Macrobiotic dog food diet

How to feed your dog with macrobiotic diet

Here are some tips and experiences about the macrobiotic diet in relation to your best friends - dogs

The winds of happiness, comfort and companionship blew her into my life. Having been abandoned by someone from somewhere, she came to me in a sea of trauma. Her life was on the line, yet her demeanor was neither obsequious nor needy. My heart opened up to her, and in an instant I claimed her as my own. I named her Croskey, after the street on which she was found.

I remember bringing her home after tying around her neck a rope which a neighbor had given to me. . I put her in the garden, and we stared at each other. As we both struggled to regain our equilibrium, I wondered if this was a good idea. I had never taken care of such a big dog. As this thought was going through my mind, our eyes met. I realized that just as I believe that spiritually we choose our own parents, so had this large German shepherd dog chosen me. Destiny had thrown us together. This happened almost ten years ago and somehow it seems like only a blink of the eye.

Over the years I have enjoyed her enormously, but feeding her has been challenging. I am always doing a fast step to try and keep my own diet and that of my husband on track. Adding a one hundred pound dog to the household required some special consideration.

My previous dog was a dachshund named Max. Max would eat anything that he could get his little mouth on. Anything that would stand still, he would eat! Croskey is a different story. She is a lady and very particular, especially about her food. Whereas Max would grab food from your hand like a piranha, Croskey takes a delicate sniff and then decides is she is interested or not.
For several years I fed Croskey the same diet that I had fed to Max. I purchased the best quality dry and canned dog food that I could find. I studied the labels on all of the commercial brands which were available and chose those which I deemed the lesser of the evils. If the ingredients included big, unpronounceable words, I rejected those brands. Who wants to feed their poor dog something that you cannot even pronounce?

In addition, she was fed lots of macrobiotic leftovers. Every morning we would each have our miso soup, and then I would mix the leftovers in with her commercial food. During the day, I always left plenty of dry food for her to eat whenever she felt like it. All in all, she seemed happy and was doing well.
However, as the years went by, Croskey started to lose her vim and vigor. She became a dog coach potato! She'd lounge on the sofa and look at me in a bored and sleepy way when I would ask her how she was doing.

Dr. Norman Ralston, the author of Raising Healthy Pets, suggests that we should not give our pets commercial food because many of the products are saturated with preservatives, food dyes, sweeteners, salt, and pesticides. He says that home cooked food is the way to insure that your pet is properly nourished.

Good health is reflected in good energy, and the first sign of impending health problems is a lack of stamina. I realized that the diet which I had been feeding Croskey was not supporting her health. Her lethargy was a sign that she was not thriving on her diet.

My decision to change her diet was a major one for two reasons. First of all, I realized that I would now be required to cook her food. Secondly, Dr. Ralston believes that a dog's diet should include some animal food. This was upsetting to me, as buying and cooking meat was completely self-contradictory. My giving up animal products, many years ago, was triggered not by health problems but by ethical concerns.

Reflecting honestly, I had to admit that the inadequacies of Croskey's former diet were manifold. Not only does commercial food contain lots of additives and preservatives, it lacks freshness, which is an essential element to good health. Also, for the most part, people tend to find one brand which seems to agree with their animal and use it forever. This deprives the animal of variety, which is another important aspect of dietary health.

The dry food, I concluded, was a particular problem for Croskey. Just as we should avoid baked hard food, so should animals. The hardness and the dryness weaken the intestines and rob vitality from the body. Also, allowing her to graze on her dry food all day long was a big mistake. The digestive system needs time to rest between meals in order to perform optimally.

So, although it was uncomfortable for me to do, I set off to a store to buy some meat! Standing at the meat counter for the first time in many years was an odd experience. As I watched the other people select their various cuts of meat, I felt like shouting out "this meat is for my dog, not for me"; however, I did manage to contain myself.

Dr. Ralston believes that some dogs can do well without having animal protein in their diet. However, in the case of a dog who, like Croskey, is manifesting lethargy and lack of stamina, the addition of meat to the diet can prove to be helpful. On the other hand, if a dog is overactive and rambunctious, a vegetarian diet might just be the antidote to calm him down.

Croskey's new diet would consist of brown and white rice, barley, ground beef and vegetables. This would be supplemented by miso soup, nori, and leftovers from our food. Please remember that it is important to vary the above ingredients on a regular basis. Rice can be fed to the dog every day, but substitute the barley with other grains such as millet or oats on a regular basis. Also, change the type of meat often. Use chicken, lamb, or other types to add variety and interest to the diet.

Croskey really liked and seemed to appreciate her new diet. She enjoyed lying on the kitchen floor and watching me cook, knowing that this was all for her. She did miss her dog biscuits. She would also occasionally stand by her dish and look at me as if to say, "where is my dry food?" "where are my biscuits" "I want to have a little snack!"

It is important when cooking grains for a dog that you consider the differences in their digestive systems. Unlike humans, their intestinal tract is quite short. This means that their food digests more quickly than ours. Therefore, grains must be cooked until they are very soft so that they can be properly assimilated.

It would be ideal to cook fresh food for your pet every day. However, I find this humanly impossible! So every week, I prepare a batch of food and store some of it in the freezer. While freezing does take some of the energy from the food, it is still miles better than feeding the dog commercial food.

Croskey is doing very well on her new regime. It is remarkable to observe what a transformation occurs when a more healthful diet is introduced. After only ten days on her new victuals, my senior citizen canine started to regain her old spark. Now when we go for a walk in the park, she is full of energy. She even becomes overly flirtatious when she sees a cute male dog. When I try to remind her that she is a bit elderly for this romantic folly, she looks at me in a conspiratorial way, knowing that because she is now well nourished she looks extremely young for her age.

Originally published in Christina Cooks Summer 1999

DOG FOOD RECIPE

2 cups short grain brown rice
2 cups hulled barley
2 cups white rice
2-inch piece of kombu
6 cups blanched vegetables
3 lbs. lean ground beef

Soak the brown rice and the barley for 1 to 3 hours. Add the kombu and cook together in lots of water. When this has been cooking for 45 minutes add the white rice. Cook for another 45 minutes until all the grains are soft. Blanch the chopped vegetables. Save the blanching water and use it to cook the meat. Blend all of the ingredients together, including the leftover cooking water. This will be enough food for one to two weeks depending on the size and appetite of the dog.

Bon Appétit! Bon Chien.

Name: Dog lover

Date: 2008-03-26 04:06:31

Name: anne

Date: 2008-11-15 13:32:46

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