Shhh! Babies sleeping. Well, not human babies. But still. I think I can safely say that I’m not the only person in America who coddles my dogs.
Dogs and cats have cleverly evolved to be too cute in the eyes of humans to eat. How did they do that? They were smart enough, or clever enough to have figured out how to play humans to assure a place in a soft bed rather than roasting in a barbecue pit.
They must be really happy with themselves now that other animals lead hellishly tortured lives from birth until they are slaughtered in horrifying, painful ways. If you’re a cat or dog, it’s a relief. If you’re human who eats animals then it’s a horribly squeamish subject.
A subject that I would like to address. I eat for physiology not for ideology.
If you want to understand human physiology read Death by Supermarket (which I spent four years researching and writing so I’m not going to rehash it here). Suffice it to say that meat is an historically eaten food, and just because we have the luxury of not killing our own food doesn’t change human physiology.
You can have a lot of idealistic goals and moral standards—like Buddhist principles (BTW, the Dalai Lama eats meat)—but the fact is that we are still the same creatures we were 10,000 years ago. We ate meat then. (This is all about insulin resistance and aging, and getting diseased and dying faster, which is too huge of a subject to go into here.)
In the 1992 film “The Last of the Mohicans,” Hawkeye is an Anglo-Saxon frontiersman who had been orphaned as a baby and adopted by the Mohican Chingachgook. The film opens with Chingachgook, his blood son Uncas and Hawkeye running silently through a heavily canopied forest, hunting an elk. When the elk is felled by the .59 caliber round of Hawkeye’s five foot rifle, the three men kneel at the beast. In Mohican, Chingachgook speaks to the elk, “We’re sorry to kill you, Brother. Forgive us. I do honor to your courage and speed, your strength. . . .”
This reverential attitude that some cultures historically held for the animals that provided them sustenance was repeated (copied) in James’ Cameron’s 2010 “Avatar” when the Na’vi Neytiri witnesses the humanoid Na’vi (called an Avatar) Jake Sully proving himself with a “clean kill” of a forest creature that ostensibly the Na’vi would eat.
All of this said, if you want to eat for physiology not for ideology (an historically diet including meat), you need to take a stand against the torture of animals. You need to buy only meat that you are sure has been organically raised and humanely slaughtered. That goes for milk products too. Are you buying supermarket brands? Because if you are that stuff is noxious (another reason to read DBS).
Taking a stand against the torture of animals includes taking into consideration what we feed to our animals.
Before WWII people fed their animals the same food they ate (i.e. table scraps). Then we industrialized dog food so that dogs were eating body parts that humans wouldn’t eat, body parts of tortured animals that is. There are organically raised dog food out there, but if you want to make your own, here is a recipe.
Bon Appetit Little Doggies Food
3 cups organic brown rice
5 cups water, or organic chicken broth
2 pounds pasture raised organic ground chicken, turkey, pork or beef, OR LEFTOVERS OF YOUR DINNERS, MINCED UP
3 ten-ounce bags of frozen organic mixed vegetables
(green beans, peas, carrots and corn)
6 to 8 pasture raised eggs
Grated cheese (whatever is going to go bad in the fridge)
Layer all ingredients, except eggs, into a rice cooker and turn on. It takes about 1 hour to cook. When the cooker turns off, transfer the cooked mixture into a large bowl. Working quickly while it is still very hot, crack eggs into the mixture and stir to “cook.” Stir in cheese.
Cool and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer.
(Note: Do not stir cod liver oil into hot food as polyunsaturated oils become rancid easily with exposure to heat, air and light. And be careful with the cod liver oil as it is cathartic and you may end up taking your dog out in the middle of the night.)
Like humans, all dogs are different. Our dogs get a lot of exercise so may need more food than a dog that doesn’t exercise much or that is much smaller. This a very nutrient dense recipe so experiment to see what amount is best for your dog.
My blog is dedicated to my Life Mission: Living a happy and fulfilled life, caring about body, mind, and spirit. I hope you come back and read how you can define, explore, and live your Life Mission.
EAT FOR PHYSIOLOGY NOT FOR IDEOLOGY
Shhh! Babies sleeping. Well, not human babies. But still. I think I can safely say that I’m not the only person in America who coddles my dogs.
They must be really happy with themselves now that other animals lead hellishly tortured lives from birth until they are slaughtered in horrifying, painful ways. If you’re a cat or dog, it’s a relief. If you’re human who eats animals then it’s a horribly squeamish subject.
A subject that I would like to address. I eat for physiology not for ideology.
If you want to understand human physiology read Death by Supermarket (which I spent four years researching and writing so I’m not going to rehash it here). Suffice it to say that meat is an historically eaten food, and just because we have the luxury of not killing our own food doesn’t change human physiology.
You can have a lot of idealistic goals and moral standards—like Buddhist principles (BTW, the Dalai Lama eats meat)—but the fact is that we are still the same creatures we were 10,000 years ago. We ate meat then. (This is all about insulin resistance and aging, and getting diseased and dying faster, which is too huge of a subject to go into here.)
In the 1992 film “The Last of the Mohicans,” Hawkeye is an Anglo-Saxon frontiersman who had been orphaned as a baby and adopted by the Mohican Chingachgook. The film opens with Chingachgook, his blood son Uncas and Hawkeye running silently through a heavily canopied forest, hunting an elk. When the elk is felled by the .59 caliber round of Hawkeye’s five foot rifle, the three men kneel at the beast. In Mohican, Chingachgook speaks to the elk, “We’re sorry to kill you, Brother. Forgive us. I do honor to your courage and speed, your strength. . . .”
This reverential attitude that some cultures historically held for the animals that provided them sustenance was repeated (copied) in James’ Cameron’s 2010 “Avatar” when the Na’vi Neytiri witnesses the humanoid Na’vi (called an Avatar) Jake Sully proving himself with a “clean kill” of a forest creature that ostensibly the Na’vi would eat.
All of this said, if you want to eat for physiology not for ideology (an historically diet including meat), you need to take a stand against the torture of animals. You need to buy only meat that you are sure has been organically raised and humanely slaughtered. That goes for milk products too. Are you buying supermarket brands? Because if you are that stuff is noxious (another reason to read DBS).
Taking a stand against the torture of animals includes taking into consideration what we feed to our animals.
Before WWII people fed their animals the same food they ate (i.e. table scraps). Then we industrialized dog food so that dogs were eating body parts that humans wouldn’t eat, body parts of tortured animals that is. There are organically raised dog food out there, but if you want to make your own, here is a recipe.
Bon Appetit Little Doggies Food
3 cups organic brown rice
5 cups water, or organic chicken broth
2 pounds pasture raised organic ground chicken, turkey, pork or beef, OR LEFTOVERS OF YOUR DINNERS, MINCED UP
3 ten-ounce bags of frozen organic mixed vegetables
(green beans, peas, carrots and corn)
6 to 8 pasture raised eggs
Grated cheese (whatever is going to go bad in the fridge)
Layer all ingredients, except eggs, into a rice cooker and turn on. It takes about 1 hour to cook. When the cooker turns off, transfer the cooked mixture into a large bowl. Working quickly while it is still very hot, crack eggs into the mixture and stir to “cook.” Stir in cheese.
Cool and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer.
(Note: Do not stir cod liver oil into hot food as polyunsaturated oils become rancid easily with exposure to heat, air and light. And be careful with the cod liver oil as it is cathartic and you may end up taking your dog out in the middle of the night.)
Like humans, all dogs are different. Our dogs get a lot of exercise so may need more food than a dog that doesn’t exercise much or that is much smaller. This a very nutrient dense recipe so experiment to see what amount is best for your dog.