Balance.it Recipes for Healthy Homemade Pet Food

If you could add more years to your dog’s life, you’d make it happen…right? That’s the reason I started cooking for my dogs 10 years ago. It’s also how I found Balance.it recipes, a website that creates healthy homemade menus for dogs and cats.  

How Balance.it works

Note: I am not affiliated with Balance IT. It’s a resource I like and it’s my pleasure to share it readers.

• Balance.it is a free site that teaches pet owners how to make nutritionally complete meals for dogs and cats. It’s a great find if your pet is a picky eater, has food allergies, a chronic disease, or if you just want to cook for them. Bailey and Olivia have grown up on the recipes.

This isn’t a raw diet; it’s a combination of lightly cooked proteins, grains, vegetables, fruits, and oils.

I first started cooking for my dogs when Cody, my German shepherd, developed Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). The condition is caused by a reaction to food that inflames the intestinal tract. Dogs with IBD have chronic vomiting, diarrhea, and severe weight loss.

When Cody was diagnosed with IBD, our vet recommended a prescription dog food. Cody had a horrible reaction to the food, and it nearly cost him, his life. Our veterinarian suggested that we try the recipes on Balance.it. It was a lifesaver for Cody and now it helps Bailey, who’s the pickiest eater I know.

The experts behind Balance.it

The website was founded by Dr. Sean Delaney, former Executive Chair of the American College of Veterinary Nutrition. It’s associated with the University of California, Davis, and managed by board-certified veterinary nutritionists. You can even make an appointment to talk with a nutritionist about your pet’s specific needs.

• The goal of the site is to educate both pet parents and veterinarians. The group believes that when vets are knowledgeable about healthy food, they spend more time educating their clients and sharing dietary advice.

Balance.it relies heavily on professionals sharing information for another reason too. There are relatively few board-certified veterinary nutritionists in the U.S. Less than 100 vets have entered the field.

So, every recipe you use from the website and share is another opportunity to educate a pet family.

How the website works

I have to say that when I first found Balance.it, the site was a bit confusing and complicated to use. Recently, however it’s been given a complete makeover that’s much more user friendly. The homemade recipes are easy to access, and Balance.it still offers a variety of supplements that turn your cooking creations into nutritionally complete canine and feline meals.

1. Begin by clicking the “Get Started“ button. Pet owners are asked to answer a few questions about their dog or cat.

2. Once you’ve done that, you can either use the Build a Recipe Now tool where ingredients are selected for your pet or click on Let Me Pick Ingredients where you choose your pet’s favorite foods.

3. I decided to let the program select a recipe for me. I told the computer that I needed a recipe for my Beagle, Olivia who is 10 years-old, weighs 35 pounds and has “high liver enzymes.”

   Balance.it put together a recipe that included a protein, carbohydrate, fat and veggie and a supplement.

4. The recipe included turkey breast, canola oil, omega 3 vitamins, sweet potato, a bit of salt and the Balance.it supplement.

My Specific Choices

I ran the program a second time and picked ingredients I knew Olivia liked to eat. Below are my selections. You can see that Balance.it wasn’t completely happy with my choices and it used the Autobalancer tool to make my recipe more complete.

My recipe was a little too high in protein, so I clicked back to the ingredients page and deleted one of them. The change gave my recipe a passing grade. Over the years, I’ve learned to work with their Auto Balancer until I get the perfect menu.

I’ve also learned a few things about pet nutrition. For instance, instead of choosing olive oil for my recipes, I now know that corn oil, walnut oil or canola oil are better choices. That’s because dogs need more linoleic acid than humans and corn and walnut oil have the highest levels.

Corn oil is the richest source of linoleic acid that is readily available in North America, so it is widely used in our recipes along with canola oil to minimize the amount of extra fat that has to be added to recipes. Walnut oil can be used as an alternative.

Dr. Sean Delaney

The program also let me know I needed a supplement

Supplements made by Balance IT are the one product sold on the website and they’re meant to be used solely with their recipes. They don’t come with general use instructions, because the amount of supplement to give, depends on your individual recipe.

• You can read more about each supplement here.

Sometimes I choose to use the recommended supplement, and other times I use an alternative approach. My secret is to add a small amount of high-quality commercial kibble to complete a recipe. I’ve done this with my healthy dogs only.

Pet with medical conditions

Balance IT® offers two alternatives for sick dogs and cats. Both need a prescription from your veterinarian in order to access a recipe.

First, there are pre-determined recipes for pets with common illnesses. These include: Arthritis, Liver Disease, Diabetes, IBD, Heart Disease, Allergies, Urinary Crystals and Stones, and more.

This is how I found the recipe that helped calm down Cody’s IBD. Your vet can also request that you work directly with a nutritionist. That way the veterinarian can get a complete history of your dog’s medical condition and develop a custom recipe.

Balance IT has been my “go-to” source for a long time. I hope you find it helpful too.

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