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Do you have any good sites or cookbooks to suggest? Everything I read online seems to warn that homecooking does not provide sufficient nutrients and it makes me paranoid.
I don't use a real "recipe" -- I started with a recipe from Monica Segal about 10 years ago and have simply modified from there. My holistic vet usually tells me if one of mine needs extra of some food to help resolve some issue ("he needs more magnesium - add apricots", or "kidneys are a bit inflamed -- add asparagus this week";). TCVM relies heavily on food to help heal.
I'm going to say this FIRST -- I only give about 25% - 30% meat because it works well for my dogs. I've got one with sensitive kidney/liver issues and I've got MANY years of personal history with this and dogs with kidney/liver issues do better with lower protein ***in MY experience*** I know there are those who say that's not true, but I just lost another NINETEEN year old dog this week, so I'd say I'm doing something right -- Billy also survived IMHA 3 1/2 years now with his kidneys/liver intact so again, So again, we get longevity even in very difficult cases sooooooooooooooooooo I think I'm doing something right.
The rest is veggies. I use very little grain at all (and when I do usually it's barley, maybe oatmeal and rarely white rice).
I really don't get into micro-managing balance. The dogs, David & I simply eat as wide a variety of veggies as possible.
By variety I mean ANYTHING I can get in the produce aisle, freezer or procduce stand.
You want a variety of colors, AND the origins of the veg -- like: root veg (carrot, parsnip), tubers (potato and sweet potato), "fruit of the vine" (squashes including zucchini, yellow squash), with other viney things like green beans tomato, okra, etc too. Then there are leafy greens -- and that runs the gamut from spinach to turnip greens, and collards, mustard greens, etc.
While I mention turnips -- remember things like turnip & beet you can eat the "root" and the greens. Things like rhubarb you can't (you can only eat the stalk -- the leaves are poison).
Yucca root is superb (hard to cook -- you have to cook it for hours).
But all those "types" all provide different nutrition. All your leafy greens are different but they ARE a "family" so you get balance by making sure you use all the "families" of veggies, but you ENHANCE balance by using all the different varieties.
ONe of the reasons why home-cooking is discouraged is because we all tend to get in habits -- to a degree we feed ourselves what is not only "easy" butn historically what we are used to eating or like.
I grew up in a home where "vegetables" meant frozen sweet corn for dinner on Sunday, peas on Monday, corn on Tuesday, lettuce & tomato as a "chef salad" on Wednesday, Peas on Thursday and ... yep corn on Friday. and carrot sticks on Saturday along with either mashed or baked potato every day.
THAT is not variety, nor is it balance. It's the whole array of veggies that help you achieve a more natural balance. It's also in varying the meats, and including organ meat like liver, kidney, heart (which is almost a flesh meat), and tripe if you want.
My own restrictions are that I can't give spinach, swiss chard, or mustard greens because they contain too much oxalic acid and Billy (and I) have too much arthritis for those. But that's where you can truly help things so much by giving things that are helpful and friendly to whatever your dog's problems are.
A dog with anal gland issues benefits from more fiber, and the dog with inflammatory issues may benefit from some yucca once a month.
Depending on the size of the dog -- you can get a particular veg on sale (like produce that isn't pretty enough that gets marked way down) -- and then you can freeze it to add later on.
Now for my bunch I use 10-11 good sized sweet potatos and 5# of white potato every week. I hate a food processor so I chop up the potato but don't peel a thing. That peel becomes great fiber/roughage (and all your vitamins are right under the skin). I just cut it up small enough so the skin breaks up when I mash it all.
Even squash -- you cut it up and remove the seeds, but you don't peel anything. Cut out the bottom and blow ends and just cut it small enough so you can mash it after cooking.
If you want to process it that will likely reduce your cooking time. Depending on the dog you may not have to cook it at all if it's "pureed" (but I like to retain the roughage for mine).
YOU DO need to add calcium -- either food grade bone meal or natural calcium or calcium citrate even. Glenda and others use eggshells (David and I don't eat eggs so that doesn't work for me). Most calcium you need to add 1 teaspoon (rounded) for each 8-16 oz meat.
I work out of the home so I use a lot of frozen veggies that are already washed, chopped, etc. -- but that's my preference. The only canned stuff I use routinely are tomato and sardines (cheap ones -- either in water or olive oil).
There are a LOT of veggies I never had *any* experience with cooking or eating until I made them for the dogs!! Like kale, turnip, collard greens, etc.