Thursday, July 9, 2015

Vegan Dog and Cat Foods, info, recipes for homemade, and suggestions

Wow !

Ann S.
vegann
Morrison, CO
Post #: 363
Vegan Cat Food Video

More places have started carrying vegan options for dogs & cats. Check locally & encourage places near you to carry options. Nooch Vegan Market in Denver carries V-Dog, Evolution & more. Pet World on 10th & Wadsworth carries Natural Balance Vegan kibble & canned, & Just Veggin' Biscuits. Halo Dog Food makes a vegan option; Vegan Garden Medley. There is good info below, including converting cats.

This post is for folks who are interested. I do what I believe is best for my animals who I love & adore. I wish that for all animals. I did my research & I'm sharing what I have come to. Folks are free to take or leave it. I have had healthy vegan dogs since 1990 & healthy vegan cats since 2003. It's work to have vegan cats, but it's worth the effort. I mix my fur babies' food so they are use to 2 or 3 different foods for variety & in case I happen to run out of one. Cats don't eat dry food in the "wild", so I don't feed them straight dry for that reason. My cats adore AMI dry, so I mix it with our homemade or Evolution canned. Sometimes I give them a few kibble as a treat. Click to order AMI.
You can order Evolution canned & dry cat or dog at that site.

For our homemade pet foods, I order the VegeDog & VegeCat supplements, & also their vege yeast that I use for both the dog & cat food. You can order online here: http://VegePet.com/...­, or order by phone here: (406) 295-4944. They send recipes for other wet foods & kibble with your order, in case you don't like mine. If you're local, I buy organic bulk rolled oats & chick peas (garbanzo beans) from Golden Organics. They are great if you want to save money on that stuff. They have a lot of good bulk stuff: Golden Organics, 4941 Allison Street, Arvada, (303) 456-5616, http://goldenorganics...­. Please call ahead to order, then pick up on Fridays. I suggest a 1 time purchase of a pressure cooker for the chick peas. A real time saver. Once you have the supplements & have made the recipe(s) once, the rest is a breeze. I'm so glad I started making homemade food. I know where their food comes from & I love that I can make it organic.

I got these recipes with my supplements, then combined 2 recipes to make a different recipe. I wanted my babies to have more variety. You can use the recipes as they are or make up your own, but be sure to get the amount of supplement & yeast close as possible.

My dogs like all of the dog foods mentioned in this post so feeding them this way isn't a problem. If your dog doesn't take to it right away, use the acclimation method that's suggested below for cats.

Dog Food recipe
(1/2 batch Garbonzo & Soy & 1/2 batch Oat & Soy)

7 1/2 c garbanzo beans, home cooked, drained & cooled
9 1/4 c cooked, cooled rolled oats
1 2/3 c tofu, drained & mashed
3 3/4 Tbsp. oil, high oleic safflower, sunflower, or olive oil
2 Tbsp vege yeast powder
1 Tbsp + 1 1/2 tsp Vegedog
1 1/2 tsp (1/2 Tbsp) Bragg Liquid Aminos, or 1/4 tsp salt (omit salt if using canned beans)

Mash cooked garbanzo beans (I pour into my food processor as it is running). Add cooked, cooled oats & mashed tofu. Mix well. Add remaining ingredients & stir until well blended. Store in the refrigerator. Can be frozen. Makes 4 qts. You can add 4 or 5 cups of cooked mashed green peas to this batch of food if you like. Dogs love peas & they are a great source of protein. If you add the peas, the recipe will make about 5 qts. I use frozen organic peas. I have had vegan dogs for over 20 years & they live long, happy, healthy lives, without the cancers & other illnesses most dogs die of.

NOTES for cat food: Cats should always be slowly acclimated to new food if possible. Adoptees can't be, of course. If they won't eat it, find something they will eat & work from there. Cats MUST have tofu that is made without magnesium chloride or Nigari. The only ones I have found are silken Mori Nu, & CostCo did carry a three pack of hard style organic tofu. Also, for cat food supplement I order the VegeCat phi, because I have a boy cat. Several years ago I brought it for my boy cat, who had surgery for a blockage from eating our comercial dog food (bad idea), back to perfect health by making him homemade food with Vegecat phi and magnesium cholride free tofu. No dog food for cats.

Cat Food recipe
(1 batch Chickpea Plus & 1/2 batch Oats Plus from Vegecat recipes)

1 1/2 c chick peas, home cooked, drained & cooled
1 1/2 c cooked, cooled rolled oats
1 c Mori Nu silken tofu or the CostCo hard style, drained & mashed
(or you can also use plain tempeh or soaked and cooked soybeans from dry)
(NOTE: Make sure the tofu doesn't have magnesium chloride!)
1/4 c + 2 Tbsp Vege Yeast powder
2 Tbsp + 1/2 tsp Vegecat phi
1 Tbsp + 2 tsp oil, high oleic safflower or sunflower, or olive oil
If you plan to freeze the food, don't add the oil until feeding
time. You'll have to figure out how much to add at each feeding)
1 tsp Bragg Liquid Aminos, or 1/8 heaping tsp salt

Mash cooked, cooled chick peas (I pour into my food processor as it is running). Add cooked, cooled oats, mashed tofu, & mix well by hand. Add remaining ingredients & stir until well blended. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Can be frozen.
Makes 1 qt.

I have had vegan cats since 2003 when I found my tiny little LaLa at a rest stop in Florida, & they live well into their teens. My old boy who passed at about 19, was vegan half of his life. My other boy, who recovered from the blockage several years ago at about 5, has had blood & urine checked regularly since we switched him, & he is now in perfect health. He's about 11 this year (2013).

How I acclimated my cats:
Cats usually don't take to abrupt change of food. If they are newly adopted, they don't have a choice. They might need more coaxing to get off the junk food they have likely had for their lives. They are use to greasy foods that have had chemical flavor inhancers added, so going natural will be like getting a kid off candy & onto bananas. I have one who will eat pretty much anything I put in front of him. He ate the vegan food with no acclimation when my daughter first got him. All her cats were already vegan at the time so we didn't know what he was eating before. It's good that he liked the food right away. That's not common, though.

The key for most other cats going vegan is acclimation. I did a lot of research, because my daughter had vegan cats already. One of my cats who started at an older age, passed February 2011 at 17, so she was vegan for almost half her life. Her kidneys gave out from a prescription medicine incident several years earlier. I'm certain she did better because of the healthier food. I never put her on the prescription food, because the reason they gave for wanting to put her on it, made no sense. All of my cats I lost to illness, before my vegan cats, died of liver or kidney failure between the ages of 8 & 13, even though I was feeding them the expensive premium foods. All living beings age & die, & some parts will give out before others, no matter how healthy the diet, but the junk commercial "pet" foods, cause premature diseases & death. Feel free to contact me through MeetUp any time!

Edited by Ann Swissdorf on Apr 23, 2015 12:24 PM


No comments: