By: Tabitha Thompson It’s Tasty Not Nasty. Dogs Naturally Magazine
Most people make an “ewww” face when you bring up the topic of eating liver. Many of us did not grow up eating this strange but powerfully nutritious food.
What’s so great about liver? For starters, it contains 10 to 100 times the nutrients of muscle meat.
Luckily, dogs and cats don’t have the same reaction. Liver is an instant hit with most of them!
What’s so great about liver? For starters, it contains 10 to 100 times the nutrients of muscle meat. You know—the stuff that’s normally eaten such as hamburger, chicken breast, etc. It has a large amount of vitamin A, several B vitamins, iron, trace minerals, and CoQ10. It’s also a good source of protein.
Grass-fed and pasture-raised animals produce liver with a better nutrient profile, but that doesn’t mean you should skip using liver if you can’t find grass-fed products.
Although the liver does clean toxins from the body, it is not a storage organ for those toxins. If all you can get is conventionally-produced liver, it still has great nutritional benefits.
Eating Liver Benefits the Liver
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, liver from different animals may have slightly different properties, but many of them are “sweet” in flavor, benefit the Liver, benefit eyes/vision, and tonify Blood. It may be used in cases of “Blood deficiency,” and “Essence deficiency.”
Even if you don’t have any knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine, it’s easy to understand how eating liver might help a debilitated, fatigued, possibly anemic animal, when it has such a high nutrient content.
Something to keep in mind if you decide to feed your pets liver: it’s very rich and may cause loose stools if too much is fed.
Start with about half a tablespoon every few days for a medium-sized dogs/cats and watch the stools. If they get loose, decrease the frequency of feeding and/or the amount given each time.
There are a few dogs who have problems with copper metabolism. Beef liver is fairly high in copper. If your dog/cat has copper issues, discuss it with your veterinarian before feeding it.
Different Ways to Serve Liver to Dogs/Cats
If your pet tolerates it without developing loose stools, you should consider feeding up to 1 oz. of liver per day for a medium to large dog, and up to 0.5 oz. per day or small dogs and cats.
Feeding double that amount of liver only 2-3 times a week is another good strategy. Just to be safe, don’t exceed those amounts as there is some possibility of vitamin A overdose if large quantities are eaten.
Liver is readily available in most grocery stores. Look for plastic containers of chicken livers in the meat department. Beef liver is often found in the freezer section.
If you are at a butcher shop or farmer’s market, just ask if they have any liver for sale. Sometimes they don’t display it, but have it available on request.
Liver may be served lightly cooked or raw if you have a trusted source and your dog/cat is accustomed to raw foods. I use dehydrated beef liver for treats.
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Natural is always better. For thousands of years nature has chosen Raw Food as the diet for ancestors of dogs and cats. But this does not mean that you have to hunt prey for your best buddies. Buddy Raw Pet Food for dogs and cats is a mix of meat, bones and organs designed to simulate what they eat in the wild. Know more
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