Home-Prepared Diets
In light of the recent spate of pet food recalls, many folks have considered preparing their pet’s diet themselves from fresh ingredients. Since any fresh produce that is out of season must be coming from South America or someplace, I’m not sure how that makes us feel that much safer.
There is nothing inherently wrong with eating table food: after all, that’s what you are eating, right? We know that there are many pets who subsist on table food, eating only what they like the best. Unfortunately, this seldom results in a balanced diet. Rather, it usually results in health problems over the long haul, particularly noticeable in bones, skin and teeth. I suppose you could live on little colored marshmallows for a while, but you would begin to lose strength, endurance, and your beautiful complexion.
Good name-brand pet foods supply good, nutritious ingredients in the proper proportions. When not contaminated with poisonous ingredients, this is the simplest way to provide your pet with a good diet. Most pets eating Science Diet, or Iams, or Pedigree, or Purina, etc. have obesity as their most common medical problem related to nutrition.
If you are bound and determined to feed a home-prepared diet, here are a couple of resources recommended by Veterinary Information Network: BalanceIt.com and PetDiets.com
If you are looking for someone to validate the fact that you feed your dog nothing but bologna (I know, I know, you remove the stringy wrapping first: good for you), I don’t think you’ll find that.