Raw Food Recipes

Before we quickly jump into the recipes, I want to invoke your common sense about whether home-made food either raw or slightly cooked (ingredients bought from your local grocery store where you buy food for yourself) is bad for your dog compared to processed store-bought commercial wet “food” or kibble that all have long-shelf lives.  

I wish to invoke your common sense before I jump into whether commercially processed dog “foods” or fresh meats and vegetables from your grocery store is bad for your dog.  

 Consumers have been 100% lied to about commercial dog foods advertised as healthy, good for your dog’s gut, teeth, and overall health with added vitamins (synthetic vitamins which are NOT bioavailable anyway, ie. not absorbable into your dog’s body) because the original vitamins were destroyed during heating in the extrusion process to produce the kibble.  In addition, commercial wet-foods contain chemical or lab-produced preservatives.

Commercial wet-food and kibble are not “food.”  They are trash in bags.  We ought to stop calling it food.  They are trash in bags.

Same goes for processed foods or ingredients that are in for example, hot dogs, pizza, processed breads and the sauces we put on our plates.  Many owners think it’s acceptable to give moderate to large portions of processed foods we eat as well.  They think it’s cruel to not give your dog any of your dinner plate each evening.  Mochi went from being 11 pounds to 17.6 pounds, a 60% increase because my relatives thought it was cruel to not give him food off our dinner plates despite my daily and explicit disapproval.  Mochi was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lymphoma of liver origin because his body could not keep up with the toxins in processed ingredients being fed him. More here about what to do when you live with toxic relatives who both intentionally and unintentionally hurt you and your dog.

RECIPES

During Mochi’s Cancer for approximately 2-3 weeks, I relied heavily on the recipe in a fantastic book called “The Dog Cancer Survival Guide” by Dr Demian Dressler, DVM.  During that period, when time was extremely tight (driving to Mochi’s doctor’s offices for 3-5 treatments per week, working full-time, doing cancer research, relocating out of my toxic relatives’ house) would I only then go to our holistic veterinarian’s recommended Darwin’s raw food product (beef, not chicken) as a back-up.   The recipe in the book was very extensive and I didn’t stick to it for long before switching to another healthy and nutritious recipe but it did teach valuable powerful benefits of each ingredient that I could later use for prevention or to alleviate potential future symptoms. 

The book was also not an advocate of raw foods for cancer patients, but after using my common sense, discussing the risks and benefits with a holistic doctor, I wound up switching Mochi “cold turkey” over to raw food from the meat and poultry aisles purchased from my local grocery store (eg. like Shop Rite, Safeway, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Trader Joe’s…you know the same grocery stores humans buy their own food), not Darwin’s or any other commercial dog food manufacturer and not the pet food aisle from the local grocery storey.  We made the switch sometime between 2.5 to 3 weeks after diagnosis.  

MOCHI’S MAIN RECIPE

Here’s the faster-prepared and nutritious recipe we stuck with through and past being cancer-free based on one of Mochi’s doctor’s (Dr. Seo) recipe from Smith Ridge Veterinary Center in Salem, NY.  The below recipe represents my modifications to his recipe but his recipe was the basis. I personally did some modifications based on Mochi’s specific liver condition (eg. added about a tablespoon of fresh minced parsley per day, 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar per day). Another deviation is Dr Seo did NOT recommend raw foods. He recommended it be slow-cooked but I went straight to 100% raw with absolutely no transition and ground it all up with a food processor. If after two days, the raw batch is not yet consumed, only then did I cook it (do NOT over cook as the nutrients get destroyed).

Mochi’s main recipe was as follows:

65-70% Flesh or muscle meat (organic when possible)

• Beef, turkey, pork, salmon, white fish
• Most times I use organic meats, pasture-raised
• Avoid ground meats that are NOT organic.  Expect a lot of fillers (as per a conversation I had with a butcher).  But organic ground meat is okay!

I made a personal choice to minimize chicken.  Chicken isn’t bad IMO, it just isnt the best.  A lot of dogs have grown to become allergic to chicken only because chicken is one of the most popular processed by-products in kibble and commercial foods.

7-8% Organs (organic when possible)

• Liver (especially beef but rotate among organ types and animals), kidneys, heart, gizzard, brains
• Limited organs are found in westernized grocery stores but they do supply them (mostly just chicken liver and if you’re lucky veal and beef liver)
• Asian groceries offer a wide variety of organs (kidneys, liver, brains, gizzards, etc) from cows, pigs and chickens especially chinese and filipino stores.

20-25% Vegetables (organic when possible)

• Red or yellow bell peppers (red is best)
• Maitake/Shiitake/Lion’s Mane mushrooms (many Whole Foods Stores have these types of mushrooms), second best are asian food groceries
• Leafy greens 
  
  • Broccoli  (my top vegetable in this category)
  • Kale (my top vegetable in this category)
  • Artichokes 
  • Asparagus
  • Bean Sprouts
  • Brussels Sprouts
  • Cabbage (I like to use red or purple cabbage as opposed to the typical green)
  • Celery
  • Cucumber
  • Eggplant
  • Spinach
  • Turnips
  • Zucchini

Grains 

• As per our doctor’s instructions, grains aren’t necessary but are appropriate if your dog gets easily hungry or is losing weight too quickly.
• Oatmeal (unflavored), millet, quinoa
• Grains can make up 20% of the entire food batch while reducing vegetables by 10%.  Doing so, adds more calories but does not have a simple carbohydrate effect as per his instructions.

Personally I gave Mochi only steel cut oats (steel cut oats because in my research, the aforementioned produces lower glucose spikes than the other grans. Cancer loves sugar so I opted for steel cut oats). It was offered to Mochi primarily when he was losing weight too quickly after he was cured of cancer.  He was losing weight quickly because his energy levels increased significantly at a rate greater than his food volume increases.  He also had grains as part of his diet in the first 2-3 weeks after diagnosis to regulate blood sugar and because at the time, the single recipe I was aware of was from The Dog Cancer Survival Guide.   

Mochi’s liver was damaged from fatty foods prior to diagnosis, so I included grains for 2-3 weeks after diagnosis (it’s what I knew to include at the time based on the The Dog Cancer Survival Guide and for no other reason), shortly after he was cured when he was losing weight too quickly and if his body needed a shock because it’s easy on the liver and keeps him feeling more full.

HOW MUCH FOOD TO FEED MOCHI

Mochi was 17.6 pounds at the time of diagnosis.  His target body weight, however, was about 11 pounds. 

The formula I used to determine how much food I fed Mochi was as follows:

2-4% of his target or ideal body weight (percentage based on activity level).

Because Mochi was not generally an active dog, the formula was 2% x 11 pounds = 3.6 ounces of food per day using Mochi’s Main Recipe above. 

HOW OFTEN TO FEED MOCHI
Because Mochi was grossly overweight, weight-loss was also an objective. Realizing this, I fed him twice a day with the last meal being early in the day, ie. at about 4:30pm but no later. First meal was when he woke up in the morning at about 9am. In this way, he didnt have food sitting in his stomach overnight and his body could use the overnight hours while he was sleeping to fight the cancer, rather than spend the enormous amount of resources it takes on digestion.

Lastly, he had two-thirds of his total daily food intake at breakfast or 2.4 ounces and 1.2 ounces at his last meal of the day at 4:30pm. He shed weight quickly, about a quarter to half a pound of weight per week.

Ultimately tackled obesity from 4 angles:

• vastly improved food quality (going 100% raw, grass-fed and organic when possible)
• avoid feeding late in the day (no later than 4:30pm)
• the lightest meal is fed last, the heaviest is fed in the morning so that he can burn it off during the day
• decreased his total food intake (vegetable snacks are excluded from the daily food volume; Mochi was allowed to eat as much vegetable snacks as he wanted all day long – see snacks section below)
  

MOCHI’S SNACKS

Mochi did get snacks or “treats.”  His snacks consisted only of vegetables (grounded up using a food processor), no store-bought treats.  The wonderful satisfaction vegetables provide is dogs can eat vegetables through-out the day with very little limitation with regards to volume.  I used a food processor and ground up the vegetables because:

1. Easier for his little body to digest

2. Easier for him to ingest

3. His body will absorb more of the nutrients because the food processor increases the vegetables surface area when it’s grounded up

4. His body can use the nutrients faster to support his immune system

Mochi is extremely food incentivized so it was satisfying for him and for me to have him be able to eat without the typical processed “dog treats” purchased in pet stores.  Simultaneously, the vegetable snacks also serve to treat his condition.  Red bell peppers are among the top 3 vegetables to fight cancer, along with mushrooms, and leafy greens (my leafy greens of choice were kale and broccoli).  I chose to stay away from carrots because of the sugar it contains (same reason I did not regularly feed beets), despite there being significant support for them.  A relevant study would be to understand carrots’ anti-cancer characteristics weighted against the sugar it contains, a study I may research later.

The list of vegetables I used as snacks are the same vegetables listed above in the Main Food Recipe Section. 

A REMARKABLE THING HAPPENED WHEN I SHOCKED HIS BODY ABOUT A WEEK BEFORE HIS ONCOLOGIST’S REMISSION ANNOUNCEMENT.

MORE TO COME…