Balance It

Sabina Pierce (Barbaro's photographer) and I met with Dr. Kathryn Michel, University of Pennsylvania veterinary nutritionist on Wednesday at Penn in connection with a project on which we are collaborating. No, neither one of us have given up on our Barbaro books. We are also pursuing a joint venture that needs to remain nebulous until we sell it.

Anyway, for those of you who feed your pets home cooked pet food, Dr. Michel offered us some very interesting information, some of which I had actually heard before from her when I interviewed her for a paper I was writing on the topic last year. You should know that Dr. Michel is a big fan of proven, commercial pet food because of the controlled and consistent nature of its production. Yes, I know all about the pet food recall, but Michel's point is that a can of Science Diet I/D is always a can of Science Diet I/D--you and your pet know what is in it. And while she agrees that pets diets do need variety, the simple truth is that is complicated to supplement these diets with the proper amount of vitamins and minerals to make them complete and nutritional.

There is the potential for a slew of variations in every batch of home-prepared pet food ranging from the fat content of the beef, the quality of the ingredients selected and how carefully the person preparing the food is adhering to the recipe. You know that two people can make chocolate chip cookies from the same recipe on the package of semi-sweet morsels and come out with cookies that look and taste different.

And then there is the matter of supplements. Pets have different nutritional requirements than people--people food is not nutritionally balanced for pets. Dr. Michel told us a story about a kitten who had a broken leg because he wasn't getting enough calcium in his home-cooked diet.

Anyway, the good news is that for those who do cook food for their pets, there is a new website: balanceit.com that was developed by veterinary nutritionists at the University of California, Davis. If you click on the section for pet owners, it will provide you with some sample recipes suitable for home preparation as well as a list of the nutritional supplements you need to add to make the recipes complete and balanced. The even better news, however, is that the site sells a product: Balance It--that is a nutritional supplement that can be added to home cooked food to make it pet appropriate. The recipes give directions for how much Balance It to add to each recipe based on the size of the pet consuming the food.

Dr. Michel heartily endorses the product--they use it at Penn--and admits it has made her life a lot easier. If you are going to go to all the trouble to cook for your pet, it seems silly not to include the supplements that will make your effort nutritionally sound.