Food By Franz

Pet Health Archive – May 2009

Recently, The Early Show’s resident veterinarian, Dr. Debbye Turner, was asked about “home cooking” for your pets. “I cannot recommend that you cook for your pet,” she told co-anchor Hannah Storm. “They have very specific nutritional needs. If you’re going to cook for your pet, you need to formulate a diet that has all the right nutrients, plus supplements, and all in the right proportions.” Ultimately, she did sanction these two recipe’s -

The recipe for dogs:

Rice (white, long-grain, regular, cooked) 3-7/8cup
Oil (vegetable, corn) 4-1/4 tsp
Chicken (breast, cooked) 5-1/8 oz

PLUS: must add these human supplements:
1-1/8 tablets of One a Day Maximum Multivitamin/mineral supplement
3-7/8 of Posture caplet (600 mg elemental calcium)
1-3/8 tablets of generic choline tablet (600 mg tablet w/250 mg choline)
1 tsp of Morton Lite Salt Mixture
1/8 tsp of Morton Salt Substitute
3/4 tablet of generic zinc gluconate tablet (250 mg tablet w/30 mg elemental zinc)

Bake the chicken in the oven and cook the white rice without adding salt. Cut the chicken into small pieces. Place the white rice in a bowl and add the oil and the supplements. Mix well. Place cut chicken on the rice and serve.

Why is it, Turner was asked, that cats are far more affected in this recall than dogs?

It’s important to point out that we still don’t know exactly what has caused illness and death in pets, Turner responded, but we know that far more cats have gotten sick and died than dogs. It could be because they are smaller and can’t tolerate the “load” of the toxin in the food. Or their metabolism is faster than dogs, so it could be that hastens the affect of the poison. We’re just not sure yet.

Turner also demonstrated the preparation of a recipe for cats, which she said is a good example of what a cat would eat. It’s from the same Web site as the one for dogs, and includes sweet potato, salmon, and vegetable oil. But again, the food alone doesn’t contain all the necessary nutrition for the cat. So you would need to add these supplements to make it nutritionally complete: a multivitamin, calcium, taurine, choline, salt, zinc, and caltrate.

The cat recipe:

Sweet potato (cooked, baked in skin, without salt) 5/8 cup
Fish, salmon (Atlantic, wild, cooked) 2.9 ounces
Oil (vegetable or corn) 3/4 tsp

PLUS: must add these human supplements:
1/4 tablet of One A Day Maximum Multivitamin/multimineral Supplement per day
3/8 caplet of Posture caplet (600 mg elemental calcium) per day
1/4 tablet of Generic taurine tablet (1 gram tablet with 500 mg taurine) per day
3/8 tablet of Generic choline tablet (600 mg tablet with 250 mg choline) per day
1/8 tsp of Morton Lite Salt Mixture per day
1/8 tablet of Generic zinc gluconate tablet (250 mg tablet with 30 mg elemental zinc) per day
1/4 capsule of Caltrate 600 per day

Bake the salmon and sweet potato in the oven without any added salt. Once cooked, measure out the salmon and sweet potato in the amounts above and cut into small pieces. Place the sweet potato in a serving bowl and add the oil and the necessary supplement. Mix well. Place the cut salmon onto the sweet potato and serve.

For more on pets and nutrition, Turner recommends these sites:
PetDiets.com and the site of the American Veterinary Medical Association.