The Pantry and the Pill Treat
IWelcome back. What I want to share today is how I keep my pantry stocked so I always have healthy ingredients on hand to be able to make Ruby’s pill treats. If you have read any of my previous blogs or watched my videos, you know that I make a healthy homemade pill treat for Ruby. I've been doing this now for a number of years and have created a number of recipes for Ruby. I started making the pill treats when I decided to stop using the store-bought pill treats. I was concerned with the ingredients found in the store brand and with the cost of the pre-made treats. I now make sure to have plenty of ingredients in my pantry that allows for me to make pill treats for Ruby whenever I need to. Here are the items I make sure to keep stocked in my pantry.
The ingredients for the pill treats I make are soft, super easy to make, and Ruby loves them. If you’d like to check out my different recipes my book Homemade Pill Treats by Mandy Lee on Amazon is a great source for over thirty recipes as well as pilling tips and tricks.
I always begin with making sure that I have enough flour. The flour brand I use is Bob’s Red Mill brand, but you can use any brand you like or have available to you. I always make sure to have oat flour, brown rice flour, and coconut flour in my pantry. Once you open the package the flour will last longer if you keep it refrigerated.
The next ingredient I always have in my pantry is unflavored gelatin. There are two brands I buy right now. The Great Lakes and Now Foods Gelatins (typically beef gelatin). Both are high quality gelatins that you can use with your dog. Gelatin is a great ingredient to use with your dog with epilepsy and I plan on writing about the benefits of gelatin in a future blog. The gelatin dissolves into the liquid and helps create a dough texture that allows you to easily form the treat shape. Please make sure you use an unflavored gelatin and not a dessert gelatin.
The next ingredient I keep on hand is different forms of liquids that I use to create the pill treat dough. Different examples are non-dairy milks such as coconut milk, almond milk, and oat milk. Other liquids I frequently use are broths such as bone broth, beef broth, and chicken broth (preferably always low sodium). You can also use dairy milk. Water is always an option for the liquid in the pill treat, which is free and less calories for your pup.
The next ingredients are the fun mix-in ingredients! The ingredients listed so far could make an adequate pill treat but if we want to have a little bit more fun and make our dogs really, really happy, the next ingredients that I keep on hand are the mix-ins that I use to create the different flavors for the pill treat. For example, peanut butter as well as other nut butters like almond butter, cashew butter and sunflower butter. Baby food has become one of my hacks for the pill treats that allows me to create so many different flavors that require no mashing or pureeing. Canned pumpkin puree is a great option (just make sure to buy pure pumpkin).
To increase the nutrition factor you can use coconut oil to add healthy fats and you can also use it to reduce the amount of other higher sugar mix-ins such as peanut butter for an even healthier pill treat for your pup. To add texture, you can add some finely chopped carrots or oatmeal.
These are all of the products that when you have them on hand you can make a variety of healthy pill treats for dogs. You won’t ever have to rely on store-bought pill treats again! Thanks for returning back to learn with me as I learn with Ruby.