Jim’s Essential Dog Food Recipe

4 years ago, Lola, our little 17 year old Chihuahua, was diagnosed with a malignant tumor. We decided to make our own dog food to ensure that she was getting the absolute best diet she could to fight the cancer. Laura found the bases for my recipe in Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats and from there I did some modifications of my own. Within 6 months the malignant tumor was nowhere to be found. I’m not claiming that this recipe will cure cancer but it certainly made our two dogs very healthy and vital and Lola is doing very well, especially for almost 20 years old. Romey, our 7 year old shepherd mix, still acts like a puppy and has an amazing coat. 

I’ve had a lot of friends ask me for the recipe so finally I got it written down.This recipe makes around 10 quarts of dog food. It lasts me about 3-4 weeks for both our dogs. I store it in clear, snap-lock containers in the freezer. I defrost it a day or so prior by placing it in the refrigerator. When serving, I just scoop out the desired amount and zap it in the microwave for about a minute. Voila! The pooches LOVE it! I also supplement this food with some high-quality dry food that they can munch on during the rest of the day. 

Okay, here’s what you’ll need for this recipe:

1 – Four pounds of fresh, lean, ground turkey, chicken.or ground beef…preferably organic. 

2 – Four cups of dry organic brown rice. I usually get it from Costco. 

3 – Four 15 ounce cans of organic black beans or kidney beans. I like the black beans because I don’t have to process them to get small bite-size pieces for a little Chihuahua. You can pick them up cheap at Costco.

4 – Four – 5 large organic sweet potatoes. I usually pick them up fairly reasonably at Costco or Trader Joe’s.

5 – Approximately 8 cups of chopped organic carrots. I quickly process them in a 9-cup food processor. 

6 – Twenty ground 500 mg Calcium Citrate tablets. I use our coffee grinder to grind them up. 

7 – Ten ground Cosequin DS Plus Tablets I also grind these up with our coffee grinder. 

8 – Six Teaspoons of soy sauce. I use organic tamari sauce so as to avoid any gluten. Our chihuahua has a very sensitive tummy. 

9 – Four tablespoons of ground turmeric. The cancer fighter!

10 – Four tablespoons of ground organic flax seed

11 – Six tablespoons of mono-saturated vegetable oil. I use organic olive oil. 

Putting it all together

– Bake the sweet potatoes until soft

– Cook rice in rice cooker

– Steam the chopped carrots

– Saute the ground meat in a 12 quart pot

– While sauteing ad the ground  calcium and cosequin tablets and mix thoroughly. This helps in breaking them down completely.

– When ground meat is completely cooked add turmeric, soy sauce, oil and ground flax seed and mix thoroughly

– Add steamed chopped carrots and mix thoroughly

– Add drained and rinsed beans and mix thoroughly

– Peel outer skin from cooked sweet potatoes and add and mix thoroughly. I usually use a long potato masher at this stage.

– Add cooked rice and mash with potato masher until thoroughly mixed. You should be working up quite a sweat by now. Maybe I should call this my dog food preparation workout.

–  I store the dog food in clear, snap-lock containers in the freezer.

That’s all there is to it. Your dogs will love it! …and if they seem to turn up their nose to the constant bombardment of turmeric just pick up some organic chicken or beef broth, depending on what kind of meat you used for the food, and pour some over it just before zapping it in the microwave for a minute and voila…instant stew and they LOVE it.