Cost of Home Cooking??

This goes back a couple years, but I spent between 25-30 per week for homecooking.  However, remember that I was feeding 6 big dogs, and also that I  am the queen of sales shopping, stocking up when things are cheap, and I had a freezer devoted to dog ingredients.

krbshappy71

I look forward to answers on this as well. Would it be hijacking a thread if I also asked how home-cooking is different than table food? Is it the absence of processed food that will make it ok? (i.e. yes to plain chicken but no to chicken nuggets) Sorry if that is a dumb question, I have just been adamantly staying away from ANY people food but if home cooking is acceptable in certain ways I would love to go that direction instead of kibble or in addition to kibble to feed less kibble.

Not at all :)  i am seriously considering venturing into the world of home cooking and would like any additional info people are willing to dish out....

I temporarily did home cooking for a couple months and I found it to be a bit expensive compared to kibble, for one 50-ish lb dog.  I was up to about $10-12/week, and I did watch sales and such as well.  Apparently not as well as Glenda though since her pack is probably 8-10x the weight of my one! 

Mine was more for allergies/pancreatitis issues, etc, so that's why it was temporary, and I wasn't going crazy trying to balance too much.

People food is fine, so long as it isn't processed stuff.  I don't eat chicken nuggets, so my dogs didn't ever get them.  Some of the stuff that I do on rare occassions eat, such as ham or bacon, I wouldn't think of giving to my dogs.

And example....I used sweet taters as my carb source.  Thanksgiving and Easter times are when they are usually on sale.  That's when I would buy 100 lbs or so, take them home, wash them, run them through the food processor (finely shredded result) bag them in the amount I needed per batch and freeze them.

Dogs can't process veggies efficiently unless they are purred or cooked, so i did both.  And I used a very WIDE variety of veggies, often from the sale rack in the produce department, as well as fruits from the same source.  I could pick "deer apples", organic, untreated apples that weren't as pretty as the ones in the store, for $2 a bushel, pears for $3, so those got washed, cored and quartered for the freezer as well.  the deep discount meat?  Same thing.  So long as it was something I would feel safe to eat, the dogs could have it.  Eggs on sale?  Buy several dozen, crack them into bags and freeze, rinse the shells and save those to be processed for egg shell powder.

I literally could not run into a grocery for a gallon of milk without seeing "stuff" that I could use for dog food if I ws willing to put in the processing time and freeze it.

Table scraps, the stuff that should hit the trash can......that's the stuff that SHOULD hit the trash can and not the dog bowls.  Mine frequently finish up our veggies for us.

At first, it's pretty intimidating to do, but with pre prep like I did, I could usually crank out TWO huge batches, start to clean up in under an hour.  And those two batches were a weeks worth of meals for their dinner.

The ONLY reason that I stopped home cooking is that once we moved to FL, homecooking resulted in the screaming poops!  i've been considering starting again now that we are back in the North.

It's actually kind of fun, and quite satisfying knowing that my dogs are getting fresh foods.

  When Jessie was diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis, I had Monica Segal formulate a diet for her. Because of her food allergies and her illness, it was very simple; just turkey and rice plus supplements, but it cost about $20 a week. For reference, Jessie is a 60 pound dog and it was about 800 calories. Six ounces of boiled turkey a day, weighed after cooking, plus three cups of rice. If you're going to have someone formulate a balanced diet for you, you'll need to add that to the cost too. Here's Monica's site;     Welcome to Monica Segal

and here's Mordanna's; Better Dog Care, Better Dog Nutrition - Creating Healthy Lifestyles for Canines: Main Page

  I've worked with both of them and they're great. Jessie decided her diet was too bland after a few months (it was only 4% fat) and stopped eating it, so she is back on kibble but of course it's supplemented with some cooked food. Good luck in whatever you decide to do!!!

krbshappy71

I look forward to answers on this as well. Would it be hijacking a thread if I also asked how home-cooking is different than table food? Is it the absence of processed food that will make it ok? (i.e. yes to plain chicken but no to chicken nuggets) Sorry if that is a dumb question, I have just been adamantly staying away from ANY people food but if home cooking is acceptable in certain ways I would love to go that direction instead of kibble or in addition to kibble to feed less kibble.

  I think it's a great idea to add some "people food" to your dog's diet. For example, you can brown some lean ground beef, combine it with a few well cooked vegetables, and use it as a kibble topper. Jessie has to have a low fat diet so I use baked turkey cutlets and cooked egg white as toppers. How you prepare the food and what you use depends on the amount of fat and variety your dog tolerates. Boiling will reduce the fat in meat. It's best to start slowly, with a small amount of meat, and then gradually increase that to a few ounces. After that, you can add some vegetables, starting slowly with them too. A good ratio to use is one ounce of a root vegetable and one ounce of a green vegetable for every three and a half ounces of meat. You can replace a fourth of the calories your dog is getting from kibble this way without affecting his intake of nutrients; that's calories after cooking. You could try doing this for awhile and see how it goes before deciding if you want to cook all of his food. This website will help with knowing how many calories are in the food you cook for him;

NutritionData's Nutrition Facts Calorie Counter 

You can also do "semi homemade" with mixes like The Honest Kitchen's Preference, or you can do recipes from balanceit.com. There are a LOT of options available!!!

Kibble is cheaper, for me, hands down, but I spend VERY little time shopping. I really suck at it, honestly, so... I just buy what I want, and live with the price. I also feed a mid grade kibble, not Orijen or any of the expensive ones (I pay $20 for 15 lbs, the 44 lb bags are $39 but I can't feed that much before it's stale). I add fresh foods to boost it, and the dogs look awesome. Jewel gets Honest Kitchen as her base, because she's special.

I never kept up with cost when I was home-cooking, but I know I spent considerably more than I did/do on kibble.  Granted I didn't put a lot of effort into minimizing costs, and for my dogs' health reasons I had to buy leaner (more expensive) meats.

I don't home-cook exclusively any more, but I do make sure my dogs get plenty of fresh, real food as kibble topper.  Unfortunately, dog food manufacturers have been very successful in convincing people that "people" food is somehow bad for dogs.  Which is incredibly stupid, IMO.  As if there are magically foods that are just for dogs and others that are just for humans.  Granted there are a few foods that fit that bill (grapes, chocolate, etc.) but not many.  As kibble topping my dogs regularly get yogurt, cottage cheese, boiled eggs (a favorite), canned fish and any food I'm cooking for us that works for them.  Yesterday I was cooking some chicken breasts in the crock pot.  Before I put the barbecue sauce over it for us, I took out a little to add to the dogs' kibble.  When we have extra veggies (no sauce), the dogs get them.  It's pretty easy to get healthy additions for kibble if you don't want to do full home-cooking.  Of course you have to watch portion sizes, and some people with picky dogs find that their dogs love "people" food so much that they won't eat plain kibble any more.  I've never had to deal with that, every dog I've ever had has very happily hoovered up any food given to them.

I just went shopping for dog food yesterday.  I am also a terrible shopper, but I shop my commissary so prices are quite low anyway.

I made 27 days worth of food for about $29 bucks for RMBs.  $3 for a month worth of ground/mixed organ/liver adn the veggies they get are cast offs from what we don't eat, usually cooked, sometimes raw/ground.  I also get ground beef (the cheapest I can find) 3lbs of that for  about 8 bucks, and ground turkey ($1/lb) got 6 of those.. so $6.00.

Tub of yogurt $2.   Fish oil every other month $20 (so 10/month).  5 cans of salmon (around a buck each) $5.00. 

I feed a 15lb bichon, 20lb bichon and 50 lb PWD. $63.00 a month to feed the girls a natural diet.

I do like to have a box of THK on hand for just in case- boarding, trips or just plain forgot to thaw issues.  A $70.00 box lasts several months here. 

Oh shoot! Saw that you wanted homecooked costs, sorry about that. It's been quite a while since I cooked for the dogs. 

WAY cheaper than kibble (I fed the recipes from the strombeck book). 

Bag of potatoes or huge bag of rice- not very expensive,

Ground meats- best price you can find

Bonemeal- health food store, probably close to $20 for a container.

Multivitamins- $30/container

Oils/etc. 

Wish I could give you a better estimate there, like I said, long time since I cooked for the girls.

sillysally

krbshappy71

I look forward to answers on this as well. Would it be hijacking a thread if I also asked how home-cooking is different than table food? Is it the absence of processed food that will make it ok? (i.e. yes to plain chicken but no to chicken nuggets) Sorry if that is a dumb question, I have just been adamantly staying away from ANY people food but if home cooking is acceptable in certain ways I would love to go that direction instead of kibble or in addition to kibble to feed less kibble.

 

 

Not at all :)  i am seriously considering venturing into the world of home cooking and would like any additional info people are willing to dish out....

Definitely NOT cheap but it can be cost-effective IF you are a master at economy and don't mind shopping bodegas and produce stands to get deals,  The way I cook it is NOT cheap because time is my motivating factor -- I don't have time (nor the strength in my hands) to shred bigger cuts of tough meat that I could crock pot and shred later.  That would save a ton of money.  I probably pay double or more for the veg I use because of the convenience factor.  I don't use canned but I do use frozen veg.  The more fresh I can use the happier I am but like I said time is a big deal -- I cook once a week on Sunday.  Often I might start Sat. night putting something on the roaster on ultra low so it cooks for several hours at a super low heat -- like yucca or a huge lot of sweet potato/squash might take several hours to cook so I often do it at night.  You can use an auto timer or I usually get up and turn it around (I'm not a 'never get up' type of sleeper) but I avoid having to use two roasters at once this way. 

I work 40+ hours a week with a 90 minute commute so time is huge for me -- I shop bodegas/produce stands when i CAN but mostly I tend to grab supermarket stuff -- like I'll use frozen veg that is cut up/cleaned and ready to cook, or fresh produce that has been cut up/cleaned, etc. so all I have to do is rinse and add it in.

For me home cooking is NOT like table food.  To put dinner on the table for my husband the meat is cooked separately, potatoes in another place, veg on the side. 

For the dogs -- I use a big tabletop roaster (I live in Florida and I wouldn't run my oven for this for ANY reason).  I cook the hardest veg first, ladle it out and into the big container I combine all in and then mash it with a potato masher (some folks use a food processor and I hate them - for ME it's more work b/c I have no dishwasher and I'm short and have to 'sit' to cook so reaching one is beyond me)

Then I cook the veg by the pot full - often combining several at a time (whatever fits) - usually 4-5 veg a week.  I cook the meat last (just because it's convenient that way) and I use ground meat (because it's easier for ME) and white fish.  At this point I use about 25% meat and 75% veg.  Occasionally I will use a grain IF I need it to thicken it or if someone needs a milder food that week.  OR if I'm severely time limited and I use grain as an easy filler.

I peel NOTHING (except maybe rutabaga b/c it's waxed) - i just hack things up and toss seeds.  Once you've cooked veg (even things like acordn squash I never peel) and mash it up it's all nutritous and peeling things wastes nutrition.

But as each panful cooks, I then ladle it out (with a big screen strainer) so the broth stays in the pan and I use the potato masher to incorporate it.  I use powdered calcium (a sea-based calcium in my case) which I add 1 teas. per pound of meat.  I get the calcium from my vet and she helps me calcuilate among the different brands available how much to add per pound of meat.

The only veg I *don't* use are onions and eggplant. But I try to keep as wide a variety as possible but I only try one "new" thing per week so if someon doesn't do well on something I know the culprit. But from okra to kale to french cut green beans to tomato.  With veg the different colors and "how grown" (i.e., a leaf vs. root vs. 'fruit of the vine' vs tuber) ALL means different nutrition is added.  My holistic vet has also often instructed me to add or substract something specific (like sweet potato or asparagus to be kind to kidneys, or yucca as an anti-inflammatory or avoiding spinach to avoid arthritis) to fit the needs of my specific dogs.

When I get done I have this huge plastic container full of mulched up food -- I put it in airtight containers and scoop it out by pretty careful measure -- that's how I control their weight.  When I want to back off someone's weight I measure more closely (hear that Tink?  You're porking out!!)

I use as wide a variety of meats as possible as well.  Again variety brings different nutrition and I add organ meat monthly.

Dogs tend not to like bumps or chunks -- by mulching it all together with a masher there are no objectionable big "chunks" of some veg that might get jettisoned.  It's not smooth but it's not full of identifiable chunks either.

 I think I may try venturing into kibble topping with home cooked.  A while ago a threw together a home cooked meal for them and it was funny to watch them eat it.  Jack just scarfed it down, but Sally very carefully removed the chicken, set it aside, ate everything else first, and got to the chicken last....