"Cooking For My Dogs Improved My Diet!" by One Girl's Opinion

Cooking For My Dogs Improved My Diet!

Blog: One Girl's Opinion

January 13, 2011

I LOVE to bake! So around the holiday season I usually bake hundreds of cookies and package them as gifts. BUT, I decided to do something different this year. NO Cookies! Well, that's not entirely true...let me rephrase...NO People Cookies!

A 'Cooking For Dogs Cookbook' inspired me to bake homemade Dog Cookies for all the neighborhood pups. You have to understand, we don't have children, so I consider our dogs, our children! I cook for them all the time.

I flipped through the Dog Cookbook (The Everything Cooking For Dogs Book by Lisa Fortunato) in search of at least two recipes that I could use for my Dog Cookies. I wanted something seasonal, so I chose 'Pumpkin Pie Biscuits' and then I chose 'Bacon & Beet Biscuits' for the color (red, a holiday color).

I've had this Dog Cookbook for several months and I had read through most of it, but I hadn't tested any of the recipes. Once I had chosen my two biscuit recipes, I started making a shopping list for the ingredients. This is when IT (my healthier food obsession) all started. You see, this cookbook eliminates preservatives, sugar and unnecessary 'empty' calorie ingredients.

I went to the grocery store in search of a few items I didn't have: Unbleached Flour (I had Bleached), Rolled Oats (I had Instant), CanolaOil (I had Vegetable), Natural Unsalted Peanut Butter (I had the Salty, Sugary PB) and Nitrate-Free Bacon (I had the one with Nitrates). Come to find out, one does NOT have too many choices when purchasing these healthier ingredients. In most cases, there was only one choice/brand for each of the items on my list. This got me to thinking, no wonder most of us don't eat healthier. The less-healthier items give us more choices and are less expensive!

I am a label reader when it comes to my food, but I NEVER looked for Nitrate-Free Bacon until now. If my dogs are going to eat healthy, then so am I! NO more bacon or lunch meats with nitrates! NO more salty/sugary peanut butter! NO more bleached flour! You get the idea!!!

The biscuits were a HIT! I received no complaints from the neighboring dogs (I wasn't expecting any).

Vince (my other half) even sampled the dog biscuits and said they weren't half bad. (Vince loved the nitrate-free bacon by the way...go figure)

COOKING UP SOME DOGGONE HEALTHIER FOOD IN 2011 AND BEYOND!