Don’t Forget your Pet, when Preparing Holiday Meals!
Sharing a moderate amount of holiday leftovers with your pet can be a great way keep her included in the festivities. There are lots of ‘people foods’ that are fine for most pets to eat, and they can add some healthy variety and extra nutrition to her regular meals. Here are some seasonal holiday ingredients that can be added safely (or amended and then added) to your dog’s usual fare, to make her feel special and part of the family when everyone else is enjoying a feast.
Turkey, Ham, Prime Rib and other meats. These can all be added to your dog’s food in moderation. The key things to remember are that dogs should never be fed any type of cooked bones because they can splinter and damage or impact the GI tract. Too much fat and gristle can be problematic and can lead to pancreatitis, which is very painful and potentially dangerous. Try to avoid prepared meats that have added lots of added sodium, nitrites and preservatives. Whenever you can, choose free-range, natural and grass-fed meats, which are better for you and your pet as well as the animal who provided the meat in the first place.
Green Bean Casserole – a natural creamy sauce with the green beans is okay in small amounts, but don’t include the onion topping. Alternatively, just add some fresh raw or cooked green beans to your dog’s usual food. Most dogs love the naturally sweet taste – just be sure to trim them to a manageable size for smaller dogs.
Sweet Potatoes – these are an excellent source of beta carotene and make a highly nutritious meal addition for dogs. Steamed or baked sweet potatoes are ideal; raw root vegetables can be difficult to digest unless completely pulverized in a blender or food processor. Avoid giving your dog the kind of holiday-themed sweet potato side dishes that contain lots of maple syrup, melted marshmallows or candied nuts.
Cranberries are a great addition to your pet’s meals at any time of year and especially during the holidays. Many dogs enjoy fresh cranberries but cranberry sauce and jelly can be full of sugar and other ingredients that Fido doesn’t need. Dried cranberries are a nice alternative, provided they don’t have lots of added sweeteners. Cranberries contain natural compounds that can help prevent bacteria from adhering to the bladder wall, so they are an excellent choice for cats and dogs who are prone to urinary tract infections.
Pumpkin & Squash are great foods to share with cats and dogs in moderate amounts. Most pets love the taste of these nutritious, fibrous vegetables. If you’re making a soup, consider setting aside some of the gently cooked cubes of squash before you begin adding wine, cream, onions and other less pet-friendly ingredients to the mix.
Winter Greens like chard and kale are a super source of vitamins and antioxidants. Brussels sprouts and cabbage are also loaded with nutrients, but they tend to cause gas. These can be added raw, lightly steamed or sautéed. Avoid serving your pet large amounts of winter greens that contain lots of added salt, wine, soy-sauce or butter.
White potatoes are fine in moderate amounts. They contain fiber and minerals. Try to avoid serving your pet potato dishes that are prepared with lots of cream, ranch dressing, oil or butter. Potatoes provide a good source of Vitamins B3 and B6, Vitamin C, Potassium, Iron, Copper and Fiber. Potatoes have been associated with some adverse publicity in the past due to their content of glycoalkaloids, which can develop in the stems, shoots and green parts of the skin of potatoes that are improperly stored and where the skin is subjected to excessive or prolonged exposure to light. The shoots and green parts of potatoes should not be consumed by people or animals for this reason and should be removed before serving.
Holiday Foods to Avoid
Stuffing and corn pudding –should be avoided for most pets, because they tend to contain onion and sometimes raisins, as well as ingredients like bread and cornmeal which aren’t very nutritious and can actually exacerbate ear infections and skin problems.
Desserts and Cheeses should be avoided too, because they can cause tummy upsets, especially when eaten in excess.
Relishes, pickles and sauces are also best left out of your pet’s bowl because they tend to contain heavy spices, sugar, onion and other ingredients than can unsettle their GI tract.
The following foods are toxic to dogs and cats and should not be offered in the form of leftovers or people-food additions to her usual meals: onions, chocolate, macadamia nuts, grapes, raisins & candies containing the sweetened xylitol.
If you do decide to share your holiday meals with your dog or cat, ensure that you make additions gradually to ensure he or she can tolerate what you’re serving. Don’t allow your pet to gorge excessively either, because this can lead to health problems such as pancreatitis and bloat. If you do have an incident where your pet gets up on the counter or into the holiday trash and consumes a large amount of leftovers, keep a close eye on him. The homeopathic remedy nux vomica can be helpful for the side effects of minor overindulgences but if you notice any sign of bloating, vomiting or other digestive problems such as diarrhea or constipation, a visit to the vet office is recommended, without delay.
Lucy Postins is a companion animal nutritionist, and founder & president of The Honest Kitchen, a producer of dehydrated, nutritionally balanced ‘people foods’ for pets. Www.thehonestkitchen.com
Insight & Opinion from a Canine Behaviorist
I’m a Canine Behavior and Nutrition Specialist in Oakville, Ontario Canada. On the nutrition side, I teach people how to make home prepared food, supplements, and how to manage/eliminate food and environmental allergies in their dogs. Because I work with so many allergy cases where the owner is not necessarily keen on home prepared food, I am constantly researching kibbles and commercial diets that I deem fitting for dogs with health issues, and that are also from responsible companies promoting healthy, human grade ingredients.
I’ve known about HK for a long time now, but being in Canada, I’ve rarely seen any products in stores. I’ve recently been doing Allergy Afternoons (free consults for customers) at Bark & Fitz pet store in High Park, Toronto. The area is known throughout Ontario for being extremely dog friendly, and on an average weekend you’d think you were at a dog show just walking down the street! In May, I discovered that the store was carrying your new line of dehydrated foods. I literally jumped for joy!! I have never, in my entire career with dogs, encountered a company as reputable, transparent and committed to good food for dogs as HK is!! I am absolutely thrilled to see your line being carried in stores in Ontario, and have recommended it to many clients already. I make every effort to provide unbiased advice to my clients, and therefore I do not sell any product, but I must say that if I ever were to compromise that and begin selling food, I would do it for Honest Kitchen!!
My own dog, Toby the Boxer, is practically allergic to himself. I won’t go into details, but I have been feeding him the Zeal and the Embark over the past couple of months, and he is doing extremely well on it. I am so pleased with the results – though knowing the quality that Honest Kitchen is known for – I am not surprised that he’s taken to it so well, and that his body shows how good this food is for him.
Ultimately, I’d like to thank you. Thank you for doing what no other dog food company has really ever been able to do – provide quality, human grade, well balanced and varied ingredient food in a form that is easy for customers to use, affordable, and available. I always say – your dog is the ultimate advisor on whether a food is good for him, and I will never question whether a client’s dog will do well on your food. You are truly an admirable company, and I wish you the very best in future – and hope you provide these products forever!!! It means the world to me, to my wonderful dog, and of course – to my clients!! You are doing for the dog world what no one else has done yet!!
Kind regards,
Erica Garven
Food for Thought: The Humble Potato
Potatoes are considered to be one of the most important foods in the world. They provide a good source of Vitamins B3 and B6, Vitamin C, Potassium, Iron, Copper and Fiber. Significant quantities of manganese, molybdenum, chromium and selenium can be found just beneath the potato’s skin.
Rebecca Wood’s New Whole Foods Encyclopedia notes that potatoes have a number of medicinal properties, including being anti-inflammatory (except in some arthritic conditions), as well as being able to neutralize body acids and benefit stomach ulcers.
In Ayurvedic medicine, potatoes are considered ‘beneficial in function for the spleen-pancreas and reduce Pitta and Kapha.’ In Traditional Chinese Medicine, potatoes are considered neutral, with a propensity for the spleen, stomach and large intestine meridians. Potatoes calm and heal the digestive mucosa as well as work as an antispasmodic, diuretic and emollient.
This seemingly trivial vegetable helps to fight against toxins and due to its rich potassium content it helps to eliminate uric acid.
Potatoes have been associated with some adverse publicity in the past due to their content of glycoalkaloids. These nerve toxins can develop in the stems, shoots and green parts of the skin of potatoes that are improperly stored and where the skin is subjected to excessive or prolonged exposure to light. The shoots and green parts of potatoes should not be consumed by people or animals for this reason and should be removed before serving.
Introducing New Foods
Introducing your cat or dog to a different type of food can be a slightly daunting proposition, especially if he or she has a sensitive tummy. A gradual transition is ideal, because it allows the animal’s gut flora or ‘good bacteria’ to build up for the new food.
In an ideal world, the transition to a new diet should take place over a period of four to seven days. Of course circumstances (and the quantity of old food you have left) will dictate how you make the transition – sometimes it can take even longer if you have a very finicky pet, and sometimes pets just refuse to touch their old food once they’ve had a taste of the new! Here are some top tips for a successful transition to a new diet.
Start off by mixing a very small amount of the new food, with your pet’s original diet. For extremely sensitive pets, as little as a tablespoon of new food is fine but for most pets you can feed about one quarter new food with three quarters of the old.
Continue with this amount for the next couple of meals and if no signs of digestive upset occur, you can gradually begin increasing the ratio, so that you are feeding half and half original and new food. Feed this for a couple more meals and then phase out the old food completely so that a complete transition has been made.
If you do have to make an overnight switch for some reason, of if your pet still experiences some GI upset even with this gradual protocol, you can add some of our best selling digestive health supplement, Perfect Form supplement, which is made with a soothing blend of herbs that help combat diarrhea and gassiness. Or, you can always add in plain, live-culture yogurt which contains ‘good bacteria’ to help balance his GI flora during the transition.
Try to avoid making dietary changes during other periods of transition unless absolutely necessary (for example if you cannot locate the original food (or it got recalled) or if a medical reason or food allergy prevents you from continuing to feed what he was eating before.
Ideally, if you’ve brought home a new puppy or adopted a rescue dog, continue feeding the food he was eating in his former home for the first week or so, because new surroundings (even those much nicer than he was experiencing before) can trigger slight anxiety, which may make your pup more prone to digestive upset anyway. Similarly, it’s best to avoid new foods when away from home on road trips, or when you’re out of town and someone else is caring for your pet. Instead, make the change when most other aspects of your pet’s life are calm and settled.
Fido Friendly: Varietal Feeding
Read full article in Fido Friendly
Varietal or rotational feeding is gaining popularity among pet parents. Its roots lie firmly based in both common sense and respect for what’s biologically appropriate for Fido. Even though a human could survive on one brand of breakfast cereal every day for the long term, her state of health would likely be far inferior compared to a fellow human who consumed lots of different, fresh foods every week. Domestic mammals such as dogs and cats are no different in that regard.
Not only is varietal feeding important from the standpoint of preventing boredom, it also helps to ensure that Fido will receive a broader spectrum of nutrition, including enzymes, amino acids and antioxidants, compared with when he eats one single processed food every day.
Many pet food manufacturers caution pet owners not to add anything to their products, claiming that doing so will throw off the balance of nutrients. But a modern, domestic canine’s digestive system is not so primitive that it cannot handle a varied diet. As variety is introduced to the diet, so the body becomes more robust, and even more able to derive benefit from new, fresh ingredients.
A varied diet strengthens the system, which over time means Fido is able to enjoy more and more variety, just as a monotonous, non-varied diet weakens the system and can result in a dog who can’t enjoy different foods because his tummy gets upset. Start off very gradually and work up to a more varied diet over a period of weeks or months.
Of course, as with most things, common sense should prevail—heaping piles of ground beef on top of a high-protein kibble isn’t a wise choice, but a mix of different foods offered throughout the week supplies a plethora of valuable compounds not present in one kibble alone.
The Allergy Question
The long-term effects of feeding a highly processed, monotonous diet can lead to various health problems, and there is growing evidence that failing to vary what Fido eats can actually predispose him to the onset of food allergies. Eating nothing but lamb and rice for years on end is not only boring but increases the risk that he will start to become intolerant of lamb or rice or both. While some conventional vets actually recommend feeding only one type of food for years on end to help keep the options open when an allergy develops, this doesn’t conform to a holistic approach to health. Pets who enjoy variety are less likely to develop allergies anyway, because their systems are much stronger; and even if they do, there are so many good quality options available that there’s certainly something Fido can eat even if a food sensitivity does flare up later in life.
How Does Varietal Feeding Work? Feeding Fido a varied diet can be as involved and labor-intensive as completely preparing all food from scratch and making each meal a little different from the next to simply adding in some fresh and healthy, human-grade extras with his usual daily fare. Or, a varied diet can be as easy as following a schedule of rotation between different brands of commercial food.
If you take the home-prepared approach, it is important to ensure that you feed a wide enough selection of biologically appropriate foods to provide adequate levels of nutrition over a period of time, such as one week. It’s true that some individual meals will contain higher levels of nutrients than others, but this isn’t problematic if a common sense approach is followed and nutritional balance is accomplished during the course of a week. This requires a basic understanding of the nutritional makeup of various types of foods as well as an appreciation for how wild dogs and cats eat, including
consumption of different prey such as rabbits, mice and birds and foraging for seeds and berries according to what’s available.
Fresh and minimally processed foods contain colorful pigments, which indicate the presence of different nutrients. If you feed a commercial product as a base, you can still add in your own fresh foods to provide extra taste and nutrition as well as help prevent boredom. Try mixing in some of these ingredients along with your pet’s regular meals: ground or cubed meat (raw or cooked), raw (not cooked) meaty bones, plain yogurt, cottage cheese,
eggs, kefir, fruits, herbs and vegetables.
Dietary variety can also be accomplished by rotating between different brands or types of commercial food. Combining raw meats and kibble is not recommended because these foods digest at different rates and can increase the risk of food borne illness, but many pet owners will feed raw for one meal and kibble the next, or use a middle-ground type of food such as dehydrated or freeze-dried and mix it with canned, kibble or raw foods in rotation.
Each dog is a unique individual and may have specific taste preferences or food tolerances. Start introducing a varietal diet gradually to allow him time to adjust and pay attention to which types of foods he does best on. Over time, the benefits of a varied feeding protocol that consists of fresh and minimally processed whole foods will become evident through more robust health, energy levels and resistance to illness.
