Someone posted a question on Facebook (that I can't find). She asked if we could still use freezing the break the cellular wall of vegetables. And I'm like "WE CAN JUST FREEZE THE VEGETABLES??? I WENT THROUGH THREE BLENDERS BEFORE FINDING SPENDING MONEY ON A SEMI-GOOD FOOD PROCESSOR!!!"
When I was new to raw feeding, the biggest drama in raw feeding groups seemed to be sparked by the random admission that a pet parent fed vegetables to their dog:
- dogs are carnivores, they don't need vegetables
- dogs should only be fed vegetables if they need to lose weight
- vegetables aren't species appropriate
- dogs can't digest vegetables
And so on.
Today, I add vegetables to my dogs' diet because vegetables...
- are a great source of fiber
- feed the gut microbiome
- support gut health and boosts the immune system
- provide antioxidants and additional nutrients
I do often question how much of any one vegetable I need to feed in order for my dogs to gain the benefits they offer. Since I started using the
Animal Diet Formulator, I've learned that it doesn't take much.
What About the Cellular Wall?
One of the arguments against feeding vegetables is that people believe that dogs can't digest them - dogs do create enough amylase to digest vegetables (according to Dr. Karen Becker). I also kept reading that the nutrients couldn't make it passed the cellular wall. This is why people recommend pureeing or lightly cooking (blanching) the vegetables before adding them to our dogs' dishes.
But, what about freezing?
Someone recently asked me if we could freeze vegetables to break the cellular wall and I looked it up and learned...
"Water makes up over 90 percent of the weight of most fruits and vegetables. Water and other chemicals are held within the fairly rigid cell walls that give structure and texture to the fruit or vegetable. When you freeze fruits and vegetables you actually are freezing the water in the plant cells.
When the water freezes, it expands and the ice crystals cause the cell walls to rupture." Source: The Science of Freezing Foods, University of Minnesota
This means that I can buy frozen vegetables, thaw, and feed them to my dogs without pureeing or cooking. Most frozen vegetables are blanched (dipped into boiling water for a few minutes) before freezing. This deactivates the enzymes that age (ripen) the vegetables, shortening their "good by" date. Some brands may be using a freezing technique that protects the cellular wall, I think this technology isn't common because I only read
an abstract that suggested the use.
I couldn't find the comment/question on Facebook or Instagram to respond to directly. So I'm sending this email today because *1) Cool, I learned something new and (2) maybe this email will reach the person who asked this great question.
Where I Buy My Vegetables
I prefer frozen vegetables to their canned (cooked) counterparts. I usually buy organic vegetables at Costco - broccoli, green beans, cauliflower rice, mixed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, cauliflower) - because they're affordable.
I also grow a small garden each year. This year, because I'm a bit late in getting started, I limiting my garden to green beans. This is a vegetable that everyone in our home enjoys. I also grow blueberries and raspberries every year.
Last year, I had a full garden of tomatoes, broccoli, parsley, kale, collard greens, artichokes (my fav), green beans, zucchini, cauliflower, strawberries, and celery. Check out
Easy Raised Vegetable Garden for Dogs to learn more.
PRO TIP: if you have friends who have a garden, offer to help clear it out at the end of the season. Over time, the nutrients in vegetables do degrade, but the vegetables are still a great source of fiber, food for the microbiome, a yummy addition to bone broth, or a filler if you have a dog that needs to lose weight.
When I'm happily raiding my friend's garden, I pick up the healthiest of the remaining vegetables and puree them and freeze in glass jars.
Why I Stopped Fermenting Vegetables
I'm working on a longer blog post about this for
Patreon (only $1/month) and later for
my blog - but the short story is that my dogs get a lot of fermented foods in
their diet (kefir, bone broth, fermented fish stock) and I felt that adding
fermented vegetables was too much.
Weight Loss with Vegetables
I add vegetables to my dogs dish when they need to lose weight and I feed vegetables as a low calorie snack. I got this idea from a former veterinarian. I always weigh my dogs' meals; I replace an ounce of their food with a vegetable.
This is supposed to help them feel full without risking a nutrient deficient diet, which can happen if you remove too much food.
Of course, I also increase our walks and, on occasion, adding in a slight jog, to help with the weigh loss.
Vegetables have also made it easier to live with a dog on prednisone. Scout is hungrier than usual and I feed him snacks of green beans, romaine lettuce, and other low glycemic vegetables as a snack. This helps us keep him at a healthy weight.
