Sunday, July 25, 2010

Dog Food Recipes for Allergies: A Recipe for Relief

The most common complaint dog owners have when visiting their veterinarian are skin and ear issues.  When exposed to an irritant, a dogs system reacts with skin and ear issues. As humans we typically react with nasal issues.  Symptoms can include: itching, scratching, chewing, front paw licking, hot spots, shaking of the head, crusting, scaling, paw irritation, yeast growth in ears or pads, ear wax, ear rubbing, hair loss and scratching or rubbing the face.  


If your dog has allergies there can be a few different sources.  


Seasonal: mold, spores, dust mites, ragweed and pollen can all affect a dog and cause an allergic reaction.  If this is the case with your dog, Benadryl can be a good way to keep the symptoms under control.  Consult with your veterinarian if you suspect seasonal allergies and be sure to use the appropriate dosage for a dog.


Fleas: flea saliva can be very irritating to a dog that is allergic.  Often you will see a dog go into a scratching and chewing frenzy when trying to deal with the reaction from a flea bite.  Dogs will chew themselves raw trying to find comfort from flea saliva, its common to see dogs with bald spots on the tail and the general hind area as a result of flea allergies.  There are many good products on the market today to help combat flea allergies from topical ointments, sprays, medicated shampoos, dips and even home defoggers.


Food: If your dog is experiencing year-round allergies it’s quite possible that it’s caused by an ingredient in his or her food.  It is fairly common to see dogs with some degree of allergic sensitivity to commercial dog food.  The brand or quality of a given dog food may have no bearing in the allergic reaction that your dog experiences.  The cause would more likely be a specific ingredient or a combination of ingredients.  Commercial dog food contains soy products, grains, gluten, corn, preservatives, colorings and either a meat or meat by-product.  Most of these ingredients alone could cause an allergic reaction, but all together it is a lot for a canine’s system to handle.  It becomes very difficult trying to pin point a specific ingredient that may be affecting your dog.  There are too many substances and additives in commercial dog food that a dog was never meant to eat and are not appropriate for their physiology.

 
The best way to overcome food allergies is to put your dog on a diet that is more in line with the canine physiology.  Homemade prepared meals ensure that you know exactly what is in your dog’s food.  It’s the only way to be in total control and provide optimal nutrition and well-being.  Dogs require diets that are high in protein and low in carbohydrates.  It’s best to start them off slow, gradually weaning them off their current food by reducing the amount they eat while increasing the amount of prepared cooked food over about a period of 10 days.  Once your dog is 100% on a homemade diet, keep the ingredients that you use to a low number, maybe only 3.  If your dog has no issues with those ingredients you can start to add some more nutritious items, but do so one at a time and give your dog a few days to make sure that the newest ingredient is ok with their systems.  You should start to use a good vitamin and mineral supplement.  Do a little homework and be aware of the foods your dog cannot eat.  Grapes, raisins, avocado, onions, garlic, caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, macadamia nuts and mushrooms can all be toxic and poisonous.  Find some homemade dog food recipes and dog food recipes for allergies and start out slowly.

A homemade diet provides the best nutrition available and can be easy and economical to prepare.  Your dog will love the variety and be a much healthier and happier canine.



 

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Survey Famous Filipino Food Recipes At Lutong Bahay

Any Filipino or non-Filipino who wants to see the breadth of Philippine culinary traditions can make a sweeping survey of famous Filipino food or pagkaing Pinoy recipes online at the lutong bahay website, rather than at lutong pinoy.com. The Filipino food recipes at the lutong bahay website can easily be accessed from any point in the world with an internet connection. At any time of the day, anyone can try out any of the recipes according to his or her craving.

Practically any of the Filipino lutong bahay foods that most Filipinos have either grown up with or heard of are at the lutong bahay repository. There are Pinoy breakfast recipes, viands or lutong ulam recipes and snacks or merienda recipes. With all the free recipes presented made even more tempting with pictures from the Philippines, Pilipino cuisine is indeed spotlighted.

Hearty food is the hallmark of every Filipino home and gathering in the Philippines and around the world. Non-Filipinos who have been invited to share in such feasts know this too well. It is a natural result of such a passion for food that Filipino or Pinoy cooking has produced hundreds of Filipino dishes. There are traditional Philippine or Pilipino foods recipes that have been handed down through history, there are variations from such classics and there are also entirely new recipes created by the new generation.

Mga lutong Pinoy and lutong Pilipino are phrases Filipinos use to refer to Filipino cooking while mga lutong bahay and lutuing bahay are phrases that refer to home cooked food. When looking through lutong bahay free recipes or lutong Pinoy free recipes from the Philippines online, one can surely pick out the best healthy and easy Filipino foods recipes. There are also Mama Sita recipes made for time challenged modern cooks, using ready mixes for traditional Filipino recipes. One need no longer prepare everything from scratch or use the native palayok or earthen pot.

From the wide selection of Ilocano, Pampanga, Tagalog and Visayan foods, dishes and recipes, along with other regional specialties, anyone can create a full lutong Pinoy menu for a year long calendar of everyday meals and special occasions. This may include favorites like the Batangas bulalo recipe, originally with Batangas beef; the Dagupan, Pangasinan pigar pigar recipe, originally with carabao meat; the Lucena, Quezon pancit chami recipe, originally with freshly made noodles; and vegetable recipes such as an Ilocano saluyot recipe, sinigang sa bayabas, sinigang sa miso, and ginisang togue. Filipino food recipes for fish and seafood will also surely be included, such as the seafood kare kare recipe, the popular sweet and sour lapu - lapu recipe, the Spanish sardines recipe, the crab Maritess recipe, the rellenong pusit recipe, and the ginataang tilapia recipe.

Apart from eating hearty at home, Filipinos also love to go out to eat. This is why the free Filipino recipes at lutong bahay include Filipino commercial favorites like a Jollibee style spaghetti recipe, a siopao sauce recipe, a hopia recipe, a sylvanas recipe and the best ube chiffon cake recipe. There are also collections of articles on food, cooking and related events like the Lanzones Festival 2010.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Can Cookies Cure Diarrhea?

Yes, it appears that cookies can cure diarrhea, if they're the right kind of cookies.


I first read about it in a newspaper article a few months ago, and have since come across more references and testimonials.


The cookies in question are coconut macaroons, and even people who have suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome or Chrohn's Disease for many years are finding relief by eating just a couple of cookies per day.


But it's not just for chronic sufferers. Several people mentioned using it for occasional digestive upsets - and some keep it on hand for their dogs - although the dogs got half a cookie rather than two cookies.


Why does this work?


It's the coconut oil. Macaroons are mainly composed of dried coconut, which is 60-70% fat (coconut oil.) Unlike polyunsaturated oils such as soy, corn, and other vegetable oils, coconut oil contains "medium chain triglycerides, or fatty acids known as MCT's.

These MCT's are more easily absorbed in the intestines, and apparently help other nutrients become absorbed as well.

Polyunsaturated oils contain longer chain fatty acids (LCT's), which increase inflammation in the intestines. Interestingly, studies done in Denmark and Belgium have shown that when eaten along with MCT's, the LCT's are absorbed more readily.


Thus, the coconut oil puts the brakes on diarrhea by helping your body absorb the food you eat. But you don't have to limit yourself to coconut macaroon cookies. Pure virgil coconut oil is available for use in cooking, and is actually superior to olive oil for frying because it doesn't degrade at high heats.


For many, the use of coconut oil for cooking has allowed them to resume eating fried foods and baked goods that had become off-limits due to their body's reaction to the LCT's in other oils.

Others found that they were able to regain weight lost as a result of chronic diarrhea.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Vegetarian Food Recipes - 5 Reasons You Should Try Them!

Why go vegan? You'll be surprised how many benefits you can reap from trying vegetarian food recipes. Here are five of them for starters.


Eating dairy products and meat can make you fat. If you think you can load up on meat and still stay lean, think again. Super-sized meals and a greasy fast food diets have made the U.S. a "fatter" nation as a whole. 18 percent of meat-eating Americans are obese. In contrast, only 2 percent of those who are on a pure vegan diet have to worry about their weight.


Heart diseases usually start in childhood. Meat is laden with cholesterol and fat, and has no fiber. It increases the risk of coming down with heart diseases; and this is precisely why Dr. Benjamin Spock urges parents not to feed very young children meat.


A vegan diet may reverse heart diseases.In a study, it was found that vegetarian food recipes can go a long way in helping unclog arteries.

This information is not entirely new, though. The medical community has acknowledged the role that one's eating habits play on one's health.

Meat has a high risk of contamination. In the U.S. alone, over 50 million cases of food borne illnesses relating to meat have been documented. This isn't new information, either. For years, people have known animals accumulate dangerously high levels of harmful chemicals in their fat and flesh.


Chicken is not clean. Sure, you love your broiler chicken. But, would you still feel the same way if you knew that 98 percent of all broiler chicken carcasses have detectable presence of E.Coli? This bacterial presence points to fecal contamination. In other words, every chicken package you get for yourself and your family comes with a little poop.


If you value your health, try to eat less meat and use vegetarian food recipes more.

Your body will thank you for it!