calliecritturs
Posted : 8/3/2013 3:35:13 PM
Dogs can eat broccoli -- however you have to cook it and break down the cellulose. You can use a food processor or just cook it and mash it (like with a potato masher).
Broccoli is a cruciate (like cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts, cauliflower) -- and dogs can eat all of those. I use all of those in my home-cooked dogfood. I don't know if the added step for dogs of "totally breaking down the cellulose" wold diminish the sulphorafane but it could.
If anything you might want to add it if you already cook for your dogs, but as a one item served in large quantities to try to affect asthma or bronchitis? You'd be more apt to unbalance everything I would think.
In home-cooking I use a wide variety of veggies. I don't try to follow a recipe -- rather what I do is more proportions. I use broccoli almost every week in some amount.
I just get this feeling that this is one of those "discoveries" that makes everyone want to go out and buy a boatload of broccoli only to find out it doesn't help as much as they thought. There is always the risk that "too much of a thing" -- even anti-oxidants -- if not used by the body then turns around and becomes free radicals (quickly eradicating any 'good" you did).
It would be a fine thing to add -- but don't expect the dog to just walk up to a dish of broccoli (no mater what 'stage' it is in) and just mow down a bowl of broccoli. Now broccoli, cooked & mashed in with the rest of the 45% or so percent of veggies I use + the 40% meat that I use?? by the time I'm done with it, it's just a pretty smooth mass -- you can see bits of green or red or whatever, but you couldn't nose aside a piece of broccoli or carrot or squash or whatever.
There are other GOOD foods -- things like yucca, kale, pumpkin -- and even herbs with a lot of good medical propoerties (basil, oregano, tumeric) that will help reduce inflammation as well (and yes, I add those to dog food when appropriate).
Dogs are carnivores -- they can be omnivores if they get quite a bit of help breaking down the cellulose in veggies & fruits.
Manuka honey might also be beneficial in your situaiton but be sure to get a really good quality. Manuka honey is similar to a probiotic in that it contains a "good bacteria" that wages war on bad bactteria and inflammation in the body. I've used manuka honey myself but I've never used it in a big way with a dog -- it just hasn't come up as a good treatment for anything I needed. But it is one of those things you need to seriously educate yourself on before you try to use it -- you don't just buy "a jar of manuka honey" and consume it. There are different levels and different types used for different things.
I hope this helps!