More Hip than Hippie - Going to the Dogs - Part I
This week (and next week) we are going to talk about the ins and outs of pet care. This week it is the ins, next week the outs. Dori's children get busy calling birds. Val has a question about rescuing birds. Val goes wine tasting (with cheese and chocolate in tow).

The Chocolate- Vivani brand premium organic dark chocolate. Premium pleasure for chocolate lovers!

The Beer- Hennepin Bottle Conditioned Belgian Style Ale. From Cooperstown where Val is going in June.

Finds of the Week

• From the USA Weekend Insert - Go green, get tax credit - credits for green home and car owners -If you're not subject to the alternative minimum tax, there are tax credits for home and car owners who go green in 2006. (Note: The total maximum credit for all energy-saving home improvements is $500 per home.)
• USDA purchasing biobased products- Biobased products, like the biodiesel fuel, are gaining steam and are used to make household cleaners, bath gels, even cups and utensils. The USDA has announced an initiative to purchase more biobased products for government use. This will help foster production so everyday folks can buy the products and help the environment.
• Coop America - Adopt a Supermarket. Co-op America's ADOPT-A-SUPERMARKET campaign is linking up Fair Trade advocates with stores in their local communities to keep pressure on supermarkets to increase the amount and variety of Fair Trade products sold and to ask stores to do their part to promote justice for farmers and artisans.
• Ask your favorite magazines to go woodwise - from Coop America
• Smart shoppers fish picks from thegreenguide.com and can be found in this months issue of Natural Home and Garden.
• Chocolate’s Bittersweet Legacy - Learn more about why you should buy fair trade chocolate. - another article that can be found in Natural Home and Garden Magazine - some good chocolate to choose - Dagoba, Equal Exchange, Green & Blacks, and Ithica fine chocolate art bars.
• A Quiz - You'll have to listen for the fuel and money saving quiz.

Bring on the Dogs
There's a lot of controversy out there regarding the best diet for your pet. The pet food industry is huge

Info from the FDA
There is no requirement that pet food products have premarket approval by FDA. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act does require that pet foods, like human foods, be pure and wholesome, contain no harmful or deleterious substances, and be truthfully labeled. Canned pet foods must be processed in conformance with low acid canned food (LACF) regulations designed to ensure that the finished product is free of any viable microorganisms.

Explanation of how to read a pet food label: To learn more visit the FDA Website on Pet Food Labels

• The "95%" rule applies to products consisting primarily of meat, poultry or fish, such as some of the canned products. They have simple names, such as "Beef for Dogs" or "Tuna Cat Food." In these examples, at least 95% of the product must be the named ingredient (beef or tuna, respectively), not counting the water added for processing and "condiments."
• The "25%" or "dinner" rule applies to many canned and dry products. If the named ingredients comprise at least 25% of the product (not counting the water for processing), but less than 95%, the name must include a qualifying descriptive term, such as "Beef Dinner for Dogs." Many descriptors other than "dinner" are used, however. "Platter," "entree," "nuggets" and "formula" are just a few examples.
• The "3%" or "with" rule was originally intended to apply only to ingredients highlighted on the principal display panel, but outside the product name, in order to allow manufacturers to point out the presence of minor ingredients that were not added in sufficient quantity to merit a "dinner" claim. For example, a "Cheese Dinner," with 25% cheese, would not be feasible or economical to produce, but either a "Beef Dinner for Dogs" or "Chicken Formula Cat Food" could include a side burst "with cheese" if at least 3% cheese is added.
• Under the "flavor" rule, a specific percentage is not required, but a product must contain an amount sufficient to be able to be detected. There are specific test methods, using animals trained to prefer specific flavors, that can be used to confirm this claim. In the example of "Beef Flavor Dog Food," the word "flavor" must appear on the label in the same size, style and color as the word "beef." The corresponding ingredient may be beef, but more often it is another substance that will give the characterizing flavor, such as beef meal or beef by-products.

Watch out for the term natural. To quote the FDA
The term "natural" is often used on pet food labels, although that term does not have an official definition either. For the most part, "natural" can be construed as equivalent to a lack of artificial flavors, artificial colors, or artificial preservatives in the product. As mentioned above, artificial flavors are rarely employed anyway. Artificial colors are not really necessary, except to please the pet owner's eye. If used, they must be from approved sources, the same as for human foods. Especially for high-fat dry products, some form of preservative must be used to prevent rancidity. Natural-source preservatives, such as mixed tocopherols (a source of vitamin E), can be used in place of artificial preservatives. However, they may not be as effective. "Natural" is not the same as "organic." The latter term refers to the conditions under which the plants were grown or animals were raised. There are no official rules governing the labeling of organic foods (for humans or pets) at this time, but the United States Department of Agriculture is developing regulations dictating what types of pesticides, fertilizers and other substances can be used in organic farming.

 

Many Pet Foods contain ethoxyquin, approved as a food additive over thirty-five years ago for use as an antioxidant chemical preservative in animal feeds. Approximately ten years ago, reports from dog owners were made attributing the presence of ethoxyquin in the dog food with a myriad of adverse effects, such as allergic reactions, skin problems, major organ failure, behavior problems, and cancer. There's still research being done to determine toxic dosage.

Benefit of a Raw Diet

According to doggienews.com, "Jane Anderson, who publishes a popular BARF website RawLearning.com, suggests that feeding an appropriate raw diet is the best way to provide a solid platform for a dog's health. "You probably already know that there is no commercial dog food that even comes close to providing the benefits of an appropriate raw diet for your dog. And there is no such thing as "quality" or "human-grade" kibble.", she explains on her website."

Ms Andersons site has a FAQ section regarding feeding a raw food diet

Here are a few benefits she lists:
A raw diet provides a range of benefits that commercial dog diets can never hope to even closely match.

These benefits include:
1. no doggy odour
2. naturally cleans teeth - no need for toothbrushes, de-scaling jobs, or gum disease
3. the time it takes for a dog to chew a raw meaty bones give their stomach adequate time to get the acids moving
4. much less stools produced - and they are firm, and turn chalky after a couple of days
5. decreased or non-existant vet bills (your dogs are healthier!)
6. less cost for dog food - commercial dog foods are ludicriously expensive
7. mirrors what a dog would be getting in the wild - and certainly even the modern day dog has a digestive tract exactly the same as a wolf
8. puppies develop at a more appropriate rate - and quick growth spurts are avoided. A GOOD breeder will want to stop fast growth in any pup.
9. the ripping and chewing involved in eating raw meaty bones develops the jaw, neck, and shoulder muscles of the dog. Commercial dog foods will never assist in this important muscle development.

What do you feed your dog/cat?

• raw meaty bones and/or whole carcasses - chicken, lamb, pork, whole raw fish (at least once a week), beef, rabbit
• whole raw eggs in their shells (I let the dogs crack the shells)
• organ meat
• Her dogs will also get fish heads, eel, prawns, squid, and any other raw meaty carcass she can get. Sometimes this means kangaroo!

Remember that dogs and cats are carnivores and don't need vegetables and grains directly. Read from Tracey's page on the big picture.

 

To find a Holistic Vet in your area - Click Here.

If you have any questions or ideas - email us at hip@greenfeet.com

Listener Emails

• Phillipe - Wanted to know our suggestion for getting through the midterm exams - Val suggests, lots of water, as much sleep as you can get, a little lavender or vetiver for stressful situations. And she would suggest B vitamins. He also had a very good tip - he found a site (www.greenseat.be)where you can compensate your flights by paying for the planting of the amount of trees necessary to compensate the emissions caused by your flight: you can make your seat a green seat! On the site you can input your whole travel journey (including the used airline) and they calculate the amount of trees necessary to compensate for the emissions. It usually costs about 2-5% of your ticket prize but it can really make a difference...
• Jill - had cheese service - here are the cheeses she had (in case Val's pronunciations through you off) - Here is how it read in the menu: Chef Lou's Cheese Presentation: St. Nectaire (France), Cremosa Tartufo (Italy) Thomas Hoe Stephenson Stilton (England), Fiscallini San Jaoquin Gold (California) Membrillo, Lucque Olives, Spiced Nuts, Autumn Fruit and Warm Baguette.
• Karen - I just noticed that Equal Exchange very dark chocolate (my personal favorite of all of the organic chocolate I've sampled) is a good source of dietary fiber. A single serving (220 cal) of this stuff contains 20% of your daily value of dietary fiber! The lighter chocolates I've looked at don't seem to have as much fiber as the darker ones.
  How coincidental that you just did a podcast about lemon essential oil and I had recently bought some to make home-made furniture polish from the recipe in the most recent issue of Natural Home & Garden. I made this furniture polish, used it before our house guests arrived, and it worked BETTER than the lemon pledge I _used_ to use. It leaves the wood with a rich, warm glow and is not sticky (after you do the wipe with a dry rag, as they recommend). Check this stuff out - it's under "Nourish Your Wood Furniture" in the "Good to Know" section of the January/February issue.
  Recipe for Furniture Vinaigrette courtesy of the January/February issue of Natural Home & Garden Magazine
• Paul and Arlene - Stopped by the store and met Val. They had a lot of good suggestions for future green building episodes. He suggests lime plaster for the exterior of homes.
• Eileen - Have you tried Xocolatl from Dogoba.
• Johanna -Small tidbit.. if you want a finer grain raw sugar for like baking, you can put it in your blender and it can grind it down just as fine as powdered sugar. Also, in regards to xylitol… you can buy gum in some stores with the only sweetner being xylitol. Good stuff. Half the calories of regular sugar and does nothing to your glycemic index. This means its safe for diabetic people. Xylitol is also great because its good for your teeth and can help wean you from regular sugar.
• Mike - He tried out our recipe for cleaning silver on a silver tea set. Because the pieces are too big for a flat baking dish, I used a glass punch bowl so that at least half of each piece could be submerged. But the recipe wasn't working. The cleaning was happening, but barely noticable. He then did a google search on "baking soda polish silver" and found a missing ingredient with the scientific reason why it works. http://www.darylscience.com/Demos/Silver.html The trick was to add salt to the water to act as a salt bridge for the electrolytic current that transfers the sulphur on the silver to the aluminum. It was like magic. Within a minute, the tarnish was totally gone, even though the water had cooled off by the time he added the salt. You could smell the sulphur, so I'd also recommend a well ventilated place for the cleaning, unless you want the "benefits" of a sulphur hot spring in your house.
• John - You can move up from Z-list to R-list celebrities! I love your show - I'm going to buy a biodiesel VW Rabbit today thanks to your shows back in the Summer!

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