Well, here’s another post about the pet food recall. Are people still worried about that? Or is it just me?
Anyway, I just found this interesting pet food for dogs — it’s called “Vegedog,” and it’s a supplement full of the necessary nutrients dogs need, so if you add it to people-food, you don’t have to feed your dog commercial pet food.
Unfortunately I can’t use it because my dog is still on a special kidney diet, but I thought it might be useful for people who want to take their dogs off of commercial pet food, since commercial pet food is prone to being recalled (and if you feed your dog people-food, it will develop serious nutritional deficiencies — dogs and humans have completely different nutritional requirements, or so my veterinarian tells me).
Vegedog is not on the CCIC-approved-cruelty-free list, or even the PETA-approved-cruelty-free-pet-food-list, but it’s made by a small vegan company, and it’s mostly composed of calcium and vitamins which are not known for their tendency to be tested on animals (as far as I know . . . ), so I think chances are good it’s never been tested on animals. Though I’d appreciate it if Vegepet would sign up for CCIC-cruelty-free certification. It’s definitely vegan — it’s especially aimed at people who want to put their dogs (and cats!) on vegan diets. It does not appear to be organic — but I don’t know if you can even buy organic vitamins/supplements/amino acids — can you? A great thing about it is that, being vegan, it doesn’t involve any non-free-range meat, which I really appreciate. It’s so rare to find free-range anything in pet foods . . .
The Vegepet website states that Vegedog takes the uncertainty out of trying to create a nutritionally balanced vegan meal for your pet. If you use Vegedog’s recipes along with the recommended dosages of Vegedog powder, the resulting dog food will meet the AAFCO’s dietary recommendations (the AAFCO makes the requirements all “reputable” pet food manufacturers meet), and your dog will receive proper nutrition, despite eating a vegan diet. (And not being exposed to poison!) It seems pretty simple, and the recipes can be adjusted to suit dogs who are growing, lactating, need to gain weight, need to lose weight, or need to maintain their weight. Vegedog also contains taurine, even though it is not considered a dietary requirement for dogs (though it is for cats) (though you should still never feed your cat Vegedog — it is not nutritionally sufficient for cats — they will die if put on it, and must instead be put on Vegecat). You can read all about the details of Vegedog here.
I should stress here that I haven’t tried Vegedog, but it looks very interesting to me. Whether or not you’re interested in putting your pet on a vegan or vegetarian diet, Vegedog seems like a great solution (to me, anyways) to keep your pet from ingesting poisoned commercial pet food. I’m certainly no expert, but Vegepet looks like a very ethical company, and there seem to be a lot of testimonials about Vegedog and Vegecat, which, as a pet-owner, I find reassuring.
Here is a sample recipe — there are more recipes as well — they include a soy kibble recipe, a wheat kibble recipe, a lentil recipe, an oat and soy recipe, and a rice and soy recipe, so you can pick the one you prefer. The kibble recipes are actually recipes for real kibble — you bake the kibble mixture in a lasagna pan, slice it up into small squares, and then put them in a pail. Just like storebought kibble . . .
Garbanzo & Soy Vegedog Recipe (Makes 3 days’ worth of food)
Protein 22.3%, Fat 8.3%
5 1/2 cups uncooked garbanzo beans. This makes 14 7/8 cups cooked. Or start with 13 1/8 cups canned garbanzos.
1/4 cup dry textured vegetable protein soy, or 1/3 cup firm tofu
3 Tbs. yeast powder
1 1/2 Tbs. oil
GROWTH:
2 1/2 Tbs. Vegedog™
1 1/3 tsp. salt, or 1/4 cup soy sauce
MAINTENANCE
4 tsp. Vegedog™
1/4 tsp. salt or 1/2 Tbs. soy sauce
Directions: For small dogs it may be necessary to crush the warm beans with a potato masher, or use a food processor to crush the cold beans. Stir in other ingredients. Refrigerate extra portions in small covered containers.
Vegedog (9 oz) (lasts 1 month for a typical 44-lb dog) is available for $8.00 at Vegepet.com.
Ingredients: Dicalcium Phosphate, Calcium Carbonate, Ascophyllum Nodosum, Taurine, Zinc oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Vitamin E (dl-alphatocopheryl acetate), Choline Chloride, Sodium Selenite, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), Vitamin A-Acetate
Categories : cruelty free, cruelty free companies, petfood, vegan
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Natasha
May 10th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
This stuff sounds great! I wish Vegecat was sold where I live since I have three cats. One of them has recently developed arthritis in his front paw and I’m sure Vegecat would help his limping.Everything here is commerial it’s awful.
Emily
May 10th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Doesn’t Vegedog sound lovely? I’m sure Vegecat is nice too. Can you order it online? I think I’ve seen it for sale on Veganessentials.com. You should definitely try it! And tell me if your cat likes it or not.
Natasha
May 11th, 2008 at 6:45 am
I can’t really afford to buy it online.
Emily
May 11th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Oh that’s too bad . . .
Lisa
May 27th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
hi there,
I read above that your dog is on a special kidney health diet. mine is as well but we also have to watch the phosphorus levels, which makes it even more difficult to do. I was just wondering if you’re in the same boat and if so, what are you feeding your dog?
Cheers,
lisa
Emily
May 27th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
My God, do you have a blog devoted entirely to kidney diets for dogs? I’ll have to go read it from beginning to end.
Anyway, I DO have a dog on a special kidney diet with the low protein, the low phosphorous and the high calcium levels — and it is SUCH A PAIN because there are no cruelty-free pet foods for kidney diets. I hate to buy Hills K/D because it’s evil. So, during the contaminated pet food scare last year, I switched to actually cooking for my dog — my veterinarian gave me a special recipe from a small animal nutrition book, I wrote about it here:
http://www.livingcrueltyfree.com/2007/05/28/cooking-for-my-dog/
I’d actually love to replace this recipe with a vegan recipe instead, but I haven’t found one. Most vegan sources of protein appear to be pretty high in phosphorus. I emailed the Vegedog people to ask them if they had a kidney diet recipe, but they’re “still working on that,” apparently. If you ever come across a vegan kidney diet recipe, please please please tell me!
Beth
October 21st, 2008 at 6:21 pm
I don’t know if Vegepet is/was tested on animals or not. But it would NOT make sense if they didn’t! Nor would any scientific study on it be valid!
I’m a pre-med student so I’ve taken a little Organic Chemistry and none of the ingredients are harmful to animals. They are simply compounds made from elements. For example the Calcium Carbonate, listed in the ingredients, has the formula CaCO3. What that means is for every 1 calcium “piece” there is 1 carbon “piece” and 3 oxygen “pieces”…these “pieces are known as atoms, but thats going too in depth for this discussion.
As far as I know, all of the ingredients are consumed by humans without any ill effects (of course too much of anything is bad). Disclaimer: I’m not recommending any human consume it though!
There would be no way to determine if a product was complete/fully nutritional, unless it is tested on your actual test group (in this case dogs & cats).
You could not test it accurately on humans because, as Emily noted, nutritional requirements are different in dogs/cats. Let’s just say, if they did test this on animals, there wouldn’t be any negative outcomes (unlike testing products on animals that are intended for human use).
To compare…it would sorta be like doing a study of how pre-natal vitamins taken by non-pregnant women affected their health. Not gonna hurt you, but prob just not needed. Of course this comparison is incomplete- but you get the idea.
Also very important(for humans as well) are enzymes to aid digestion - try Prozyme Vegan. It’s made from purified natural plant-derived enzymes and is of human grade quality.
You can order Vegedog right from their own website http://www.vegepet.com and download a free pdf with instructions-all their products have a 30-day money back guarantee. There are also recipes for dogs and/or cats.
Or try petfooddirect.com …I figured out it was the same price for me to order dog food online & pay for shipping, as it was to drive to the store!
Hope this helps!
Emily
October 24th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Hi Beth!
I’m so glad you’re interested in Vegedog — are you actually giving it a try? Please email me your experiences! I long to hear . . .
I’m a little concerned about your statement — I’m not sure if I’m reading your words correctly — are you saying that no scientific study would be valid UNLESS it were tested on animals? Because I STRONGLY believe that is NOT the case in most situations, and where animal testing absolutely MUST be used, I believe that numerous wonderful scientists are working on non-animal-tests that will replace them in the next fifty years so we can end the inhumanity of animal testing once and for all. I have written a whole page on it because I’m passionate about it —
http://www.livingcrueltyfree.com/alternatives-to-animal-testing/
Also, to my vague understanding, most animal testing for dog food is/was done by the AAFCO a long time ago — they’ve got all the information they obtained horrifically a long time ago to know what kind of nutrients dogs need, so there’s no reason Vegedog would pursue that kind of testing. Anyone anywhere can release any kind of food and call it dog food as long as it fulfills the AAFCO’s minimum nutritional requirements. I wrote more about this in an earlier post:
http://www.livingcrueltyfree.com/2008/08/03/indexed-made-me-unhappy/
I’m more concerned that Vegedog, or Vegedog’s suppliers, might test its individual ingredients not on dogs, but on rats in laboratories for quality control purposes. I don’t know who Vegedog buys its ingredients from, but that’s a possibility I worry about.
So, anyway, I’m not sure I read your comment correctly — if you’re against animal testing on dog food I apologize sincerely. If you are interested in opposing animal testing and going to medical school, there’s a wonderful group of physicians who oppose animal testing — their website is:
http://www.pcrm.org
Glad to have heard from you!
Regards,
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