No Time to Bake Kibble? My recipe for Supplementing Commercial Vegan Dog Food

You care deeply about your precious pupster’s health, but this next week is going to be too busy. If I am running out and absolutely cannot bake Valentina’s kibble, I do the following.  Keep in stock a bag of highest possible commercial vegan kibble and make a mixture of the following ingredients to be mixed into the kibble when you dish it up. Keep the mixture in a light-free, air-tight container.

Put in food processor or blender in dry container and turn into meal:

½ c almond flour meal

½ c hemp seed

½ c raw pumpkin seed

½ c chia seed

½ cup flaxseed meal

1 c dried cranberries (preferably unsweetened or apple juice sweetened)

½ c dried blueberries (preferably unsweetened or apple juice sweetened)

 Mix into above mixture in a large bowl:

½ c Vegedog

¼ cup nutritional yeast

¼ c Vegeyeast

½ c oat bran

½ c coconut flour

½ c pea protein or ½ c hemp protein, or both

¾ tsp kelp powder

 Add to the mixture 7 days’ worth of the following:

Immune dog

Nzymes

Back Pack Plus

Barley Grass Powder

Wheat Grass Powder

Alfalfa Grass Powder

L-Lysine

L-Arginine

Taurine

L-Carnitine

Acetyl – L—Carnitine

L-Methionine

Sodium Ascorbate, or Ester-C (I don’t use Ascorbic Acid – see Canine Nutrition, William D. Cusick)

R-Lipoic Acid

 At this point mix, and then measure what you have in the bowl. You should have around 12+ cups. Keep in a cool, dark, dry place.

 When I dish out a days’ worth of kibble,

In a small bowl I mix the following, then add to kibble along with about ¾ c of the above dry mix:

1 heaping TBSP peanut butter, pure, organic (I buy it from Costco.)

1 heaping TBSP almond butter, pure, organic (I buy it from Costco.)

3 NOW-brand Aloe Vera Veg Gels (Cut off the very top with scissors and squeeze into bowl.)

1 gel Ubiquinol (NOW- brand) (CoQ10) (Cut off the very top with scissors and squeeze into bowl.)

1-2 NOW Brand 400 mg. Gamma E Complex gels (Cut off the very top with scissors and squeeze into bowl.)

8 drops Vitamin D3 , NOW brand, liquid (Equal to 800 IU)

2TBSP flaxseed oil (Barlean’s – does not have ascorbic acid)

2 TBSP hemp seed oil (Nutiva)

For Valentina, (adult Great Dane) I mix in about ¾ - 1 cup of the dry mixture, about 4 heaping cups of  kibble, and the oily mixture.

Note: Valentina rarely finishes the 4 cup kibble mix in one day.  I am aware that some vets advise against free-feeding, however Valentina has been free-fed since I got her (as were all my dogs in the past.) Sometimes she’ll eat 1 cup in a day, and sometimes 2 or 3 cups, and rarely 4 cups. Other than 1 hour before and after her daily exercise, her food is always out and available. She does not binge, and usually eats only twice a day, once in the morning and then in the evening after she sees if she’s going to get any handouts from our dinner.

In my opinion, I use this practice only as a “temporary fix” to add nutrients to commercial food, which I consider inferior to my recipe.  If she stays on this for a little while, she will begin to gain weight. (And who knows what is going on in her body because of the “mystery ingredients” in the commercial food. Just because the ingredients listed are vegan, does not mean that they were not past expiration date for full nutrient value (as is legally allowed for other than human consumption regulations).  Just like the animal flesh mixtures, the vegan mixtures can have bacteria that are heated in preparation of the kibble. When you heat food to a certain temperature, you destroy the bacteria, but what is not destroyed is the toxins the bacteria release upon death.  The toxins remain.) If you feed commercial vegan to your pupster, you may want to watch the weight and reduce the quantity a bit from what you normally measure out.  Weight gain never happens when she eats my recipe.  

Note: I’m coming up with  measurements/ a recipe for a mixture that can supplement my own recipe. ( I'll pull out ingredients from the baked mixture, that would be better in the raw supplement mixture. I got to thinking about my ingredients, and although I use the moistened flaxseed meal to substitute for the texture of eggs, if baked, the flaxseed will lose all of its Omegas – other nutrients like the proteins will survive the heat, but the precious Omegas and some of the other nutrients, such as enzymes are destroyed after 108 degrees F.  So, there’s really no reason I can’t leave some of those vulnerable ingredients raw and added to my recipe later in a non-baked supplement mix. I’ve also decided to work on a recipe that is made (“baked”) totally in the dehydrator oven under 108 degrees F, so almost nothing is lost due to a higher heating process. Stay tuned for that.

 

Regardless, in my opinion commercial dog food (which started only a hundred years ago) is fast food, . . . fast, processed food. The goal of most businesses is to increase profits, which usually involves cheapening the investment .  Whether for animals or for people, most food businesses have become “smarter”, but not wiser in their attempts to mask degraded nutrients with flavor enhancers. What happens is in the body’s attempt to obtain more nutrients, it will crave and eat way beyond the necessary number of calories to maintain weight and health -- simply because the body is hungry for nutrients. I was surprised about most vets’ concerns about overweight dogs nowadays. Years ago, that was not such a concern – there weren’t that many overweight dogs to worry about.  Human obesity and poor health statistics parallel the canine’s story, and I am convinced it is due to the same problem.  A long time ago, Aristotle said, “Make food your medicine, and medicine your food.” That still bears constant consideration when making food choices for human animals and for their companion animals.  

 

 A number of health gurus tell us that if you can stay on a healthy food path ninety percent of the time, and only slip into unhealthy choices ten percent of the time, or less, you will probably stay healthy.  I like to think that’s true for dogs, too, so I aim for 100% healthy. Last August when we were returning to the US and needed a health certificate to cross, our wonderful vet in Mexico, Dr. Borrego, asked me if Valentina was still a vegan and if I still made her food. After I replied, “Yes,” he said, “She’s very healthy. What’s in your recipe?” I usually carry a copy of my recipe in my purse, but couldn’t find it, so I promised I would bring him a copy next time when we returned.  My point is, to use an old adage, "the proof is in the pudding." Valentina is proof enough to me that a healthy, balanced homemade vegan diet IS GOOD for dogs.

 

I love the old Chinese instruction that says, everything in life, except health, has attached to it a zero. Health, which must precede everything, coming first,  is given the number"1". With the number 1 preceding all the zeros, you are very fortunate. Having health, you can enjoy all the other aspects in a good life.  But, without health, the rest cannot be enjoyed, and is worth little.   

 

I wish you and your canine companions: love, happiness, prosperity, but, first and foremost. . .  vibrant health!

Happy 9-Month Birthday Valentina!

Today our precious puppy is 9 months old!  (and 91 pounds!) She has remained the sweetest, most affectionate, most alert, and smartest puppy ever -- truly a special spirit and such a joy to have in our family! It is amazing how much she understands from what we say. I am continuing to make all her food -- both kibble and soft food.  (We do keep a few cans of Evanger's canned Vegetarian Dog Food in the pantry just in case.) She just loves vegetables.  One thing I've learned, though, is that dogs don't have the dental structure to chew their food the way humans do, so if you want your dog to absorb the nutrients effectively and to enjoy the flavor of all the foods, it is important to make sure the food is in small pieces.  I use the food processor, and my spiralizer to break up the foods and create as much exposure to the surface of the foods (and nutrients) as possible.  Valentina loves carrots -- thinly sliced, grated, or spiralized. There's hardly a veggie she doesn't like. One of her all-time favorites is the glorious sweet potato.  She  devours the sweet potato leather I make, her kibble contains sweet potatoes, and I always cook extra because it is easily added to her soft food.  I'm being careful to keep onions out of her foods (rumored to be toxic for dogs), but I put in a little garlic (cooked) in her soft food for extra flavor.She loves seeds, like sunflower and pepitas (pumpkin seed), but I've learned to make it into meal in my Vitamix Dry container. (When I fed her the whole pumpkin seed, it was whole and green going in, and it was whole and white coming out.)  She is well muscled, slim, calm, yet high-energy. I've tested her urine and it's in the middle of the healthy range.  Her eyes are bright and the surrounding tissue is pink and red ( a sign of excellent health for dogs!) She is the picture of excellent health.

Almost Eight Months Old!

Valentina will turn 8 months old in about a week.  We are so grateful that she is such a smart, sweet puppy dog. I make all her food (vegan), both kibble and soft food, and both veterinarians who have examined her have pronounced her VERY healthy. It's interesting that we have been told that a dog MUST have meat, and yet Valentina remains extremely healthy, full of energy, and exhibiting all the the signs of an extremely healthy dog. She loves every kind of vegetable, raw and cooked, and her favorite chews are the "Broccoli bone" and the Sweet Potato "Leather" The Broccoli Bone (a long stem from broccoli)  is raw, but after experimenting with baked and dehydrated sweet potato slices, I came to the conclusion that baking the the sweet potato slices (about 3/8 in. thick) at around 250 or 300 F, for about 3 hours, (or 325 or 350 degrees F for less time) then dehydrating them for several hours (6, maybe 8 or 10 hours at 105 degrees in the dehydrator, depending on the dryness and chewiness desired) gives the best result.  (I have an Excelsior dehydrator.) When I just baked them, they were too soft and  not "leathery" enough, and when I only dehydrated them, they lacked the caramelizing of the natural sugars. (If you don't have a dehydrator, you can put your oven on the lowest temperature setting, and if you want to lower the temperature a bit more, you can leave the oven door slightly ajar to let a little heat escape and lower the temperature a bit. It's best to purchase a little in-oven thermometer to know exactly what the resulting temperature is.)  Valentina will eat sweet potatoes any way I make them, but it seems that the "bake and dehydrate method" makes the slices she likes the best. I "paint" a coating of warmed coconut oil on all surfaces of the slices, so they don't dry out too much or stick to the cookie sheet. I bought a bag of commercial sweet potato slices for $8.98 at a local pet shop the other day.  The bag did not even have 9 slices.  That means they cost more than a dollar a slice! Valentina actually prefers mine anyway. The first time I gave her a sweet potato slice, she did an intricate dance around and near the slice before she ate it.  Now, even when she is given a broccoli bone or other treat, she will do what we now call "The Sweet Potato Dance.". Stay tuned for  more pictures.

What’s All This Fuss About Enzymes?

I’ve been reading a lot of entries in forums about dog nutrition.  When the subject of vegan dog nutrition comes up, I frequently read the criticism that dogs do not produce amylase, and therefore they cannot break down carbohydrates (starches and sugars). Therefore, dogs should be fed an all raw, all meat diet and I am doing a disservice to my Great Dane puppy by feeding her a vegan diet. After having read the range of internet information and advice (much of it conflicting), I have come to the conclusion that a lot of people are misinformed or underinformed: humans produce amylase in the salivary glands and in the pancreas.  Dogs get their amylase from their pancreas.  And we all get amylase from the many fruits and vegetables that are available to us. (In the wild, dogs would also get amylase from eating some of the entrails of their prey.) All mammals need amylase, and  produce it in the pancreas, but only humans, primates, rodents, and lagomorphs produce it in the salivary glands.

Whether you are talking about dogs or people, it really doesn’t matter: we all need enzymes in order to live.  I must admit that, having been a vegan for almost 36 years, for most of those years, I have chosen my nourishment a bit by happenstance.  It was only about four years ago that I began looking into the basic elements of food and digestion. This is made possible by myriad nutrition websites. I’m not saying that my nourishment was poor.  Even before I became a vegan/vegetarian I adored vegetables, and always lived by the principle that if you eat a rainbow variety of colors of vegetables you are getting a wide variety of nutrients.  I always made sure that I ate protein, carbohydrates and some “good fats” every day. Having a thoracic surgeon father and a nurse mother, my exposure to the world of nutrition, science, biology, and medicine was ongoing as I grew up.   My mother always had a variety of fresh and cooked vegetables, carbs and protein as choices on the dinner table.  I guess you could say that as long as I’ve been a vegan, I’ve always been a partially cooked/partially raw vegan because I love raw foods. When I began researching the raw vegan diet – as a result of viewing the DVD Raw for Thirty: Reducing Diabetes in Thirty Days, and the DVD Raw For Life: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of the Raw Food Lifestyle – I began to really internalize the ultimate power of raw food, and why it must be an integral part of everyone’s diet. I became a green smoothie enthusiast (It reduces chewing, breaks down the cell walls and facilitates absorption of nutrients, and is just plain delicious!). I ordered my Excelsior dehydrator (actually two: one for the US and one for Mexico). I purchased one and then another Vitamix blender.  You get the picture.  I have no official degree in nutrition, but when I become interested in a subject, I dive into it. My bookshelf on the raw vegan diet is overstuffed – and growing! Many enlightened nutritionists frequently quote the ancient paradigm, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine thy food.”  As I began to understand the number and kinds of nutrients that are destroyed in the cooking process over the temperature of 110 degrees F, I came to realize how important raw food is in the diet of all mammals, and how its lack in the diet can cause a plethora of problems.

I am not a nutritionist, and can only offer my humble opinions on the subject, so I offer the caveat that you should definitely verify all this information yourself before changing your dog's diet.  I am only offering what I have gleaned from many sources I have researched.

 

Batteries Included

Simply stated, enzymes are like batteries for your body’s processes – without batteries your iPod, portable boom box, toys, cell phone, etc. will not work.  Enzymes produce the “spark” responsible for starting the necessary interactions in the body that keep it running.  Without enzymes, there is no miracle of life.  There are thousands of them in the body, and they each have their own functions. Some are responsible for interactions in the processes of cellular function and energy; some work in repairing the body; some help in concentrating various elements in the blood; some work in ridding the lungs of carbon dioxide; some aid in detoxifying the body of various wastes.  

 

Some enzymes are catalysts in the process of assimilation and digestion.  When a “shipment” of food arrives in the body, digestive enzymes  go to work, break it down into small, “decoded” parcels and send it to the necessary “departments” for utilization in the many other processes necessary for life. Metabolic enzymes at the cell level, like “biological translators”, take the “raw energy parcels” and translate them into usable energy for use in the body.  Nature has provided many of these enzymes that are necessary for digestion of the food within the food itself (batteries included!). In many cases, raw food not only provides the enzymes necessary for digestion, it provides extra enzymes that can refill the body’s stores of enzymes.  All these miracles happen automatically in your body.  You don’t have to do a thing other than supply the “batteries”.  If you don’t supply the batteries, your body will have to pull them from a precious store of enzymes stored within the body that it may need for other processes. And, it takes a great deal of energy for the body to do this.

I don’t know about you, but when I buy various electronic items, allowing for similar quality, I always look for the item that has batteries included.  And now, I do the same with food.

Viva Enzymes!

If you eat a food that has been cooked at a temperature above  110 degrees Fahrenheit, fry the food, cook it in oil , refine its carbohydrates (such as in breads and pastries), or denature, freeze, or pasteurize the food in any way, it has been degraded and made deficient in enzymes and other nutrients.  I understand that although a few vitamins and nutrients might remain, enzymes are very delicate and will be annihilated if the temperature goes above 110 degrees.  There are a few exceptions, such as careful steaming of vegetables such that the interior of the vegetable is barely cooked, so that some nutrients may remain. Enzymes are available in living food -- food that is raw, uncooked, or cooked in a dehydrator at 110 degrees Fahrenheit or less.

Different Kinds of Enzymes

Digestive enzymes break down different kinds of nutrients.  Amylase breaks down sugars and carbohydrates (Maltase breaks down malt sugar from grains and carbohydrates; sucrase breaks down cane sugar; lactase breaks down milk sugar.) Lipase breaks down unrefined fats, such as those in raw nuts and seeds and quality oils. Protease breaks down proteins. Cellulases break down cellulose. Metabolic enzymes, such as Superoxide Dismutase (SOD)  are found in all green plants (including young cereal grasses such as wheatgrass and barleygrass), sprouts and broccoli.

Valentina’s Diet

Sooo, what does all of this mean for Valentina, my Great Dane puppy, and for anyone’s dog?

I don’t know anyone who actually calculates the totals on every aspect of nutritional analysis of the food they, or their dogs eat.  Some may total calories, or carbs, proteins and fats, but those who write down the totals on every milligram of every nutrient are few. It takes a lot of time, and we all have busy schedules! And, in addition, our bodies are so forgiving.  (What about that piece of nutritionally worthless birthday cake you ate at work in place of a nourishing lunch?)  What I’m trying to do with Valentina’s nutrition is go for the nutrient-packed foods, and provide supplements where they may help in the digestive process. This means I go for sprouts (nutrient-, and enzyme-rich), pineapple and papaya slice treats, nuts and seeds (not macadamia nuts – they are poisonous to dogs.) As I collect recipes for vegan dog food,  vegan kibble and vegan dog treats, I’m going to test them baking them in my Excelsior Dehydrator oven at no higher than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, so I preserve those delicate enzymes. (I’ll be sharing recipes that I test and ones that I modify on the blog.) So far, I have been adding the VegeDog supplement (Harbingers of a New Age, www.vegepet.com) for vitamins, etc., Nzyme supplement (Nzyme Sprouted Granules, www.Nzymes.com) or Prozyme Plus Supplement (www.vegepet.com) for enzymes, (BacPak by www.Nzymes.com) or PB8 (available in most health food stores) for probiotics, and yeast (nutritional) or VegeYeast (www.vegepet.com) to her food.  I have some Natural Balance Vegan dry dog food that I will be taking with us when we travel to Mexico, to use as an occasional back-up emergency food alternative.  I’m not counting on finding an ample supply of vegan dog food in Mexico, and, besides, homemade dog food is a lot healthier anyway.