Human Food For Dogs?

Question

With all the dog food recalls, I don't want to feed my dogs any more dog food.
What are some kind of foods that are good for them to eat?
When I make dinner, I make a plate for them and I add vegetables but they don't eat them.
What could I feed them that will be good for them and not cause them to gain a lot of weight?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi there...

Making homemade pet food can be a huge ordeal and you could do more damage to your pet by feeding it an improperly prepared home meal. Pets have very specific dietary needs that must be researched thoroughly before feeding a RAW diet. There are NO “simple” homemade pet food recipes that work long term. I am not against RAW / BARF Diets… I have tried them. I do know what is involved. It can be wonderful, but it can also be disastrous for your pet if you don’t know what your doing. Also know that Dog and Cat RAW diets are completely different. You will see that in your research. Be careful if you choose RAW, and know what you are getting into before you do it. Plan on spending a lot of time reading about this. No one here is going to give you the “simple” Answer to a RAW / BARF Diet for your pets.

With that said, my advice to you is this... find a good high quality Human Grade Healthy, Holistic or Organic manufactured food instead.

It's time for pet owners to wake up and take responsibility for what they feed their animals and quit trusting what those great big money hungry companies tell you. Research for yourself, learn, read the ingredients and make an informed decision for the health and safety of your beloved pet.

With the recall, wheat gluten is the big suspect in cat food that everyone is trying to avoid, and it SHOULD be avoided. It should have been avoided all along. It’s nothing more than a cheap protein source used as a binding agent by pet food companies.

Corn should always be avoided as well. It’s a huge filler worth NOTHING. Corn as an ingredient in pet food is a joke. Ever seen a starving cat or dog chewing on a corn cob in a field? No, you haven’t.

As you search for your new pet food, be aware that there are three Categories of Pet Foods:

-"Grocery store" foods – (Generic Brands and cheap name brands) Those foods found in grocery stores and mass-market retailers are made with lower-quality, less-digestible, inexpensive ingredients and are therefore a cheaper alternative. While easy on the pocketbook, "grocery store" foods normally do not provide your cat with the healthiest, most nutrient-dense ingredients.

-Premium foods – (Iams/Eukanuba, Purina One, Hills Science Diet, Nutro and such) Foods often found in grocery stores, pet stores, and veterinarian offices that contain higher-grade ingredients, but still include many elements of "grocery store" food, such as artificial colors, artificial flavors, chemical preservatives, and "filler" ingredients such as corn and wheat products, by-products and even animal digest. Yuck! Premium foods are usually more expensive than "grocery store" foods because their ingredients are sometimes of a higher quality, and are therefore somewhat more beneficial and digestible. But don’t be fooled, some of those same so called Premium brands are sometimes worse than grocery store foods, but they charge prices like they are better. They aren’t!

-Healthy foods – (Wellness, Eagle Pack, Drs Foster and Smith) The newest addition to the pet food market - provide pets with the highest quality, healthiest, and most nutritious ingredients. They are typically available for purchase online or direct from the manufacturer. Some better retailers are starting to carry them now. Complete Petmart carries a few healthy brand foods. Foods in the Healthy class - contain nutrient-rich ingredients. Formulated to provide optimum health benefits for pets, these foods often use real meat as the primary protein source, carbohydrate-rich whole grains like brown rice and barley and whole, fresh fruits and vegetables. They should not contain artificial preservatives, flavors, or colors. They will almost always be fortified with additional vitamins and minerals, and will use the best natural sources for fatty acids to help build healthy skin and a beautiful coat. Because healthy foods use high quality ingredients, you should expect to pay a little more than you would for other types of pet food. Remember, though, with healthy foods you can feed less since healthy foods are more nutrient-dense than other types of food so it often evens out or cost’s les than feeding foods filled with cheap non-nutritional by-products fillers.


With all that information in mind, when you are choosing a new food, study the ingredients. All ingredients on pet food labels are listed by weight. Meaning whatever ingredients are listed first on the list, there is more in there. The first ingredients listed should be whole meat ingredients, protein sources, such as Chicken or Turkey. NOT just the word “meat”! Who the heck knows what that is? The word Chicken Meal is ok, but it should be a secondary ingredient, not first. Meal is the meat dehydrated and ground into a powder.

The ingredients also should NOT include any by-products or animal digest whatsoever. Those are disgusting left over animal parts that are scraped off the filthy floors of meat and poultry plants. They should just go into the trash but they put them into pet food instead. EW!!!!

Also make sure there are no artificial colors or flavors. And make sure there is no BHA and BHT used preservatives. These preservatives have been shown to cause cancer in both cats and dogs. Bad Bad stuff and it’s in almost every cat treat on the market. :(

So, in summery of the ingredients… if you see the words by-products, Animal Digest, the word “meat” alone, Corn, Corn Gluten, Wheat Gluten, or BHA or BHT… stop reading, put down that bag and move on to the next.

Be aware that when switching to a Healthy, Holistic or Organic food, you will pay for what you get. Good foods are not cheap. They are pricey and will cost you on a per bag basis much more. Just like steak costs more than hotdogs. But again, you will be feeding a better food and improving the over all health of your pet. Which in turn leads to less vet visits for illness now and more importantly later in life in their Geriatric years. You will also feed less of this food on a per animal basis because a smaller amount of food contains what your cat needs. Overall healthy foods are well worth it, if only for the piece of mind that the ingredients are safer.

What are some good foods I recommend? I feed my cats Drs. Foster and Smith Holistic Adult Lite Dry cat food along with a mix of Wellness Dry. I also feed Merrick Canned.

I purchase Drs. Foster and Smith online and have it automatically delivered to my door so I never run out and never have to go get it. It’s one of the best foods on the market and has no “fillers” in it. It is also very reasonably priced compared to other holistic foods. And when you’re feeding as many cats as I am, price is as important as ingredients. If you can't afford it, you can't feed it. So buy the highest quality you can and feel good that you are doing the absolute best you can for your pet.

If you want to buy in a store, Complete Petmart is a good store and carries quite a few natural, organic, and holistic blends. Also check with your local feed stores. Old Mother Hubbard Wellness Brand is a great holistic food I feed. As is Eagle Pack Dry Cat food. Merrick canned is also a great source of nutrition and they will be coming out with a dry line this summer. Some brands, not all, of Nutro cat food are semi-ok if you want to spend less money, however I personally would never chose their food for nutritional value.

I highly recommend people take the time to research for themselves, but the information I have given should get you off to a good start. Good luck choosing a new food for your cats!

********IMPORTANT*******Don’t forget to switch your Pets food slowly over a period of 10 to 14 days, if you can. Mixing 25% new to 75% old. Then 50/50… then 75% new to 25% old. And finally switch over to 100% new. Take it slow as not to upset their digestive system.

Side note… Please don’t feed Iams / Eukanuba. It’s ALL fillers, byproducts, animal digest and CRAP. Read the ingredients! There is nothing good for your cat in that food. Not to mention they conduct the most appalling animal testing you have ever seen. http://www.iamscruelty.com to see the terror they create.

Foods I recommend based on personal experience -

Dry - Drs. F&S Food Link - http://www.drsfostersmith.com

Dry - Wellness Food Link - http://www.oldmotherhubbard.com

Dry - Eagle Pack Holistic Select - http://www.eaglepack.com

Canned - Merrick Foods: http://www.merrickpetcare.com/

You can find more great foods at http://www.onlynaturalpet.com

****DO NOT FEED IAMS!**** http://www.iamscruelty.com

Answer 2

I have a dog in Vietnam that has always been fed on people foods since he was a puppy, and she is still healthy and smart at 15 years old now.. Almost everyone in Asia only feeds human foods to dogs since there are no dog foods in there. It's a myth that dogs can't evolve and digest human foods and that meaty human foods are less healthy for dogs than dog foods. You just need to cook it right for dogs, not to add seasonings, not too much salt, fat, sugar, or flavors, basically meat, rice, potatoes, fruits and veggies are good for dogs. Dog foods can have preservatives and other ingredients that cause cancer and hurt dogs health in the long term.

Answer 3

It can be very, very bad to feed human food to a dog. The smaller the breed, the worse it is. You would need to do a lot of research and probably consult an animal nutritionist if you are going to go this route. The nutritional needs of a dog are much different from a human and a small portion of your dinner is probably not what they need. The calorie/fat/carbohydrate ratio will probably be way off as well as vitamin deficiencies due to picky eating.

Dog foods are carefully researched and processed according to the specific needs of a dog, and it will take an enormous amount of effort on your part to ensure their health. I commend you for being cautious and having your dog's best interests at heart, but you will truly be doing him a disservice unless you go about this the right way.

Another alternative is to look for natural dog food makers in your area. These people generally spend years perfecting a formula and prepare the foods themselves from fresh foods. The cost is very high, but if you're nervous about commercial dog food this would be a much better alternative to doing it yourself.

Answer 4

well, i can understand that you don't want to feed your dogs any dog food with all the recalls. i, myself am scared to feed my dogs dog food. my dogs don't eat canned food though, they eat dry food, but it's still scary. especially with more brands being added on. the fda said pedigree is safe though. but you never know.

i would reccomend chicken{boiled} with carrots and rice.
or cook up some beef that is not fatty, cut all the fat out of it, or if you were to make chop meat get the leanest possible and put carrots and some peas in it with rice for the dogs. i'd say to make a gravy that is low in sodium because if i put gravy on the vegetables my dogs love them!

don't feed the dogs onions, grapes, raisins, garlic, chocolate, potato skins.

however, you really should call your vet to make sure. the only reason i'm reccomending that is because i called the vet and they said chicken, carrots and rice. but my dog gets sick when it eats too much human food or chicken. and remember if it's a small dog don't feed it too much because rice expands in the stomach.

there is a book called: Real Food for Dogs: 50 Vet-Approved Recipes to Please the Canine Gastronome by Arden Moore, it's $7.77 on amazon.com, it has recipes in there that are definitely safe for your dog.

hope this helps. i think i'm going to buy that book, so i can make my dogs special meals on birthdays and stuff.

p.s. i give my dogs table scraps once in awhile, and they're doing fine, they're old and still healthy. also, there's an article on the web that makes a good debate on human food verses dog food for dogs, it states how boring it must be for dogs to eat canned and dry food all the time and how people feed it to the dogs because it's cheap and how we really dont know what's in it...

Answer 5

Not all foods were recalled. There are plenty of foods made out there for dogs using Human Grade ingredients. Wellness and Innova are just a couple that are really great. Timberwolf Organic and California Natural are a couple more. It is time consuming to make your own dogfood, and you need to do a lot of research to ensure your dogs are getting all the nutrients they need.

Answer 6

Please don't give up on all dog food because of the recall. That would be like giving up on all petrol because of the recent contamination of Tesco's and Morrison's petrol! (in England)

Dog food remains the correct food for dogs, not human food. Vegetables do not form part of a dog's natural diet, they need meat.

Avoid the recalled food by all means, but from what I've heard, the problem has been sorted.

Chalice

Answer 7

Well, I'm with you there. I don't trust dog food, and have always prepared their food myself.
You could try boiling chicken/ground turkey/other poultry, carrots and other vegetables. Don't give them raw food, it may be contaminated. We always chop up the food after boiling and mix brown rice/oats/pasta in it.... Make sure that the food is about 60% meat, 20% vegetables and 20% starch.
Also, you could add boiled eggs, or replace chicken with meat once in a while. Organ meat is also very good for them. Try liver once in while. I don't know how to help you with the vegetable problem, I've always given raw carrots and stuff as snacks in between meals, you could try that if they don't eat them during meals. And its not true that they don't need vegetables. After so many years of domestication, they've been fed vegetables, and in any case, it gives them an extra boost of vitamins and minerals.

You could also grind eggshells and add them to the food, they apparently have a lot of nutrients. If your dog has a flea problem, you could add garlic. Dogs apparently like the taste and it acts as a flea repellant. Garlic also has many anti-bacterial properties. Good luck with the feeding :)

Answer 8

My dogs can't eat Regular dog food.They have been eating this mix for years. Boiled chicken thighs and frozen mixed veggies.I get veggies that have kidney beans and chick peas and northern beans too.it also has broccoli and carrots.Its called fiesta mix .My kids love these.I make a soup mixture with broth and all. Remove most of the skins though.Serve it over BROWN rice.It is just as healthy as processed dog food.And yes Vets do approve of this!! in fact it is better for them with less allergic reactions. Also check out this site.www.nzymes.com.It will help you through a lot.They will love you for it!!! This mix is cheaper to make then buying dog food too.They have never got tired of this.

I just read the one answer that said they need 95 % meat! Not true!!! 45% protein 35% veg yes they do need veggies

Answer 9

I did read your question, and I do understand your concerns.

HOWEVER, it would be difficult and costly to cook at home and give your pet all the nutrients they actually need.

May I recommend a brand of food called Nature's Variety. It's actually USDA certified for human consumption, so you know that it's just as safe as the food you eat. They have kibble, wet, and raw foods for you to choose from and encourage you to mix and match. Please check into it. naturesvariety.com

Additionally, don't feed dogs onion, garlic, or grapes.

Answer 10

DO NOT FEED THEM HUMAN FOOD- there is a reason why its for humans and NOT dogs.

If you want to make them their own food, then you need to ask your vet what would be the best choice- table scraps are not the best.

Also, more catfood was effected by the food recall that dog food. Stores have taken all the bad stuff off the selves- you can always feed him a good quality dry food--- seeing as only the wet food was bad.

Answer 11

There's a new thinking now that raw meat is the healthiest for dogs ..... look it up and perhaps cut your dogs portions of uncooked meat when you prepare your meat for dinner. THings that they wont eat but should perhaps have .. you would prolly have to grind it in with the meat or make some type of gravy they would like .....