[How-to] Making Bone Broth & Vegetable Purée for your Furkid in Singapore

So you’ve heard that this is the good stuff which your dogs would totally love? Or maybe you’ve heard that Bone Broth is packed with so much nutrients and yum?

Okay, you’ve came to the right place!

Some say that our beloved pet dogs are descendants from their wolf ancestors – thus they’re a 100% carnivorous and do not need vegetables in their diet. They also believe that meats alone are sufficient to provide a full range of nutrients that dogs need.

Well, unfortunately, I’m one of those who believe otherwise. I think that a little bit of fiber and nutrients from greens do play a huge part in my furkids’ diets…. and I’m ready to put it to the test!

For me, I started the 2 furry boys on their raw diet with just a pure protein base. This consists of meat, bones, offals and some bits of liver. 🐮🐔🐑🐟

Later on, I realised from trial-and-error (honestly, just a lot of meal adjustments and monitoring smelly poo-outputs) that just proteins alone doesn’t provide the two boys with a balanced diet.

This prompted me to experiment with adding a bit of greens in their daily meals. Oh mine! The results were almost instant – better absorption, much more constant poo and the two furry boys were super energetic through the day. 🌿

Well, I’m not here to advocate the pros and cons of vegetables for dogs. For those who are interested, you can always Google for more information before you decide whether to give your dogs greens!

..I’m here to show you how to make bone broth with veggie puree for your dogs!

Bone Broth

Bone broth – or rather, stock, is a wonderful supplement not only for humans but also for your pets.

It’s pretty much common sense – All the delicious nutrients are boiled (in my case, from pork “big bones”) down and compacted with all the good stuff such as minerals, gelatin, collagen (and much more) into a pot of goodness.

This is especially handy when one is unwell, and a simple task such a taking a meal can really get tedious… or if you’re just pure lazy and want to slurp up nutrients.

There’re many methods and recipes floating around the Internet which vastly differ in measurements. Some recipes I found require all the way from 500g to 1kg of bones per serving, and others went for-and-against adding vinegar, to just a splash of vinegar, to a full cup!

For me, here’s what I used:

• 1.5kg of Pork Bone (well, there was a sale at the supermarket!)
• 40g of Wolfberries (Us Chinese, we also call it “Gei Ji“)
• 2 cloves or in my case, 7g of Garlic
• 1/3 cup or 100ml Vinegar/Lemon/Apple Cider
• 3-litres of filtered/boiled water

Many people usually skip this step – but in order to have cleaner and clearer broth, you need to pre-boil the bones first. Just cover the bones with tap water and bring to a boil. Let it sit for 30 seconds or so thereafter.

PS: Did you know that in ancient times, making “clear” nutritious soup was actually an advanced culinary form?

Now you know why: Look at how much scum and what my grandma calls – “dirty blood” – comes out from the bones after a quick boil.

Of course, at this point, remove all the scum and lightly rinse the bones under water. Make sure they’re all clean before you put them in the pot to brew.

You can also add ingredients such as chicken feet – if you wish for even more collagen boost!

Vinegar is needed to extract the nutritious minerals from the bones! You can also choose to use Apple Cider Vinegar or Lemon Juice if you prefer.

It doesn’t really matter that much – we just need something with relatively high acidity levels to get this process started… 🍋

The fastest way to do this will obviously be a pressure cooker, since the pressure in a vacuum will help break down the ingredients much quicker.

But… no worries if you don’t have one: You can always use slow-cooker or cook this using your stove, but it would take much more time as compared to a pressure cooker, and of course, more gas. Just go electric lah!

Pressure-cooking the broth save you half the time… or more. ☝🏻

For my pressure cooker, it takes about 1 hour to get the deep brown, caramel colour.

At the 4 hour mark, the broth became very thick, gooey and sticky. The bones were now starting to break apart.

Never ever give cooked bones to your dogs!

Firstly, there’s no nutritional value left – as it all went right into the soup (which it rightfully should!).

Secondly, cooked bones not only poses a choking hazard to your furkids but also a splintering risk as well. Just grab a fine sieve, and filter the soup several times in order to get the bones bits out! By this time, it probably looks like a gooey brownish sand…

Some of you might ask, why are some bone broths brown, but others in a creamy milky colour?

The answer is that it depends on how you brewed your broth. For a clear bone broth, the ratio is 1:3. Whereas for a creamy milky bone broth, much more water is needed – and the ratio is 1:5.

So don’t worry if yours isn’t milky like ramen broth! 🍜

Now, I usually let the broth cool down in ambient air before putting it in the fridge.

Being not-so-on-the-ball, I would more often than not just leave it overnight for coagulation to take place and also for the reminding fats to harden up.

After removing the fats, you should get a jelly texture of bone broth beneath it! If you wish to serve it as soup, just simply heat it up and it will turn into a watery broth!

Don’t worry if your broth is not jelly enough because it’s still packed with all the yummy nutrients that are good for both humans and dogs.

On a side note, I tried brewing it up to 36 hours before using a pressure cooker. To be honest, other than the bones becoming much more brittle (and powdery) than ever, there’s no real significant difference. So… don’t bother!

It’s recommended to finish your (or in my case, the furkids’) yummy bone broth within a week, but should you wish to keep it longer, you can freeze it and then you can keep it for months!

Vegetable Purée

As dogs can’t break down and digest cellulose cell walls, it’s important to either blend the vegetables or lightly cook them to break down the cellulose so that your furry friends can better absorb them.

Think of cellulose as a wall that is surrounding the nutrients and fiber. If the wall is not broken, there’s no way that our furkids are able to get the supposed nutrients from the vegetables.

Purée

Remember not to add too much water as the vegetables will release water once they’re crushed. Just add a little by little until you get the consistency you want, or else you might end up with vegetable soup instead of a purée. 🤣

Lightly Steamed Greens!

If you wish to go the cooked vegetable route, I prefer to lightly steam my greens as compared to boiling or microwaving as I find it helps to preserve the most nutrients while keeping the vegetables intact!

For picky dogs, you might consider blending with coconut water or bone broth into purée so that you can mix it into your dogs’ meal.

On lazy days when I don’t have sufficient bone broth or coconut water, I will just replace it with filtered water.

Vegetables can be kept in the fridge for 5 to 7 days depending on how well you store it. Do discard it if the vegetable starts to smell sour – that obviously means that it’s spoilt!

For me, I will usually make a big batch and split it into an individual container which would supposedly last a week (for my 2 furkids, at least). Then, they all go into the freezer!

This is so that every time I defrost a container, it would be a nice, measured, weekly supply for the boys.

Some pawrents count the vegetables as part of their furkid’s daily food intake allowance. For me, I treat it as an add-on on top of their daily food allowance.

Typically, I will add a tablespoon full of the veggie purée inside each meal. That’s about 6% to 10% of the meal’s weight. As it’s au-natural food, not any form of dosed medication, I’m not that hung up on how much exactly to give the boys.

With all said, different dogs have different health requirements and preferences, so you really should experiment!

Do also consult your vet or relevant canine dietary experts if you have any doubts! As always, feel free to hit me up if you’ve any questions at the comment box below! 🙂

Read my related posts;

How to Raw-feed Your Dogs in Singapore