My dog has some health issues and I’m making her dog food myself. I’d like to add more organ meats to her diet, but they aren’t too common in my grocery store. They usually have chicken livers and occasionally beef tongue, but not much else.
I happened to be reading the ingredients for chorizo (a Mexican-type of sausage) and saw it had lymph nodes and salivary glands. That got me wondering if there are other foods which are made with organ meat which I don’t know about. The joke used to be that hot dogs were, but I think that’s all changed now.
So are there other foods which are somewhat commonly found in a grocery store and contain organ meats as some of their main ingredients?
I don’t think you want to be feeding a dog a lot of heavily processed, spicy, salty sausage-type things.
How about other poultry giblets, like gizzards and hearts? You might be able to find beef heart in some places, too. Ask around at a grocery store that still has a butcher on-site.
Don’t feel like you shouldn’t mention something because you don’t know if it’s appropriate for dogs. I’ll do the research to see if it’s okay for them to eat. I’m sure a lot of the foods with organ meat are designed for human palates and digestive systems.
Potted meat product and Vienna sausage, if I remember correctly. Could be mostly lips and snouts but I think there’s some hearts, tripe and such in there.
It almost makes me want to try brains in milk. It has to be fantastic to get over the yuck factor.
I looked up offal on wikipedia and it has a lot of food products, but hardly any are found in my store. I may need to try an ethnic grocery. One thing I saw which is commonly available is Hormel potted meat, which contains tripe and hearts.
I’d also stay away from sausage and processed meats (in large amounts, anyhow) for dogs. For one thing, it’s more expensive. (I’ve fed primarily raw to my dogs for 14 years.) For another, very rich and fatty meats can easily cause dire rear in dogs not used to eating a wide variety of food.
In “ethnic” grocery stores and some regular markets I can buy plain tripe, beef/pork/lamb heart, all sorts of liver, turkey and chicken gizzards and hearts, beef kidney, chitterlings (intestines) and pig testicles. :eek: Usually pretty cheap, too.
If your dog is small and you want to add organ meats, check out some of the more boutique-type pet stores or go online. You can get dog treats made out of freeze-dried green tripe, lamb lung, liver and other odd bits of animals.
As others have said, most products made from organ meats are going to have a lot of other ingredients like salt, spices, or fat added in.
I’m assuming your supermarket has a butcher’s department. They may not have organ meat on display but they should have no trouble getting some for you. Most likely they have it in the store. If not, they can easily obtain it. They’ll probably even chop it up or grind it for you if you think your dog would be better off eating it that way.
in dogs not used to eating a wide variety of food.