Tag: <span>fresh food</span>

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If you are on a tight budget, finding healthy foods at the grocery store may seem like a challenge, but there are healthy and economical choices in every aisle of the store. As tempting as all that junk food out there may sound, it really can be cheaper to eat food prepared at home. And with a little imagination and experimenting with herbs and spices in the kitchen, it will taste better as well. The first key to healthier eating is to have more healthy foods available to eat at home. So stop going to the drive-through and don’t buy any more pre-packaged, over processed foods that you probably have in your kitchen now. Get yourself organized by creating a meal plan and a grocery list for the foods you need to prepare those meals. The next step is to go to your local grocery store and start buying whole foods that you can prepare at home with whatever kitchen resources you have there.

Increasing your consumption of whole foods, especially fruits and vegetables, will actually make your food selections in general much simpler. If the foods you are chosing contain more than 5 ingredients and include a lot of unfamiliar, unpronounceable items, you may want to reconsider buying them. Counting calories, carbs, or fat grams won’t be as necessary when you select foods that are more a product of nature than a product of industry. Finding healthy foods to eat at the grocery store is pretty simple. They are found in the “fresh food” sections like the produce and refrigerated meat and fish departments. The frozen and dry aisles also contain good healthy foods, although there are many unhealthy distractions there as well.

Healthy foods you should have available at home to cook with include whole foods (food in its most natural state), fruits and vegetables, dairy products (low-fat milk, yogurt, cheese and eggs), seafood, lean cuts of pork, beef and chicken, naturally sweetened whole juices and lots of water.

The kind of foods to avoid include refined grains (white flour or white rice), refined white sugar, any form of corn syrup and anything out of a box that contains more than 5 ingredients.

Making the switch to eating healthy food does require a change in mindset, along with some imagination and preparation. It will help to make a weekly meal plan, and from that a good, organized grocery list to take to the store with you. This will help keep you focused and cut down on the number of trips you make to the grocery store.

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Source by Blake Bowie

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Nowadays, everyone is trying to lose weight. A common complaint is that it is too expensive to keep fruits and vegetables at your house. The shelf life is so short that the product often goes bad before you get a chance to eat it. Then you have to throw it away and buy new stuff, but it’s discouraging and can often feel like throwing away money. Most people just head to the junk food aisle and settle on unhealthy snacks that promote weight gain and heart problems instead of learning ways to preserve the healthy, fresh food.

So how can you preserve those ‘farmers market’ foods so that you can keep them on hand for a healthy lifestyle? One popular method is ‘canning’. Canning food is a great way to keep your products for a long time, neatly organized in your food cabinet. There are two ways to can: The boiling water method and the pressure canning method. Both are safe, and the method used will depend on what food you’re canning. Low acid foods can be preserved by pressure cooking because of their pH levels (under 4.6). Higher acid foods (about 4.6), need to be preserved using the boiling water method. Here’s where it gets tricky. If you have a food that is close to a 4.6 pH level, you will need to add acid to it. The reason high acid foods can be preserved simply by using the boiling water method, is because they have enough acid so that Clostridium botulinum spores can not grow their harmful, often deadly, toxin. Foods like tomato and figs need extra acid so that the shelf life can sustain an environment without harmful growth on the food.

I’ve found citric acid to be the best additive to prevent bacteria growth, both in canning and simple preservation of fruits, vegetables and other foods. Whether or not you prefer to can is irrelevant. That is just one of the ways to keep your food fresher, for longer. If you are just looking to add days to the shelf life of your fruits or vegetables, you can add the citric acid directly, not needing any special type of processing or cans to keep the food fresh.

Many stores and websites sell citric acid to the average consumer. Oftentimes it is packaged under the name ‘sour salt’. It can come packaged looking like a spice in a shake container, or by the bag. Some companies sell it by the pound, so you can get the biggest bang for your buck. Buying by the pound will save you money and allow you to use it for various things. Do your research and you will find citric acid has multiple benefits, far beyond food preservation.

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Source by Daniel Pellegrino

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It is estimated that over 33 million households have a vegetable garden in their yard 2 million more grow at a friend, neighbors, or relatives. There are also 1 million households that grow in a community garden plot. That is a lot of vegetables being grown. The number one reason given by most vegetable gardeners is they grow for taste, followed by saving money, better quality food, and finally safety of the food. There seems to be a direct correlation between economic health of the nation and the number of households growing vegetables at home. When the economy is bad it is estimated that there are 20% more households growing vegetable gardens. This is not surprising as the average backyard garden costs about $80.00 to put in and returns a little over $500.00 in produce better than 5 times the cost.

Food gardening is a huge business and is one of the biggest outdoor activities of most Americans. Gardening in general is consider the number one leisure time activity. So it is no wonder that so many people are enjoying the fruits of their gardening activity. On average the typical home vegetable gardener has been growing their own vegetables for 12 years. It is an activity that seems to continue long term and for good reason, especially if you have ever tasted a ripe red tomato just off the vine on a summer afternoon.

If you have been thinking about starting a vegetable garden of your own it is really not too difficult and will pay you back many times over for the amount of effort you will need to put into it. On average the typical home gardener spends about 5 hours a week tending the family vegetable plot. Considering the number of people that spend at least this amount of time everyday watching television, you can see this is not a big drain on your leisure time.

The average size vegetable garden is 20 feet by 10 feet and can produce enough fresh vegetables to supply a household with 6 months of fresh vegetables. If you can or preserve some of your produce you can even stretch the amount of produce to 8 or 9 months. The best part is that you know where this food is coming from and that it is safe from chemicals and pesticides. As an added benefit you are helping to reduce the amount of pollution and greenhouse gas produced by transporting the food you would buy at the local store that would have been transported fro more than 500 miles away.

These are just some of the facts about growing your own but it is interesting to see how many Americans are actually involved in producing their own fresh food for themselves and their families.

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Source by Glenn Bronner

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The modern U.S. army has a wide array of food products available to them in base camps and in the field. There are a large number of MREs (which are actually quite tasty) and other portable foods available to them when on missions and when stationed in hostile terrain. And when posted at an established base camp, the food that is prepared is also quite good. A large part of this is of course the ready availability of large quantities of any sort of food imaginable in today’s modern environment. In fact, today’s soldiers have the best food ever made available to a fighting force.

But it wasn’t always that way.

Take the Civil War. Civil War food kept the soldiers fed and not much else. Lets take a look at the diet that comprised the typical Civil War food ration. There were several issues that affected the food that was supplied to the Civil War soldiers. These include the organization of the Commissary Department – which was tasked with the acquisition and distribution of food to the soldiers in the field, the season which determined if fresh food was available or if it was preserved in some way and the ability of the food to stay good for long term storage and transportation.

Prior to the war, the concentration of Commissaries was in the North so when the Civil War began, the North had a great advantage as they already had an existing Commissary Department that was already trained in how to acquire and transport food to soldiers in the field. Their job was to work with the troop numbers and schedules and keep a constant supply of foods going to each area where troops were stationed so that the soldiers could keep on fighting without worrying about where their next meal would be coming from. It took the Confederacy several years to develop a working Commissary so being a soldier of the South was more difficult. It required real dedication to be fighting when you didn’t know where your next meal was coming from. Because of this lack of infrastructure, the South had to do a lot of foraging for food between battles until the supply lines were up and operational.

Civil War soldier food was typically very simple fare – often consisting of meat, coffee, sugar and hardtack – a type of dried biscuit. The meat was often salted or dried so it would last a bit longer and fruits and vegetables were rarities on the battlefield. Because the soldiers were often in the field, they needed to carry rations with them. They had a special bag – called a haversack – which was made of canvas with an inner cloth bag that could be washed to get food debris cleaned out once in a while. But even with this design, the bags were often quite contaminated and foul smelling. Cleanliness was typically not high on the Civil War soldiers priority list.

Union soldiers and Confederate soldiers typically had a different mix of rations. A Union soldier might have salt pork, fresh or salted beef, coffee, sugar, salt, vinegar, dried fruit and vegetables. And if it was in season, they might have fresh carrots, onions, turnips and potatoes. A Confederate soldier typically had bacon, corn meal, tea, sugar, molasses and the very occasional fresh vegetable.

The other difference in Civil War food between the Union and Confederate armies was the type of bread product they had available to them. Confederate soldiers had something called “Johnnie Cake” that they made in the field from cornmeal, milk and a few other ingredients. The Union soldiers had hardtack, also referred to as “tooth dullers” or “sheet iron crackers”. Hardtack was manufactured in large factories in the North and was a staple food for the Union soldiers. Hardtack got its name because it was often not used until months after it was made and during that time, it hardened rock solid which is how it got its nicknames.

As you can see, food has come a long way due to the advent of technologies that allow for better preservation of a wide variety of foods. Gone are the days of weevil infested hardtack. They have been replaced with modern vacuum seal technologies that allow foods to stay fresh and tasty years after they have been packages. And since they say an army is run by its stomach, it is no surprise that the modern soldier is the best the world has ever seen.

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Source by Steven Chabotte

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As catering food service provider you have all the knowledge of these various attributes to be considered while listing a good menu. You have the list of all the cuisines and culinary skills to tweak all kind food to the sensitive palate.

As a provider of the basic need of children you have to meet their nutritional demands and should have motivating taste to developing liking for the dishes you prepare with all skill endowed and developed over time of serving their needs. But even then today food wastage is a major issue and you still have the challenge to continue meeting their basic demands by narrowing the gap.

We have nutritionist in most schools who have a well laid out recipes to cater to the growing physical needs of children and make them understand the importance of taking a balanced food without developing to fetishes or addiction of foods that can only taste well but in turn contribute nothing to their metal or physical growth, or in turn become harmful in the long run in developing a balanced health in the initial stages of their life.

Healthy food habits like any other habits are best developed in the early stages of childhood rather than any other stage of life. Children who develop tastes for food at early stages retain these habits for their lifetime. Also, little change or tweaking for healthy food is possible at later stages of life to set them right and keep you healthy and life full of vigour which a compelling requirement for your development in the other areas of life.

School lunch programs in New Jersey have gathered greater importance from the objective of developing healthy future citizens who understand the nutritious food to be taken and developing tastes for that kind of healthy food rather than that which only satisfies their tastes of their sensitive tongue.

Most school lunch programs in NJ are catered through the contract food service provider who has the requisite expertise to meet the school children healthy needs and can subscribe to the nutritional list provided by school nutritionist and the management and tweak everything within the stipulated budgets. The food service provider should be able to provide the grub within all his means to meet all these demands and also ensure the palate satisfies the children’s taste and provide them with the required nutrition.

But catering food service providers like Karsons Foods serving within all these boundaries do not overlook the opportunity to develop new tastes for the age group which will relish something novel and sumptuous to eat if there is a new dish entirely different which can help them enjoy. Similar to accepting new ideas this age group would like to try and experiment and take pride in something novel even if they are simple and can provide them with the requisite nutrients of health. Simple foods are much liked if they are prepared well and served on time is a belief at Karson foods http://www.karsonfoods.com/index.html.

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Source by John Smith

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It has been in the public notice and the old school program in NJ was more than a decade-and-a- half old. There was need for review the existing program when the future citizens of nation were stake. The increasing perception of worry over the health of the children all around should be cause of worry for the ones leading the nation could be beyond doubt.

But the best opportunity to address the children health could have foregone if not addressed during the review of the nation’s school lunch program could have left benefitting from a large impact in improving the situation though there are many who prefer to opt for reasons from cost constraints to quality and health of their children.

The program offers to subsidize their meals if opted for. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act allows USDA, for the first time in over 30 years, opportunity to make real reforms to the school lunch and breakfast programs by improving the critical nutrition and hunger safety net for millions of children, says the National Food and Nutrition Service.

School lunch program, there is a strong and tougher act put together to beef the health of the future citizens of the nation.

The food nutrition service in NJ has put up new set of rules which calls for updation of meal patterns and nutrition standards for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program to align them with the dietary guidelines for American school children. The New York Times pages opine that kids are about to start eat better. What it calls for is nothing new but it does ruffle the feathers of whose interests are often at stake when you want to set right something that is going wrong somewhere and affecting the nation’s interest. From the people who have recommended the much desired changes like the Institute of Medicine, to the School Nutrition Association, the vendors association who believe the new bearing on costs, to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics who have volunteered themselves for creative collaboration being committed to implement the changes in the school lunch program.

The new rule requires schools to increase the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free and low-fat fluid milk in school meals; reduce the levels of sodium, saturated fat and trans fat in meals; and meet the nutrition needs of school children within their calorie requirements. These improvements to the school healthy food programs are based on recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. This the Institute feels are expected to enhance the diet and health of school children, and help mitigate the childhood obesity trend which is at 17 per cent.

The new school lunch program in NJ and the new rules to ensure diet and nutrition and healthy food for school children, how are the wholesale food distributors, and wholesale food services to align their services with to tweak food for children to make them suitable for their palate.

The new rule does not call for something new, but only renews the old grandmother’s wisdom of balanced food with fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. All this would need is less processed ingredients like, whole grains need require less processing of grains and vegetables consume less of cooking fuel and save costs which is the belief Karsons Foods have been working all these years to serve in and around NJ. At Karson, they believe that providing healthy school food requires less efforts and giving more tasty food requires more ingredients hardly required by the body and they know how to strike a balance between them and develop a healthy palate for growing children.

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Source by John Smith

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In order to cook healthy, the first thing to keep in mind is to use healthy ingredients rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates and other essential nutrients. They are not only necessary for proper functioning of all the system but also keep our immune system strong so that it can effectively fight diseases. Of this fact, many are aware and make it a point to carefully choose a balanced diet and choice ingredients! But there are some equally important aspects of healthy cooking that unfortunately get ignored – mostly due to lack of awareness.

For one, the cookware we use greatly affects the quality of food cooked in it. Consider conventional cookware that’s made of different metals and ceramics that are not appropriate for cooking albeit being so popular. Why is it not appropriate? Read on:

Food is a biochemical entity. All metals are reactive to nutrients that are in the form of oxygen, hydrogen halogens, acids, and bases. At cooking temperature, metals break into ions and react with food. They are then digested with food and accumulate in tissues and organs. When this continues for long, it becomes the foundation for various health problems that may range from minor illnesses to chronic diseases. The immune system is compromised as well which makes it difficult for the body to fight diseases on its own.

Try touching a metal pan five minutes into heating, it burns tissues and leaves a scar. Same thing happens to the nutrients in food when cooked in metal or ceramic cookware. On one hand, the harsh heat damages the delicate nutrients by dissolving them. On the other, water-soluble nutrients evaporate as steam and deplete the nutritional value of food. What’s left is food lacking in nutritive value and full of toxins.

It’s easy to find out if your cookware is leaching, just do an alkaline baking soda test at your home to check the toxicity of a cookware!

There is no healthy cooking without healthy cookware! – one that doesn’t leach toxins into food and doesn’t mess with the nutrients. Pure clay is a healthy material that is appropriate for making healthy cookware. It can be harvested from unfarmed and non-industrialized lands, as it is found in purest form at those places. Pure clay has naturally inert properties making it the most non-reactive of all cookware materials in the market.

Also, they radiate a unique far-infrared heat that penetrates deep into every grain and gently cooks without destroying the delicate nutrients. They are known for their excellent steam management properties that play a key role in preserving water-soluble nutrients. Thus, the nutritional value of food remains intact, making pure-clay the best choice for making healthy cookware.

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Source by Sharon Ray

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Public attitudes toward the food we eat are constantly changing and evolving in unexpected ways. In an era of demanding jobs and 60-hour-a-week workweeks, we may rely more on frozen and canned foods than we wish. Canned foods also provide an extraordinary range of items that might otherwise be completely unavailable. You have probably seen expensive French paté in tins in your local supermarket, but did you know you could buy Reindeer Paté in a can? Well, you can indeed! And how zbout curried crickets? That too! As the Romans wisely said, “in matters of taste, there is no argument.”

The canning of foods long preceded freezing them. Canning was invented by a Frenchman hired by the Napoleonic Army to preserve for military cooks food for long marches and war campaigns, like Napoleon’s year-old invasion of Russia, which had a supply train miles long.

The concept was revolutionary at the time but is really quite simple: The idea is that you seal any food product that you want to preserve — whether soup, meat, vegetables, fruit — anything, really, in an airtight container made of metal or glass and then heat the contents to a sufficiently high temperature to destroy any living organisms, such as bacteria or mold spores, that may be present in the container.

Since the container is sealed airtight, once the heat treatment is completed the contents should remain “fresh” or at least edible and free of contamination, for months or years thereafter. These days, factory cans are so well made that leaks or cracks almost never occur. In the early days, welding was used to seal cans and leakage problems were more common.

In the eons since Napoleon we’ve become more sophisticated about fine-tuning the canning process. Vegetables, for example, that contain few natural acids, need to be sterilized at much higher temperatures, often with high-pressure steam, than acidic foods like fruits, tomatoes, or pickled products, which can be safely sterilized just by putting them in bath of ordinary boiling water. That’s because the natural acids present help polish off the unwanted germs.

So in today’s modern households, canned foods provide a convenient and cheap way of storing food longer-term without the expense of freezing or refrigeration. And because canning operations are large, mass-production enterprises, pound for pound canned products are often much cheaper than fresh alternatives in the supermarket. And those canned products have the added benefit that they can safely sit in your cupboard at room temperature for several years before you use them.

So much for the science of canning. But how about it’s cultural acceptance, especially by elite chefs and consumers of food? Despite the scientific progress, it would be very hard today to find a gourmet chef who would tout canned products as superior to fresh. Canned foods are almost always looked down upon, especially by elite cooks and connoisseurs of food.

Yet this was not always true. A century ago, Sarah M. Williamson, a San Francisco socialite and writer, highly regarded in California as a food expert in 1916 when she was 38 years old and at the peak influence as a popular newspaper writer, began a minor crusade in favor of using canned products for gourmet dining. Canning in those days, of course, was still relatively new, and it had taken off commercially in a major way in her native state of California, even then the agricultural market garden for the growing United States of America. Canning made it possible to double or triple the amount of produce the state could export.

Sarah Williamson wrote that she often heard her friends tell her that “I loathe canned goods — never use them, indeed I fear them.” But Sarah Williamson had a different perspective, and since she was a well-known authority on food, people listened.

“Thus I have hard many a housewife exclaim,” she wrote in 1916, referring to the quote above.

“But why ban canned products, especially in California, where the most delicious fruits, vegetables and meats come in cans? Wonderful dishes can be concocted from cans! People who have not experimented with canned goods, or who consider them unwholesome, make an enormous mistake. Most excellent meals can be gotten up from cans. With canned peas, beans (string) and asparagus, one can make a perfect salad, and the sliced canned tomatoes are also fine in salads.

“A can of oxtail soup,” Williamson added, “used for gravy stock metamorphoses a second day cut of meat into a stew or fancy roast that an epicure would enjoy. Tomato soup can also be used for gravy, either on hamburger steak or warmed over meat. The chili-tomato is nice on spaghetti or rice or ravioli. A Mexican dinner can be arranged in two seconds with canned tamales or enchiladas, the encased ones used for garnish; canned spaghetti and chili con carne. Then, with a salad of string beans and a little fresh lettuce, the dinner is a joy throughout. Canned sausages are always tasty, and can be combined in all sorts of ways with vegetables. Canned mushrooms may not be so good as fresh, but are tasty in sauces. A can of boned chicken with a can of mushrooms can be turned into a remarkable pie, with creamed gravy, and a biscuit crust.”

And so the use of canned goods in the First World War, which is about the time Williamson was writing, enjoyed something of a revival on the West Coats as a result of her widely disseminated writings about them.

In the near-century since, the argument over canning versus fresh has continued unabated, though with the introduction of high-quality, specialty food markets, especially in high-income urban areas, fresh food products continued to be prized by America’s elite foodies. But canned products aren’t going away, as a trip to any Krogers, Safeway or Albertsons will show you, and they continue to serve us well.

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Source by Francesca Salerno

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Eating healthy is not always the easiest with the temptation of fast easy food all around us. Sourcing your food from either your own backyard garden or a farmer’s market is the best, freshest way to ensure your food is full of nutrients and flavour. The next step of turning it into something inviting and appetizing is offered on every page of “From One Small Garden”. With over 300 recipes developed over a span of 30 years of research and development this book brings it all to the table in a pleasantly delicious way.

Award-winning authors Dave and Lillian Brummet began experimenting with recipes and compiling them into this book in the early ’90’s while living in the Okanagan area. Over the next 3 decades the manuscript traveled with them to the Boundary region where they resided for 12 years, and then on to their permanent home in the Kootenays. All through these travels, the Brummets re-tested the recipes, perfecting them for this collection.

The couple experimented with a vegetarian diet for a few years, went vegan for a short time, and finally settled down to a more balanced diet that included some animal protein with a huge array of fruits, grains, vegetables, wholesome breads and healthy desserts. Together they have managed a rural mountaintop spa (building and maintaining 3 acres of vegetable gardens) where they hosted larger hand drumming events that always include snacks or meals at break time – helping to perfect the recipes in this book.

This collection of recipes is the ultimate guide to utilizing fresh fruits and vegetables from backyard gardens to farmer’s markets. It will help you make delicious and healthy meals at home with fresh fruits and vegetables from local sources. Whether from your own backyard garden or from a farmer’s market you are getting the best, freshest ingredients.

Never be bored again with your own home cooking armed with the proper collection of recipes. Tired of buying packaged foods and condiments and all the waste as a result? From salad dressings to dips and sauces and syrups, this book has a ton of homemade versions of many things you normally have to purchase.You will be making food that is better than restaurant fare and much cheaper. Loaded with interesting tidbits of historical and nutritional information, this book is more than just a recipe book – it is a way of treating yourself to the healthy, delicious rewards of the freshest, purest source of food we can draw from.

 

Website: BrummetMedia.ca

Order your copy now at Amazon to start enjoying fresh food in a delicious, nutritious new and exciting way.

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Source by Dave Brummet

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Okay, I admit it. I am fascinated, overly curious, not quite obsessed with the idea of “you are what you eat.” If you could see me, you’d say I need to lose more than a few pounds and certainly don’t seem to practice what fascinates me so. I know in my gut (literally), that my consumption of overly processed foods, restaurant lunches, sweets and chips are slowly but surely going to cause me major harm and very probably chop a few years off my life. To my credit, I am getting up early every morning and exercising in an effort to, freif not lose weight, at least stave off the diabetes that runs in my family. So, if my family needs to eat better, what about my pets?

Hopefully, you’ve all read my article on the horrible things that are found in commercial, pet foods. If not, check it out at the link below. When I found out what was in the kibble we were feeding both our dog and cat, I researched the alternatives and came up with a great all natural dry pet food. I’ve been extremely happy with the results of the switch with Annie, our cat, but for some reason, Dax just doesn’t go for it. In fact, he really isn’t crazy about dry food in general. He will eat it when he gets hungry, but let’s just say he doesn’t seem to enjoy his food. I’ve tried several brands and nothing flips his bippy. On the other hand, he jumps for joy when I give him a scrambled egg or chicken scraps. And salmon! Katy, bar the door!

So here we are. While I’m trying to convince myself to feed my human family better, maybe Dax would be better off, too, with a more natural diet of fresh foods. I’m not committing to anything at this point, but I’m willing to do some research and see how convincing it is. Want to go along?

You know, when I think back to visits at my grandparents’ farm, I never saw my grandmother feed their dog anything but table scraps. I don’t think I ever saw a bag of dog food at their house. Now, today, table scraps would mean pizza, French fries and other bad examples of human “food.” But not back then. My grandparents raised grass fed beef, which they slaughtered and ate. My grandmother had a huge garden and Papa had acres of corn. They grew what they ate and the scraps that Beau got were good, healthy, all-natural and pesticide free.

So, the first question that comes to mind is that of total nutrients. I know the premium dry foods I have been buying assure me that they are formulated to supply all the nutrients Dax needs. So how can I provide everything my dog needs in a homemade diet? Well, let’s see what the experts have to say. They tell me to aim for variety to ensure a balance of nutrients.

They tell me that my dog and cat are natural carnivores and that meat and other protein sources should be high on the list of ingredients in this new way of eating. They also tell me to feed the meat raw. Okay, now wait a minute. That just grosses me out. What about e-coli and salmonella and all those other nasties found in raw meat? Well, it seems that your dog’s stomach has a much higher acid content than your’s and can handle raw meat just fine. In fact, raw meat is much higher in nutrients that cooked meat.

Interchange lean meats such as turkey, liver, mackerel, chicken, tuna, heart, lean hamburger, duck, rabbit or fish. Try ground meats for convenience and ease of eating.

Meat alone should not be the only source of protein for our critters. There are lots of other ways to beef up the protein intake. Eggs are an excellent, low-cost source of low-fat protein. Again, experts recommend feeding them raw. Try cottage cheese, too. Whole grains are another cost-effective source of high quality protein as well as carbohydrates and an array of vitamins and minerals. Grains, however, should definitely be cooked before feeding to aid in digestion. The most cost effective sources of good grains are oatmeal, cornmeal, millet and bulgur (whatever that is).

The list goes on. Beans and other legumes such as split peas and lentils are great sources of protein. Cook them just like you would for your family. These are good to cook in larger quantities and freeze in meal portions.

Okay, we’ve got protein covered. What’s next? Vegetables. Veggies are vital for adding vitamins, minerals and roughage. Some can be fed raw, such as grated carrots, squashes, lettuce and other greens, and grated beets. Others like corn, peas, green beans, and broccoli need to be cooked. Please! No canned vegetables! Our focus here is on fresh foods. If the vegetables are not organically grown, be sure to wash them thoroughly, even use a little soap and then rinse thoroughly.

Now that the basics are taken care of, the next thing the experts say we need to consider is supplements. Evidently, both cats and dogs, but especially dogs, have a high calcium requirement. Calcium can be added to a fresh food diet in several ways. A common source of calcium is bones. This is where experts take very different paths. Some advocate feeding your dog raw bones. Others are opposed based on the fact that cow bones can contain high levels of lead or can splinter. Those that oppose raw bones recommend the use of bone meal. Now, let me stop and stress right here that they are not referring to the bone meal found at your local garden center. It’s toxic to animals. The bone meal recommended for feeding is that found in health food stores recommended for human consumption or some say, better yet, a bone meal made especially for animals. I’m thinking a large pet store might be a good source or maybe a good feed store.

A great source of natural calcium can be found in something we all through in the trash: egg shells. Who knew? In his book, Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats, Dr. Richard Pitcairn recommends washing eggshells right after cracking and letting them dry. Bake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes and then crush into a fine powder. This can then be sprinkled on your pet’s food. If you prefer, you can even crush calcium tablets into a powder. Don’t give them to your pet whole.

Other recommended supplements include nutritional or brewer’s yeast for its B-vitamins, iron and other nutrients; oils such as fish oil and cod liver oil for Omega-3 and Omega-6 benefits; Vitamin E is a natural anti-oxidant and can be found in wheat germ or just puncture and squeeze a capsule over your pet’s food.

So, the last question that comes to mind is this: I’ve always heard that a dog needs dry, crunchy food to help keep his teeth clean. This is still true with a fresh food diet. A good, all natural, crunchy dog biscuit, fed once or twice a day will help exercise gums and clean teeth.

This is a very brief overture to the world of fresh food feeding for pets. I know I don’t feel guilty anymore for feeding Dax meat scraps and eggs. If you want to know more, please check my website often. I will be posting more in-depth articles on this topic. In the meantime, happy eating!

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Source by Sherry Massey