[inmommyheaven]

Thanks for everyones help on my first question about raw. It made it quite easy to understand. I have one more question. A lot of the meat, esp. poultry at grocery stores have things added like sodium phosphates etc. Is this okay? Walmart has some quarters that are really reasonable but they say contain up to 10% solution of sodium phosphates, blah blah blah. That is the same as all the turkeys and fryer chickens unless I actually get them from the local meat market which could get quite expensive.

[briteday]

My dogs won't eat the stuff with all the salt water added. Personally I don't feed anything to my dogs that I wouldn't eat myself. Excess salt is not good for humans and it is not good for dogs either.

From an earlier post...info from Veterinary Nutrition Manual:

"100 mg of sodium per day for a 33 pound dog, daily"

Just for perspective...15% enhanced salt in 4 oz of chicken is 180 milligrams of salt.

This equates to ... for every pound (16 ounces) of chicken, by weight, 2.4 ounces is salt water. Or...if you are paying $0.50 per pound for that bag of enhanced chicken thighs you are paying 7.5 cents for salt water, per pound...that equates to 75 cents for a 10 pound bag...for salt water.

If you are in the western US, I find Foster Farms chickens go on sale for about 79 cents / pound every 6 weeks or so. It took me a long time to get going on a raw diet with my dog as my resources are pretty slim. If you find a store that carries something you feed the dogs regularly and have the storage space, you can ask the meat manager at the store if they will order it in case lot for you (often 40 pounds) at a reduced price.

To read more about this issue in the poultry industry, from the human food perspective...

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/20...ckenlabels.txt

http://www.cspinet.org/nah/vlog/poultry.html

[RawFedDogs]

Originally Posted by inmommyheaven

Thanks for everyones help on my first question about raw. It made it quite easy to understand. I have one more question. A lot of the meat, esp. poultry at grocery stores have things added like sodium phosphates etc. Is this okay? Walmart has some quarters that are really reasonable but they say contain up to 10% solution of sodium phosphates, blah blah blah. That is the same as all the turkeys and fryer chickens unless I actually get them from the local meat market which could get quite expensive.

There is controversy about that. I feed my dogs Walmart chicken quarters a few times a week and have for 5 years with no noticable problems. What they add is a saline solution or a broth. Yes, they both have salt. Excess salt is usually excreted through the kidneys. From what I understand, the whole meat industry is heading in that direction and finding meat that is not enhanced will be more and more difficult as time go on.

Other people will never feed their dogs enhanced meats saying it gives them problems. I say millions of people eat enhanced meats every day and I see no problem with it. Most people don't even know they are eating enhanced meats. The purpose of the enhancement is to make the meat more juicy and flavorful. When an animal dies, his muscles and fat start to loose moisture immediately. Enhancement replaces these lost juices.