Why Feed Home Cooked?

You might be considering home cooking for your dog, whether this will be a regular thing or just as a topper or just when you have the time. I would highly encourage you to do this, as fresh food, in whatever quantity you can manage is such a good investment into your dogs health and well being. If you need some convincing, here I provide 4 reasons why you should home cook for your dog.

Quality

This refers to the quality of the ingredients in the recipe. When you home cook, you know the ingredients and more specifically, the meat you are using is fit for human consumption and the meal you prepare, you could eat yourself, you might not want to, but you could. You also know that if the recipes say it provides 65% protein, then that is all coming from a quality source, such as meat, fish and eggs. You know the vegetables have come from a good source and have not been dried or over cooked and you know that you’re getting almost all vitamins and minerals from whole food.

Commercial dog foods will tend to use poor quality proteins to keep the cost down. One thing you might come across is something called meat meal, this is basically the leftover animal parts that humans will not consume, heated on high and rendered down to a powder. Sadly, a lot of commercial dog food companies will cut corners and use fillers, such as legumes, which are not helpful to dogs, as they contain phytic acid, which block the absorption of good nutrients and can cause inflammatory issues. You may also find they appear in your dog’s poo a lot as they cannot be digested or utilised properly due to lectins found in things like lentils and peas. They don’t add fillers because they are good for your dog but because it brings down the costs and with clever marketing, they can deceive customers into thinking they are buying a better-quality product than they really are. That being said, there are some better-quality commercial foods out there, you just need to know how to decipher the label and study the ingredient list.  

Processing

When cooking at home, we can ensure we use low heat and a lid to capture all the goodness in the moisture, or, we could use a slow cooker and lightly stem our vegetables. We can ensure nuts and seeds are grounded down and all starchy vegetables or carbohydrates are cooked through. We do this to make sure everything is digestible and your dog is getting every bit of goodness from the food.

Commercial dog foods manufacturing plants, use high heat processing, which essentially kills all the good bacteria and all those nutrients, which then must be added back in with synthetic ingredients (man-made ingredients). High heat damages and changes the structure making the food less bioavailable. But not only this, because dry dog food is convenient, just like a ready meal, it will contain additives and preservatives which allow a long shelf live. This is fine but imagine living on ready meals and the same ready meal for that matter for your whole life! You might survive but you could in no way thrive. The additives and preservatives can also cause digestive upset, so you may see signs which you think are allergies but it could be your dog is reacting to the additives.

Bioavailability

We know that whole fresh foods are more bioavailable, this means because it is real food our body recognises it and is much more capable of utilising all the good vitamins and minerals they offer. This is why, we are always encouraged to try and eat as may whole food as possible, because it’s just that, food!

When commercial dog food uses high heat processing, as I previously mentioned, it kills all the nutrients which then have to be replaced with a synthetic premix, which is added back into ensure they meet the guidelines set out by FEDIAF. However, as these ingredients are not real food, the body struggles to understand what to do with them, and so they will always be less beneficial than real whole foods. Another thing to mention is the risk of toxicity, it is very difficult to create toxicity of a vitamin or mineral which is coming from whole foods, however, sadly, there have been cases where dog food companies have added high levels or certain vitamins and minerals and created toxicity in dogs and many recalls have occurred because of this. Personally, I trust myself in the kitchen, way more than I trust commercial dog food companies.

It is worth mentioning here that a home cooked recipe which has not been formulated correctly will almost certainly cause health problems later down the line, due to incorrect levels of nutrients and most likely lack in some of the vital nutrients.

Choice

When home cooking, not only do we know we are using human grade ingredient that you or I would buy for ourselves, but we also know exactly what ingredients is going in, we can choose what our dogs like and avoid foods they dislike or ones we know might trigger reactions.

Food intolerance in dogs is very common. You may find switching to home cooked food will eliminate any reactions and symptoms without having to worry about elimination diets, as it could be the commercial dog foods, which are high in carbs, using low quality proteins and synthetic premixes are all just getting to much for your dog and they are craving some real food. It maybe they are suffering leaky gut and their bodies need time to heal and rest. Feeding fresh food and some gentle gut soothing supplements can give them this opportunity.

If your dog has a food intolerance or allergy, then home cooking allows you to completely avoid whatever the trigger food may be. Commercial dog foods will quite often claim the food is one thing but may use other parts of animals which are not obvious on the label, or they may use meat meal which could be a mixture of anything! Finding a single protein commercial dog food isn’t easy, but feeding a single protein isn’t ideal either. We want to allow your dog to have as much diversity as possible to promote a healthy microbiome. Using home cooking you can switch between different recipes and provide a range of foods which you know will not cause any unwanted symptoms.

Final thoughts

It can be daunting to start a journey of home cooking for your beloved dog, but it doesn’t need to be, with a few good formulated recipes and instructions, after some practice you will be easily able to make a batch of dog food in just a few hours, lasting a few weeks and the benefits are huge.