For food to be nutritious, it has to actually be chewable.

After I started making my own food, and in this case dog food, I came across a truism.

For food to be nutritious, it has to actually be chewable.

After all if you eat dry popcorn kernels, they're just going to pass through you and eventually try to sprout corn along the banks of the river. 

Or where ever that stuff goes.  I never got popcorn to sprout in my garden either up North or down here in Florida.  It must need more water or something.  I'll leave that to the farmers, I'm having too much luck growing Mango Trees.

I have four in pots, one in the ground.  I only wanted two.  It's a long story.  Neighbor's tree was a Special Variety from Thailand that had super thin skin and tasted like Mango Ice Cream no matter how eaten.  Neighbor moved away and any time one fell on the ground and into the street, I grabbed it.  So to preserve the tree, I have one in the pot.  To make sure I got one, I planted four.  All four sprouted. 

If you are nearby and want one, let's talk - based on availability and so forth.

Anyway, about the dog food. 

My usual recipe has been developed to keep Mr Dog, Rack the McNab SuperDog(TM) at a stable weight.  The vet thinks he looks amazing after all these years.  He's almost 13, I would have to check my records, and has been through all the issues of having sensitivity to fat, poultry, and grain. 

My recipe has none of that, or at least as little as possible.  Pancreatitis is avoided because the meat I use, burger meat, is boiled and the fat is skimmed before added to the vegetable mix.  Ladled out to a jar and then properly disposed of. 

Since that original recipe has been developed years ago, the actual ingredients have shifted along with the process.  I make the food twice a week, so I will have to re-master the recipe so the efficiency tweaks can be incorporated.

The de-fatted dog food is healthier than I generally eat.  But it has a what we will call the Pea Popping Problem. 

Start with putting the beef on the stove with water to get the mix to boiling to render out the fat.

Then, start on the Veg.

3 ounces of bulk frozen peas are put into the microwave for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. 

When the peas come out they are blisteringly hot.  But they are also frozen before I get them so they are uncooked.  I think I may even be able to get them to germinate if I threw them into the garden like so much popcorn kernels that won't grow.

That popcorn thing really annoys me.  When I want fresh, I prefer homegrown.  If it can't be then, peas or popcorn, I will have to settle for homemade.

After those 2:30, those peas are little green ball bearings.  I could get an electric blender or a food processor to blast them into a paste but that would not work for me because that means the dishwasher would be filled. 

Yes, I use great-grandmom's potato masher and try to turn them into mush.

Since I don't manage to burst all of them at once, and some remain un-popped, I end up with some that make it through the cooking process and are more like what was once called "Roughage".  Dietary Fiber.

How do I know?  Because I follow Rack around during the walks, "pick up" after him.  If I popped all his Peas, he would not pass unpopped peas. 

While this is getting too alliterative, the point remains, they are not nutritive if they aren't popped.

Three times a day, I feed him, and each time, the food goes into the microwave to take the chill off.  When it comes out, I reach into the food in his bowl and mix it by stirring with a finger.

Microwaves will leave your food with hot spots.  A hot spot will burn a dog's mouth just like it will burn your own.  This way you can be sure as you will burn your own finger just like testing baby bottles on your arm.

While I am stirring this and burning my finger, I stop when I spot an unpopped pea, and squeeze it between my fingers.  I don't ever get them all, but this is a partial solution and a good one.

I convert something that is not nutritionally available to a dog with not a complete set of teeth to something biologically available.  The peas are split, and his shorter digestive tract can process the green goodness into energy.

He may be older but he still has a lot of energy left.

So since I won't chew his food and feed him the stuff directly, this is a better and much less disgusting way to get him the food energy.

At least since they don't have doggy dentures to replace the molars he wasn't born with.