why not homecook?

calliecritturs

Carrots actually have kind of a sucky cal/phos ratio

But veggies generally have so little of both that it honestly doesn't really matter.

willowchow

But, I do know that my days of obsessing over dog food are over. 

You know what...if I were not raising a puppy right now...I'd be thinking the same....and just do the best I could and watch the results.  

calliecritturs

More variety Dyan -- carrots --> do OTHER orange veggies.  Carrots actually have kind of a sucky cal/phos ratio -- squash, (all different kinds).  I almost *never* give my dogs carrots.  Try looking around a bitr more in the produce aisle -- my store carries something called "broccoslaw" - it's a relatively small package that has shredded brocoli, cauliflower, purple cabbage, and a bit of carrot.  5 veg, not one!!

I dont have just one Callie...I have pumpkin and I have chopped greens... collard, turnip and/or mustard greens... a whole thing of pumkin.  I just throw in a small bag of tiny carrots also.  I have put in sweet potatoes also.    And I have added a few jars of baby food veggies too....although I have never put in brocoli or cauliflower or cabbage..  I put in apples and bananas too.   Some of my meat gets some white rice...some gets brown rice and some gets oatmeal.     But I can add other veggies for sure.

calliecritturs

when you're adding toppers, etc. you're beginning to mess with that balance

As far as the balance in the topping....I guess its not...but that is why its a topping and I'm not doing home cooking completely.  I am adding cottage cheese and yogurt to his meals...which helps in the calcium dept. and thats not counting the other cheese get gets not in his food but for snacks and the fresh bone he gets at least once a week, although its more a chewing bone for his teeth. I give him his egg shells occasionally also..

When I make up the food...I do mix the meats together and then try to change the other ingredients that go into it...some get one kind of veggie along with the rice, another gets another veggie with the brown rice...etc etc.   so really out of the bunch that I make.... some of its a little different.   But you know..... thanks for the mackeral, sardine idea..........I will do that next week when I make more. 

dyan

...and spending hours in the kitchen cooking it only to end up with a couple of days worth.

Cooking *more* shouldn't necessarily take you longer -- I did a LOT at first that I don't do now.  I have a tiny kitchen and a tiny house and crappy electricity.  I use a relatively small tabletop roaster (similar to a crock-pot but bigger and hotter) -- and I may wind up going to the 'turkey-sized' one. 

It's a matter of finding out what works, how to "do" certain things (like what cooks with what, what foods to put in 'first' and what to save til last to cook).  My "in the kitchen" time is pretty minimal -- I sling everything into a dishpan (one I keep for JUST this purpose) to mash up and mix together.  At first I thot I had to fix the squash separately to scrape it out of the peel -- and one night we went to a Lebanese restaurant and I had lamb couscous and among the veggies in the stew were chunks of acorn squash.  NOT peeled!!  huh?  I *thot* you HAD to peel it.

Nope you just hack it up and put it in.  The cooked pieces with skin on them break up easily with a masher.  NO peeling.  The *only* thing I ever peel is rutabaga and that's because it has wax on it. (So unfortunately I'm lazy enough I don't use it much for that reason and man they LOVE it).  But stuff like squash you halve it, scoop out the seeds and hack up in pieces.  I don't cook anything separately -- but I do group stuff that's likely going to need to cook the same amount of time and put those together. 

Sweet potato?  I don't peel it.  I do hack it up small enough so the skin does break up.  You CAN use a food processor. 

Because I have to 'sit' in the kitchen (I just plain can *not* stand any length of time at all), I'm not thrilled with a food processor (I'm just not tall enough to reach it) so rather than saving me time, it costs me time.  But if you like a food processor, then it's another thing that's easy.  For *me* since you have to hack the food up small enough to fit in the processor, I just dice it a little smaller and am done with it (did I mention how much I hate to clean the darned thing?)

There ARE tricks -- and some folks have shared some of those in this thread.  Glenda uses eggshells for calcium.  I would be LOST if I tried to do that *grin*.  (And we never eat eggs, so they'd definitely suffer from calcium loss LOL).  I buy bone meal or "calcium" LOOSE (no capsules -- life is too short to sit and empty stupid capsules!!) but it just has to be human food grade bone meal and yeah, I usually ask the holistic vet how much of it to add because some of them ARE different).

But Dyan -- I had to email Glenda and do a whole lot of extra "figuring" to feel comfortable even cooking for Tink cos SHE is a *puppy* too.  So I don't blame you at all -- it puts an extra spin on things I wasn't prepared to handle quite yet.  Now I know what i Have to tweak and add extra for her it's no biggie.

Dyan -- to cook 'more' you'd likely need bigger containers or figure a way to cook more at once  in something that would work for you.  If I had to do this with pots and pans I'd have shot myself ages ago.  That table-top roaster works great.  But for 4 dogs I need a bigger one.

a big crockpot is your friend. Throw the ingredients in and go about your life. Also a big auxillary freezer. Aliquot your home-cooking into meal-sized containers and freeze.  It's not hard, it's not time-consuming, it doesn't have to be expensive.

The cooking part wasn't the problem...cutting meat off bones...chopping it up.... that was the time spent.  Yes...I DID peel veggies...never thought not to...    But even now...I do have a big roaster that I put 5 lbs of chicken and 3 lbs of meat...... and throw it in the oven and start adding veggies and things.......once..I added brown rice in it and let it cook away...but then started to think it might be a little too greasy....not a good thing. Okay.... a week ago when I did this...I ended up with about 21 cups of food...... now...thats great if you have a little dog.   Right now I put a cup on his meals....but I was feeding him 3 cups when I only fed him home cooked and it wasn't near enough.  Don't know how much it would have taken to fill him up.....

Right now I worry about giving Gibby too much calcium...and too little. HHHmmmmm   I have crushed egg shells and added them.... cottage cheese and yogurt have to help with calcium.

After a ton of people "yelled" at me on one of the GD boards for even THINKING home cooking........but there ended up being one person that has been home cooking for Danes for over 20 years...including rescues.  She is a lot like Becca....except I am not sure that she has consulted with anyone....just been doing it and is very confident it works for her.   So I will put all of my resources together one day and go for it.....

You could always cook the meat on the bone and THEN cut it up -- chicken, in particular, I usually de-bone AFTER cooking and then I just shred it up in my fingers.  I generally use ground meat (simply because of time) but when I do other meats I don't try to cut it *before* cooking -- that would be horrible.

And no -- you don't peel nuffin!! ('cept rutabaga).  Remember, most of the vitamins are close to the skin!  You waste nutrition peeling them away.  Pumpkin and diced tomato I generally use canned.  I also add crushed pineapple (w/juice) or papaya juice that is canned. 

Like I said -- MUCH of this is wrapping your head around what you don't NEED to do.  We get used to things we do for our family (my parents have been married 66 years and my mother will peel a tomatoe EVERY time because it's the way Dad wants it -- and I wouldn't know *how* to peel one anymore and so we have to re-organize our brains for what we're doing for the dog and how.

The powdered calcium I buy -- either it's a rounded one per 8 oz of meat and the one I'm using now is per 16 oz of meat.  Just compare a couple of labels.  Glenda can tell you how much eggshell she uses. 

*smile* Dyan those little 'baby carrots' are X-pensive!!  And peeled!  That's the beauty of carrots when you do use them -- you cut the top off and rinse and cook it WHOLE -- then just mash with a potato masher!  Zero labor!

calliecritturs

You could always cook the meat on the bone and THEN cut it up -- chicken, in particular, I usually de-bone AFTER cooking and then I just shred it up in my fingers.  I generally use ground meat (simply because of time) but when I do other meats I don't try to cut it *before* cooking -- that would be horrible.

Yep...I do just that. I have been throwing all the chicken legs AND ground meat in the same roaster.....the chicken in all of its bones and skin.....then it does kind of fall off the bone...but I still cut it up.....and get out every morsel of meat from the bones...its time consuming.

It sounds like your issue is not really time spent, but doing a lot of going behnd youself and second guessing yourself.  And yes, when you are cooking in huge volumes, that gets really onerous, reaally fast.  Small changes add up quickly when you do big quantities.  I sent you a PM.

I keep laughing at your dishpan, Callie.  I use SEVEN bowls about the size of those dishpans, plus two for Zhi and Maggie that are sort of normal sized.  I work on the dining table and I don't know what I'd do without my processor.

I never chop up or peel veg. Cook it then run the stuff through the food processor. Ever considered raw? raw is really easy in comparison to cooking. That's how I feed all chicken and rabbit, who wants to mess around with de-boning it.

mudpuppy

I never chop up or peel veg. Cook it then run the stuff through the food processor. Ever considered raw? raw is really easy in comparison to cooking. That's how I feed all chicken and rabbit, who wants to mess around with de-boning it.

mudpuppy

Ever considered raw? raw is really easy in comparison to cooking. That's how I feed all chicken and rabbit, who wants to mess around with de-boning it.

 I was going to mention this.  Zack is fed almost 100% raw.  No cooking involved.  The best thing about it is that his teeth are sparkling and blindingly white, which is amazing for a very small breed known for dental problems.  My kibble-fed dog's teeth would be caked with tartar if I didn't brush them nightly. I should change the title of the thread to "why not fresh food?" since I feel the food does not have to be cooked.

There's only a few nutrients that are de-natured by cooking.  Some are changed but not "lost" necessarily.

I agree that feeding raw does make some things easier.  However, it can complicate things, too, depending on how you do the cooked food.  There's not much easier than putting a roast in the slow cooker with some veggies and letting the whole thing cook down for a day or so. 

De-boning poultry is right up there with sticking forks in your eyes, though, I will admit.  Can't imagine doing it every day - I'd just crock pot it until it was mushy and the bones were safe to feed too. 

When you feed raw you have to have more space to freeze stuff, and it's a bit fussy figuring what the heck your dog did just eat if you are trying to get any sense of that. 

So you just have to figure out which way you want.  There's nothing that beats the convenience of scooping kibble out of the bag - otherwise I don't think the food companies would have survived that last round of pet deaths (oh, gee, "oops";). 

There's only a few nutrients that are de-natured by cooking. 

this is NOT TRUE. Maybe for light cooking, but leaving a crockpot for 24+ hours? destroys most of the vitamins. Might as well feed canned dog food. Raw diets are really easy. The only thing you really have to process are veg, and a lot of raw feeders are moving away from feeding any veg at all with no apparent detrimental effects on health. I'm feeding about half raw and about half cooked at the moment. I'd move entirely away from cooked except I have some dogs who really need their starchy roots to keep weight on and these need to be cooked so why not throw in some other stuff to encourage them to eat it.