dog diet home cooked

The Beginners Guide to Home Cooked Food for Your Dog

With more dog parents concerned about transparency, quality and a healthy lifestyle for their dog, homemade cooking is on the rise.

By purchasing and combining the ingredients yourself, you know exactly what is going into the meal. Also, if your pet has specific protein intolerances, requires a special diet for a disease or condition or needs a low-fat diet, you can control the meals to address the issues at hand.

Plus, pets should have variations in their meals, just like humans and preparing food for your pets can cost less than buying premium pet foods.

As a holistic veterinarian, author (including my most recent cookbook for dogs Yin & Yang Nutrition for Dogs) and speaker known for healing dogs with whole foods and minimizing medications and chemicals, feeding a homemade diet is something I strongly encourage for dog parents, as many have reported decreased shedding, increased energy and better weight control by using home prepared meals.

Related:How to Keep Your Dog Safe From the Everyday Toxins Lurking Around Your House

But before you jump into cooking, here are a few pieces of advice to consider. While the tips below are great to begin cooking homemade dog food, I recommend consulting with a professional to ensure the diet is balanced.

Determining the right amount to feed your dog

Knowing how much of a home-cooked meal to feed your dog can be difficult for those just starting on the pet food journey. The rule of thumb is about 2 to 3 percent of body weight for adult dogs and cats. That translates to about 16 ounces of food for a 50-pound dog, or 4 ounces of food for a 10-pound cat. These are just starting points; you will need to adjust up or down based on whether your pet is gaining or losing weight.

Get the right kind of meat

Fat content in the meat you choose will also play a factor the fattier the meat, the higher the calories per ounce of food. Chicken and pork are great, as they tend to be very lean, but if you want your base to be beef or another meat that can be fatty, stick with meats that are 90 percent lean or higher. Bacon, hot dogs, and other meats with nitrates should be avoided. It is best to make sure the meat whatever option you choose is organic, free of hormones and the animals are raised with care and compassion.

Understand the vegetable ratio

A general rule of thumb when choosing ingredients for dogs would be 40 percent meat, 30 percent vegetables and 30 percent grains. Some people choose not to feed grains to their dogs (including me), so meat and vegetable proportions would be closer to 60 percent meat (including about 10 percent for organs) and 40 percent vegetables. Of course, this is just a starting point. Some dogs will have different requirements.

For vegetables, aim for non-starchy types, like squash, green beans, broccoli and asparagus. Avoid potatoes (although sweet potatoes are okay occasionally) and starchy beans and legumes.

For grains, you need to be careful, as some dogs dont tolerate them well. Quinoa is generally well tolerated, as well as buckwheat or barley.

Use organ meat for health issues

Organ meat should be included in home prepared diets, as organs such as liver, heart, gizzards and even kidneys and pancreas, provide vitamins, minerals and enzymes that are not found in muscle meat.

Like feeds like, so pets with heart disease should be fed hearts, those with liver disease should be fed liver and so on. (The amount of liver fed should not exceed 5 percent of the meal.)

Green tripe, which is the stomach of ruminants (cows, sheep, goats, deer) is a super-food packed with probiotic and digestive enzymes (although it smells pretty awful).

Dog parents tend to do about 10 percent organ meat, but may need to be adjusted. Organ meats can be found at butcher shops or through online sources.

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Other ingredients to consider

Eggs are packed with good protein and healthy fats and fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. They are also great as a calcium source. Dogs can be fed eggs daily, either raw or cooked. Sardines are an excellent source of omega 3 fatty acids, and generally canned sardines packed in water are easy to find and make a great addition to meals a few times a week.

Balance it out

Mistakes commonly made by pet owners wanting to prepare homemade meals include feeding the same recipe over and over with no variation and failing to balance the vitamin and mineral levels in the food. While not every meal must be complete and balanced, meals will need to achieve balance over time. Calcium will always be too low, as muscle meat is high in phosphorous and low in calcium. Pets fed low-calcium diets will develop osteoporosis. To avoid this look for calcium-rich foods, like ground eggshells or mineral mixes specifically made for home cooking. I recommend about 500 to 750 milligrams of calcium needed per pound of meat in the recipe.

Trace minerals are often overlooked but can easily be balanced by feeding kelp powder or mussels. Mussels are available in the frozen seafood section of most grocery stores or consider getting a supplement. Six to seven mussels per week will supply the required trace minerals.

Vitamin D needs to be supplied in the form of eggs or fish; otherwise a vitamin D3 supplement made specifically for home cooking should be added. Vitamin E can be supplied by feeding teaspoon wheat germ oil or one 100 IU vitamin E capsule per 30 pounds body weight per day.

You can also add omega 3 fatty acids in the form of fish oils. Fish oil goes rancid very easily, so make sure the oil you are using is odorless. It should also not be stored as a liquid in a plastic bottle. Liquid fish oil should be in a pump bottle that is not exposed to air. A good brand is Iceland Pure. I would recommend against flax oil. It is high in omega 6s, not omega 3s and dogs do not convert omega 6 to omega 3 very well.

For complete products to add to your dogs diet, Dr. Dobias Green Min and Soul Foodand Rx Vitamins Essentials for Dogs are great options.

Ease into it

When starting out, its best to make food as a topper, adding to your pets regular diet, gradually increasing the new diet while decreasing the processed food.

The addition of whole food diets will increase palatability and have incredible health benefits.

Related: The Ultimate Weight Loss Guide for Your Dog

Other ways to keep your dog healthy

Cooking for Your Dog: Dos & Donts of Homemade Dog Food

Dog nutrition can be tricky, especially when considering cooking for your pets. Which human foods are safe for dogs to eat? How can you ensure your homemade food will meet your dogs dietary requirements? There can be a lot of questions to answer. Additionally, there arent many sources that offer safe, healthy information on how to prepare meals for your dog at home.

Jennifer A. Larsen, DVM, MS, Ph.D., and Joe Bartges, DVM, Ph.D., board-certified veterinary nutritionists and diplomates of the American College of Veterinary Nutritiontouch on the pros and cons of cooking for your dog.

Should You Cook Your Dogs Food?

Is cooking dog food at home really better for your pup? While there may be claims made to that effect, theres no hard scientific evidence to support it. Owners are told by many sources that homemade food is superior to commercial products. However, there is no proof to support this claim, says Dr. Larsen.

Larsen cautions dog owners to be aware of fearmongering within the pet food industry. This is often driven by myths about ingredient quality. While there are no scientifically-supported benefits to homemade diets, whole ingredient-based diets are better in the long term. Commercial foods are made to be complete and balanced, adds Dr. Bartges, albeit not the most exciting of meals. Think of it as eating the same highly processed food for every meal, day after day, for years, he affirms.

Put that way, feeding your dogs a variety of whole foods makes a lot of sense. In fact, there are a multitude of reasons why you might want to prepare homemade foods for your dog, according to Dr. Larsen and Dr. Bartges. These include gaining control over your dogs diet, appeasing picky eaters, combatting food intolerance issues, concern over food recalls, or simply for the bond-building joy of preparing a home-cooked meal for your dog.

Common Mistakes When Cooking for Your Dog

When it comes to cooking for your dog, there are some things to keep in mind when it comes to sourcing recipes and ensuring that youre using dog-safe ingredients:

Not Using Trusted Sources

There are many inadequate, and sometimes dangerous recipes, available to owners, says Dr. Larsen. There are now many studies demonstrating that most of these are not balanced. Some of these may cause deficiencies in your dogs diet, while others may lead to an excess of certain nutrients. To avoid encountering unhealthy or dangerous options Dr. Larsen and Dr. Bartges recommend avoiding generic recipes from books or online sources. Some so-called nutrition experts are without proper training, and may do more harm than good.

Larsen and Bartges also suggest consulting BalanceIT.com, a site run by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, to help create a semi-individualized diet.

Not Preparing Balanced Meals

When you dont prepare balanced meals that are individualized to your pets needs, it can come at a cost. Nutrition deficiency (or excess) can lead to diseases, such as malnutrition or obesity, and can ultimately be fatal.

Each of the [approximately] 40 essential nutrients required by dogs has a specific role in the body. When they are provided in inadequate concentrations, the function is not optimal and suffering may result, explains Dr. Larsen. Similarly, nutrient excesses can also cause illness. While the impact of an unbalanced diet may be mild and not even noticed or attributed to the diet by the owner, these problems can also be very severe, and pets do not always survive.

Relying on Multiple Diets to Create Balance

Our study and my clinical experience has demonstrated that this approach is very unlikely to address problems since so many recipes share the same deficiencies, cautions Dr. Larsen.

Using Unsafe or Unhealthy Ingredients

There is a wide variety of unhealthy and unsafe foods to avoid when preparing meals for your dog. Potentially toxic ingredients are of special concern, including chocolate, xylitol, avocado, grapes, raisins, onions, garlic, and macadamia nuts.

The above list isnt exhaustive and other potential issues can arise if youre not careful about ingredients. So make sure to always be aware of which foods are safe for dogs. Additionally, cites Dr. Bartes, a certain type of heart disease called dilated cardiomyopathy has recently been reported in dogs eating homemade diets that are grain-free, legume-based, and high-fiber.

Not Following Recipes

Most general recipes provide vague instructions for ingredients or preparation. This leaves the owner to interpret what type of meat to use, or which supplement product to buy, warns Dr. Larson, of the potential difficulty in following dog food recipes.

Rather than improvising, its important to run any questions by a veterinary nutritionist. That way, youll be able to understand the impact that alternative ingredients might have on your dog.

Understating the Impact of Dietary Changes

Ideally, when you go about creating a custom recipe for your dog, itll be under the guidance of a board-certified veterinary nutritionist. Factors like your dogs eating history, weight, and overall health should be considered. To make sure the food youre introducing is having the desired impact, youll want to monitor your pets health for changes over time.

An Alternative to Home Cooking

Home cooking isnt for everyone, though, and it doesnt have to be. Cooking for your pet is a process thats demanding on your time, labor, space, and finances, says Dr. Larsen. Another option to provide your dog with whole ingredients is to get carefully prepared ready-made meals. There are commercial foods that can be purchased that contain whole ingredients that are pre-cooked. Which is very close to cooking, notes Dr. Bartges.

So, while you might think that cooking for your dog is better for their health, it can be just as beneficial to purchase pre-prepared food thats made with the same principles in mind. Whichever method you choose, just to make sure you are always catering to your dogs individual health and nutrition needs.