 grated carrot
1/2 of an apple, chopped.

Sprinkle with parsley if you have it, it’s great for their breath. I sprinkle a bit of bone meal powder (from health food store) or ground egg shells for calcium supplementation.

You could simply cut the ingredients in half for a smaller dog, or serve it two days in a row. It tastes great at night too, breakfast for dinner and all that.

SALMON SUBSTITUTIONS:
One cup salmon = one cup of leftover rotisserie chicken, chopped turkey, beef, lamb. What did you have for supper last night?!

BROWN RICE SUBSTITUTIONS: 1 cup of cooked rice = one cup of cooked barley or even better a cup of cooked quinoa (a seed, not a grain).

CARROT SUBSTITUTIONS: 1 carrot, basically this is a cup when grated. You can use finely chopped spinach, or a cup of steamed/lightly cooked dog-friendly vegetables – there are lots to choose from.

APPLE SUBSTITUTIONS: 1/2 apple = about a 1/2 cup – try pineapple, strawberries or other fruits that are good for dogs.

Eggs are great for dogs, and very affordable. Very nutritious, high in protein & fat which dogs need. As I mentioned, use egg whites for older or less active dogs.

Happy Sunday!

I’m neither a vet nor an animal nutritionist.  This recipe is not meant to replace a proper and balanced diet for your dog.  You should to speak to your own vet before trying new recipes or feeding any home cooked foods to your dog.

Chicken Jerky Treats – Safe For Your Dog?

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Hello to you and hello to the month of May!

For those of you who don’t know me well (or at all, for that matter),  the main reason I’ve created My Dog’s Breakfast is to inspire people to consider home cooking for dogs, by way of providing a variety of recipes that just might coax the wary into the kitchen, and to share recipes of interest with other home cookers.   I try to create recipes that are either easy, affordable, fun, festive, or a combination thereof.  The purpose of my website isn’t to slam the pet food industry and to chastise people about feeding their dogs processed food.  That’s not my way.   But today, be warned, I have to put on my serious face and talk just a little bit about shoddy pet food labels & pet food standards. Don’t even get me started on the topic of the stunning lack of regulations when it comes to pet food industry in general.  Even right here in Canada.

Over the years, people have become used to packaged and processed meals for themselves, and while lots of people are heeding the call to move back to cooking whole foods from scratch, that movement hasn’t really hit home yet in terms of how we feed our pets.  As an aside, I’m almost finished reading “Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture” (thanks for the recommend, Aunt Daphne), and the book reports on and analyzes a broad spectrum of goods, including food. You might want to pick it up, it’ll get you thinking.

The specific product I’m going to talk about may be cheap, but will it come at a high cost to you?   Continue reading →