Cooking with Koly: Green Bean & Chicken Dog TreatsPupLove

Categorized | Cooking With Koly, Healthy Dogs

Tags | chicken, cooking with koly, green beans, recipe

Cooking with Koly: Green Bean & Chicken Dog Treats

Posted on 22 May 2012 by Jodi

This post is a part of the K9 Kamp hosted by Kol’s Notes & Peggy’s Pet Place. Do you want to get fit and have fun with Fido, plus win great prizes? Take the K9 Kamp Challenge.

Snacks: All the cool dogs are doing ‘em.

Actually, all the cool dogs are over-doing ‘em. It’s estimated that almost HALF the pet population is overweight. Everyday on our walks, see more pets in my neighborhood in need of a nutritional intervention and a little tough love. It’s time to lay off the Snausages and Milkbones. (They are smelly and gross and full of junk anyways.)

It’s no wonder our pets are over weight.

Many of the most popular dog treats are a calorie bonanza, serving up way more treat than is healthy. Most people don’t even know how many calories a day their dog should be getting n the first place. When did giving your dog a cookie become so complicated? The more relaxed pet food labeling standards make it really difficult to know just how many calories are in that canine cookie and it would take a math wiz to figure it out based on the information they give you.

I’m always a little amazed by the sky-high calorie counts.

I mean, I knew a lot of dog treats could be considered “junk food” but I never realized it was this bad – until I started to study canine nutrition. Dd you know there are:

300 calories in a large Dentabone
115 calories n a large Milkbone
25 calories in a Pupperoni or a Snausage
a staggering 600 – 625 calories in a large Busy Bone or a Jumbone
30 calories n a Beggin’ Strip
45 calories n a T-Bonez Treat

That’s a whole lot of empty calories considering your dog would be just as happy, probably even happier, with some ridiculously easy to make, single ingredient real meat dog treats.

You can even make vegetable treats that dogs will love.

You need:

2 cups fresh or frozen green beans
1 cup Meat Munchie Dog Treats (find the recipe here) or Dog Jerky Treats (win some here)
1 tsp. olive oil

Preheat to 150F or get our your counter top dehydrator. (What?! You don’t have a counter top dehydrator?? Get one. They make the best dog treats.)

In a food processor, blender or the Magic Bullet (my fav), grind Meat Munchies or jerky into a fine powder. Break the beans on to bite sized pieces.

Place beans in small plastic bag and add oil, tossng to coat the beans. Add powdered chicken, then Shake it like Shake & Bake, baby! Once the green bean pieces are coated with chicken, lay them out on a cookie sheet or in the counter top dehydrator. Allow beans to cook for 3 – 5 hours or until they are crunchy. Store in an airtight container for up to 30 days.

Voila! That’s it. Delicious, Nutrition and oh so easy to make!

These guilt-free treats are a great way to show your dog that you care without packing on the pounds. Just enough meat to tempt their taste buds, with a super lean, low calorie veggie like green beans at the core. It’s a match made n doggy heaven. Trust me, a healthy, fit pet is a happy pet.

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About the Author

Jodi is a canine nutrition and small animal naturopathy student hailing from beautiful Vancouver, BC. (That’s in Canada, eh?) She loves to experiment in the kitchen, creating tasty (and healthy) treats for her two dogs, Felix & Kolchak and the rest of her family. Jodi’s blog, Kol's Notes follows the antics of the irrepressible Kolchak as he celebrates good food, good friends and the good life.

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