Cooking for your pet

Zoomer | August 21st, 2011

The recent contamination of commercial pet food has pet owners across North America worried as scores of dogs and cats have fallen ill or died as a result of eating melamine-poisoned pet food.

In response, frightened pet owners are increasingly turning to the internet for do-it-yourself pet recipes – but is this a good idea?

Providing your pet with a nutritious, well-balanced meal may not be as simple as it sounds. In fact, pet owners take certain risks when making a home-cooked meal for their animals, according to the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA).

“If you want to home cook for your pet, you really need to do some research into that,” Danny Joffe, a Calgary veterinarian speaking for the CVMA told the CBC. “It takes a lot of work to make a well-balanced meal because every species has different nutrient requirements.”

Preparing a nutritionally sound diet for your dog or cat can be as complex and time-consuming as organizing a healthy diet for humans.

Raw food diets considered risky

One alternative to commercial pet food are raw food diets that include uncooked meats and vegetables, similar to what an animal may eat in the wild.

But a raw food diet involves some risk for salmonella poisoning. In fact, a study found that 30 per cent of dogs on raw food diets had salmonella in their stool. For this reason, the Canadian Veterinarian Medical Association doesn’t recommend feeding pets raw food.

Salmonella poisoning can cause mild-flu like symptoms or more serious life-threatening illnesses. Pet owners could also be at risk of cross-contamination.

Nutritious home-cooked pet food

Because pets need a vitamin-rich diet, the CMVA recommends owners talk to their veterinarian for information on healthy recipes and diet plans. While the internet is filled with home-made pet recipes, not all may right for your pet. Generally speaking, the association says to select recipes calling for cooked meat, such as hamburger or chicken, as well as potato or rice and a mineral supplement.

Recipes should also be tailored to your pet’s age, food sensitivities and general health. Some foods are toxic to dogs including onion, garlic, chocolate, raisins and grapes. Household plants such as Easter lilies can also cause acute kidney failure in dogs. (For a list of foods unsafe for your pet, click here.

To prevent food poisoning, never feed animals foods that have gone bad.

If you decide to go the home-cooked route, here are two web sites recommended by the American College of Veterinary Nutritionists:
• petdiets.com:
The website is run by Veterinary Nutritional Consultations, an independent consulting company for vets, pet owners and food and supplement companies. You’ll find information on basic nutrition facts and myths. The site also sells nutritionist-certified recipes for cats and dogs and offers individual, nutritional consultations.

• balanceit.com:
Run by Davis Veterinary Medical Consulting, the website sells nutritional supplements for dogs and cats. Owners can also receive advice on choosing balanced recipes using human food from the grocery store. Recipes are reviewed by board-certified veterinary nutritionists.

Free pet food recipes can be found on websites such as ilovedogs.com and recipezaar.com

Vegetarian pet foods

Experts say that healthy vegetarian diets can be formulated for cats and dogs. But because cats are carnivores, developing a vegetarian diet is a more complicated than the case with dogs, who are classified as omnivores. The main source of protein in vegetarian diets consists of millet, beans, lentils, grains and legumes. Dogs appear to require a slightly larger proportion of protein in their diets than humans.

As with home-cooked meals, consult your veterinarian on how to provide a nutritious vegetarian diet.

Protecting the pet food supply

The Humane Society of Canada is calling for a taskforce to investigate the pet food recall. For more information on this, as well as the organization’s “Twelve Point Action Plan for Pet Food Safety” to help protect families and their pets, click here.

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