The heart is both a muscle and an organ, so it’s like feeding your dog a steak with an extra punch of protein and vitamins. Both chicken and beef hearts are excellent sources of B vitamins, iron and essential fatty acids, it also contains phosphorus, which helps build and strengthen your dog’s skeletal system. The folate found in heart is important for DNA health and can help prevent anemia and IBD. Thiamine, which is also found in heart, improves carbohydrate metabolism and is necessary for nourishing the brain and other high-energy organs. Don’t forget it’s got a healthy dose of taurine!
Compared to regular cuts of muscle meat, organ meats are more densely packed with just about every nutrient, including heavy doses of B vitamins such as: B1, B2, B6, folic acid and vitamin B12.
Organ meats are also loaded with minerals like phosphorus, iron, copper, magnesium and iodine, and provide the important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.
Overall, organ meats (not including heart) should make up about 15% of your dog’s total diet. Organ meats are a vital part of a complete and balanced diet for your dog. Unfortunately, they are often treated as byproducts and seldom make it onto the meat counter at the local grocery store. Every batch of homemade stew the Chibean Crew eats gets a dose of heart, liver and kidney. While it can be hard to find some organ meats, we started Chibean Crew Chews to try to make finding this vital part of your pets diet easy (and some might say, less gross).
Chibean Crew Chews
Chibean Crew Chews is 100% human grade, single ingredient dehydrated treats. We started with different types of heart treats first because hearts hit home with us. With experience in heart failure with two rescue pups feeding heart on the daily was important. In Chinese medicine, “like feeds like”, which means that if part of your body is ill then you need to feed it that organ to help it recover. Heart muscle needs taurine and the organ gives it the most bang for your buck with feeding. As the Chibean Crew Chew inventory grows we will be adding more varieties of hearts and other organ meats to help balance your pups diet. Not to mention that they make a great high value snack for training and your reward system.