Listmembers,

I hope that this post finds all of you enjoying a Happy and Healthy New Year.
I am officially on a new diet/lifestyle change and hope I can lose some of
this weight I have been carrying around. If I could only be as successful in
managing my own diet as I manage my dog's diets, I'd be looking pretty svelte
about now. <VBG> Maybe this will do the trick, though and then I can look
as good as my pugs do!

I made a statement last month that the raw grainless diet is the best diet
for most dogs and ailments. I personally feed a lot of raw foods to my own
dogs. PurelyPets does NOT officially recommend a raw diet for safety reasons,
and so that is only my own personal opinion. Anyone interested in the
benefits of raw grainless feeding should pick up one of the books by Kymythy
Schultze and I would also recommend joining one of the many BARF
(biologically appropriate raw foods) internet lists out there for support.

The official Purely Pets stance on feeding is as follows:

Because we work with very sick pets, we can not recommend a raw diet for
safety reasons. Raw meat can contain pesticides, chemicals, parasites and
bacteria which some pets can not tolerate. Because we do not want to be
responsible for a pet getting sick, we always recommend cooking the meat.

However, if one of our customers is already feeding a raw diet, we are very
supportive of this. We think you should do what is right for you and what
your pet does best on.

A high quality diet is very important. Fresh fruit, vegetables and meats help
clean out the body and improve the immune system. We have a simple recipe that
is made in the crockpot and is below for your convenience.

GRAINLESS (anti-yeast) CHICKEN STEW

In a medium to large crockpot:

1 whole chicken,
or family pack size of chicken thighs
or whole chicken cut up
2 low-sodium chicken bouillion cubes
2 cloves fresh garlic, or 2 tsp. garlic powder

1 or 2 fresh or frozen vegetables (no canned) from the following low glycemic
index list. Add as much as will fit comfortably in the pot. Keep changing
the veggies out on a rotating basis for variety each week:

Dandelion Greens
Carrot Tops
Kale
Spinach
Asparagus
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Celery
Summer Squash
Tomato

Remove as much fat and excess chicken skin as easily possible and discard.
In crockpot place chicken, bouillion cubes, water and garlic. Gizzards and
other organ meats can be included in the stew.

Cook on LOW for 6 hours or until the chicken is completely cooked. Add
vegetables. If the vegies were frozen, you can cook another 5 minutes.
Fresh vegies might need to be cooked a little longer.

Before serving, remove the bones and skin. Once it's been in the
refrigerator, you can skim off the excess fat.
Refrigerate for up to 6 days -- then discard. I feed this to my whole
family,
human and canine.

Before I serve the stew to my dogs, I add a little Nupro vitamin/mineral
supplement and MaxiDerm essential fatty acid supplement. I also find this is
an easy way to feed herbal tinctures if I am treating them for anything, but
you can only add them once the stew returns to almost room temperature.

Cat Donnelly
PurelyPets.com