Eating bones and pet food page

[Barefoot Paul]

Ok. I did a quick search and didn't notice any threads about the bone part, and I figured I would just throw the pet food in there too.

I just wanted to say that I'm fairly new here and have been eating primal for a few months yet. I'm also on a pretty slim budget so finding cheap foods is high on my to-do list.

So my question. Can we eat bones? From which animals? On the blog today Mark talked about eating bone marrow. I've never done this, but will try it the next time i have some money laying around to buy food. But chicken bones? Like can you just eat the bone thats left over? How do you eat it? Do you just chow down on it with your molars and break it apart? What other animal bones can we eat? Does anybody have experience eating bones a different way. How do you cook a bone thats going to be eaten? Being on a tight budget I want to get everything out of my food that i can. I usually throw the bones to my roomates dog, but if I can eat them then thats exactly what I'll do. Do our bodies actually digest the bones? Or am I going to be in some pain a day or so later when I squat down on the toilet?

Secondly, I noticed that somebody mentioned that they saw some natural/organic dog food that had tasty organ meat parts in it. Anybody tried eating this stuff? What did you think? If i consider trying this is there anything i should look out for?

Thanks in advance!

-Paul

[john_e_turner_ii]

I don't think you actually eat the bones, just the marrow inside the bones. You have to be careful with chicken bones as they splinter more than cattle bones.

As far as dog food, no, never tried it, and probably never will. I guess it could be good though.

[PrairieProf]

Well, for dogs, eating raw bones is safe and healthy; it's cooked bones that splinter. NEVER feed cooked bones to any dog -- very dangerous!! But I have no insight on human bone-eating.

Why would you eat dog food when if you want to eat organs there are fresh foods like liver, chicken livers, and plenty of more exotic fare available? (Ethnic grocery stores tend to have more interesting stuff than "mainstream" ones.)

[Suki]

Um - you can certainly eat bones.

I made Rabbit ragu the other night and just threw in the whole thing and cooked in my dutch oven for a few hours. All but the dense leg bones get all soft and are definitely edible. It's an acquired taste / texture for sure but they're so good for you.

Also - I'm a big tinned salmon eater. Bone-in.

Not sure I'll be eating dog food anytime soon, though.

[Suki]

Oh, and for the bones you can't eat... bone broth!

[Barefoot Paul]

I'll check out ethnic grocery stores. Thats a good place to start i guess. I'll remember the cooked bone thing when feeding bones to my roomates dog. So there is no reason to eat bones? I thought people cooked them in stews? Is that just to extract the marrow?

[mimm2578]

When I grew up my mom used to make a beef stew with beef fore shank. It was very good; we used to eat it with corn torrtillas onto which I put the marrow from the bones.

[vnumus]

If you look at U.S. Wellness website they sell petfood made with grassfed ground beef, liver, kidneys, etc. Its considerably cheaper than the plain ground beef. I bought about 10# of it and its really good. Has a different, almost sweeter taste to it. I think another place that sells it is called Slankers, also grassfed. You have to order in larger quantites to get the shipping down, but its worth it. It's especially good making meatloah. I'll use a pound of petfood to a pound of reg. ground beef. btw- it comes in 1# packs....

[Diana Renata]

The only thing even remotely close to eating pet food that I've done (I know, I know) is sampling some unflavored "dog" jerky my dad bought from Omaha Steaks. It's sold in the "pet food" section but it's just unflavored jerky. It wasn't bad. He bought it for the dog but the dog (a jack russell who likes veggies) wouldn't eat it, so I did.

On the other hand, my dad is a huge fan of the dog cookies they sell at Petco- LOL. I'll admit, as far as cookies go, they're not bad! At least those, unlike people cookies, are made from real ingredients.

If you want really cheap food and organ meat, get to know your local butcher. I can get hearts, tongues, livers and kidneys for practically nothing. Nobody wants them really, so they end up with a surplus. My butcher even saved a huge box full of fat for me, and soup bones.

[kennelmom]

I skimmed the replys, but my own .02 is that (like with dogs) cooked bones would be OK if they were cooked until softened. If you boil the heck out of a chicken carcass long enough you can mash it all up. We've done this in the past for dogs after dental surgery.

As for eating dog food...I'm not sure I'd want to do that. Ew. Don't recall how I stumbled upon this blog entry, but here's eating paleo, nutritionally complete, 2400 calories for right around $5 a day: http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2009/0...nsive-low.html So, eating primally on a budget can be done w/o pet food.