How to bake healthier dog biscuits to help clean your dog's teeth

June 16, 9:42 PMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

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Here's how to bake from scratch your own healthier beef liver and flour or meal dog biscuits (without sugar or salt) that even may help to clean your dog's teeth when the sponge-like cakes get slightly stale overnight in the refrigerator and just a bit hardened.

Keep your dog's diet low in grains or grain-free as much as possible. Use sweet potato flour mixed with eggs and pureed liver or baby food (turkey, lamb, veal, or chicken).

This recipe gives you a fresh cake with a sponge-like texture for dogs. The cake is made of liver and whole grain flour or meal and eggs, and has no sugar, salt, or other seasonings.

If you mix just flour, pureed liver, and water and bake as a cracker, without the eggs, you'll get a cracker texture. Don't use chicken livers. Use beef livers.

You can add an optional 1/4 teaspoon of cod liver oil and/or 1/4 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil to the batter, if desired, whether or not you use the recipe version with or without eggs. The eggs give the dog treat a sponge-cake texture. Without the eggs, you basically get a brittle cracker texture that easily breaks into crumbs.

Ingredients

* 1/2 cup sweet potato flour, buckwheat flour, or garbanzo bean flour. (Some dogs are allergic to wheat flour.)
* 2 eggs
* 1 1/2 pounds beef liver, cut into pieces or two jars of human baby food (turkey, lamb, veal, or chicken).

Variations: Add two tablespoons of wheat germ or rice bran to the sweet potato flour or garbanzo flour mix. Optional: Add 1/4 teaspoon of cod liver oil and/or 1/4 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil to the batter. Some health food stores carry pea flour, but generally sweet potato flour will keep your dog on a grain-free diet as much as possible.

If your dog is diabetic or overweight, ask your veterinarian whether the oil should be added to the treat. Otherwise, the dog will get the required fats from the beef liver. You can substitute two jars of human baby food (meat only) instead of beef liver.

If  your dog is not diabetic, you could add 1/4 cup of pureed carrots or blueberries to the batter. Dogs can't digest vegetables that aren't pureed. Never feed grapes to your dog as it's toxic to dogs.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a 10x15 inch shallow pan with parchment paper.

2. Place the liver into your blender or food processor. Pulse until finely chopped. Slowly spoon in the flour and eggs, stir out the lumps, and process until you see a smooth liver and grain paste. Or put the pureed liver into a bowl and slowly add the flour and eggs. Stir the batter gently. Spread evenly in the pan that you first have lined with parchment paper.

3. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven. If it's not done, bake until the center is firm when you stick a fork in it. Cool, and cut into squares. Store in the refrigerator in a sealed jar. The treats will have a consistency similar to a sponge cake.

There's even dog biscuit mix for those that don't want to make dog biscuits or treats from scratch. Or if you're making your own dog treats, you have a choice of flour. Try to avoid wheat flours to which so many dogs are allergic. Instead use buckwheat flour. Buckwheat is not wheat.

Or use oats or sweet potato flour. Look at various potato flours in your health food store. Dogs shouldn't be on a high grain-based diet. Minimize the grains in your dog treats and maximize the meat and eggs along with vegetables such as pureed carrots and peas.

See the video below on how to make your own dog biscuits. Also check out the site (Green-HouseTV) mentioned in the video to see more recipes on how to make your own dog biscuits and treats. The recipe in the video uses peanut butter. If you do decide to use a tiny amount of peanut butter in a dog treat, don't use the type that contains trans-fats such as hydrogenated  oils. Instead use organic roasted peanut butter that has no other added fats in it, or puree your own roasted peanuts in a blender.