Heidi is a 14 year old weimaraner lab mix(so says the vet) and gets walked several miles twice a day. She acts like a puppy in the morning when it's cool. People are so surprised when they find out how old she is. I lost both my prior weimers when AC was only 10 she died of liver failure, and I lost Star at 12, she had a tumor compromising her lungs, because I didn't become vegan soon enough to save her and she had only been vegan 2 of those 12 years. I miss Star so much.....
Heidi
Star
Dogs are herbivores, like people, and like people can thrive and improve their health on a vegan or plant based whole grain diet. There are vegan dog foods on the market.
But like highly processed vegan people food, vegan dog food isn't necessarily the healthiest option. So I cook for Heidi twice a day and every meal starts with potatoes.
I cook the potatoes in the microwave and then chop them into potato cubes.
This is just a small portion of the potato cubes I give her, I usually fill her bowl with a large russet potato. There are also some yellow potatoes in there.
Then I cook 2 cups of dried black beans with 7 cups of water for 2 hours in the Instant Pot and I pour about a quarter cup, 3-4 Tbsp, onto the potatoes. When you cook the black beans in the Instant Pot, don't drain the beans. Use the juice of the beans to add moisture to the potatoes. You can see in the photo that I stored the beans in their juice.
If you cook 2 cups of dried black beans with just 6 cups of water for 2 hours, the beans come out almost like refried beans. Delicious, but without the extra gravy I use on Heidi's food.
Then when I am making my salad for the day,
I save the kale stems.
and I chop them finely,
then add these to the potato bean mixture. (This time I added the kale leaves)
She also likes the kale leaves
chopped
She likes shredded carrots on her potatoes as well:
and then I usually add a little(about an eighth cup of vegan kibble(vegan dog food)-you can see a piece here or there), to the potato, black bean, kale stem, carrot and then the gravy:)
Now the gravy can be jam mixed with water, can be dry peanut butter and water(which makes low fat peanut butter-thin it with enough water to make a gravy), or one of Heidi's favorites, aquafaba, the juice from garbanzo beans. To make aquafaba, I cook 2 cups of dried garbanzo beans with 6 cups of water for 2 hours in the Instant Pot.
I found the dried garbanzo beans at Winco for $1.17 a pound or some such. Delicious garbanzo beans too:) I bought cooked garbanzo beans at Ralphs recently and they were not even cooked, and when I finished cooking them in my Instant Pot they had no flavor. These dried beans from Winco cooked up yummy garbanzo beans.
Then instead of just rinsing the garbanzo beans in the sink and saving just the beans, get a bowl and colander and nest them
then dump your beans and aquafaba into the colander and all the beans will be caught by the colander but the aquafaba will flow into the bowl underneath
This aquafaba is an excellent gravy for Heidi's potato mixture and she loves it! Save it in a container
and just pour some of this right over her potato mixture. And her food is done.
I used to give Heidi peanut butter sandwiches in the morning and potato mixture at night. Heidi before she was vegan, got a fat tumor on the side of her belly that has been tested and is just a fat tumor.
But did you hear that. FAT tumor. So I didn't want to contribute to her fat tumor and so I stopped feeding her peanut butter and started feeding her this potato mixture twice a day. If your dog doesn't have fat tumors, dogs love peanut butter sandwiches. Now that Heidi hasn't had peanut butter for awhile, she snubs her nose at peanut butter sandwiches. Go figure! Good luck feeding your dog vegan and watch her or his health improve the same way your health has improved eating plant based whole grain. Heidi has made it to 14 years old. And she keeps getting it on so....
If Heidi is still hungry after her potato mixture I could just give her more whole wheat bread or I could cut up the whole wheat bread and pour my beet pickle juice on the bread and that way she gets apple cider vinegar every day:) When Heidi was leaking, they say that if your dog gets fixed early in life(she was fixed at 6 mos.), she has a propensity to leak when she gets older. Heidi was leaking but I think she was eating cat poop or the neighbors were giving her dog treats that weren't vegan, I don't know? But since the neighbors moved out she doesn't leak anymore. Or I could give her fuji apples, or watermelon or any fruit or vegetable. She also loves my spaghetti sauce(the sicilian sauce recipe on this site) so I just water down a small amount and pour it over her food.
To create the pickling juice, I just steam my beets and then I lift the steamer basket out of the pan, taking the beets out, and save the liquid. Then I add copious amounts of Apple Cider Vinegar(Braggs)(ACV) into the pot until I can taste the vinegar and it makes the beet juice taste sour(I didn't put in exact measurements for the amount of ACV or honey because everyone will have different amounts of beets water to work with-depending upon how big a pot is used, how much water steamed off from the pot, etc.). Then I pour honey into the pot until the mixture sweetens and is not sour anymore but has a little bite because of the ACV. Then I peel the skin off the beets and chop them smaller. Then I add them back into the pot without the steamer basket right into the pickled juice and then store them in jars with the juice. There is generally more juice than beets right off the bat so juice to spare right into Heidi's bread bowl:)
And she loves it!!! Licks the bowl clean every time!!
