Suggestions Please
 

Ellie eats about a cup of homecooked food a day. It is split between three meals. Reducing the amount she gets is not an option. She is skinny. Anyway, this is too much food for her body to process at one time. She bloats up and it may negatively her pancreas now. Feeding more than three times a day is not really an option either. So I thought about baking her food (thus removing the moisture and reducing the volume), but how do you freeze baked food without it getting yucky? Even refrigerating after baking would make it gummy or soggy-like. I would have to bake it before every meal...three times a day. Not going to work... Any ideas?

What are the main ingredients in your recipes? I ask because this might make a difference in how you store/freeze her meals. Some foods seem to do much better after freezing than others.

Also, do you have one of those Foodsavers? You put the food in a bag and the suck Foodsaver sucks out the oxygen and makes the frozen leftovers much tastier. If you don't have one and are interested, pm me - I have one and several bags that I'll send to you if you want it.

My son's dog has pancreatitis; he had to go on 4 times a day feeding, and has shown a remarkable improvement. They have feeders with a timer and the door opens at the set time, could this be an option? I'm not sure that baking would help, I don't think it's the moisture in the food that's causing the bloat, I think they just can't digest much food at once.

The ingredients are fish, sweet potato, occasionally oatmeal, and assorted vegetables (usually carrots or green beans).

Aww, thanks for such a sweet offer. :)
I think we have one, but the bag are so expensive (we go through bags like mad for her food). I wonder if they're reusable?

I think feeding four times a day may be what it comes down to, but it just isn't always possible. :( Sometimes even three times is difficult with schedules...

A timed feeded would work if she ate kibble, but her food has to stay refrigerated. By baking, the volume of food would (or should) be reduced, so she would be getting the same amount of calories, but less to eat.

Maybe you could invest in a dehydrator and use that on all the veggies and fruits and just give the veggies to them as treats throughout the day. Then you could just heat the fish and add a little lightly steamed brocolli to it.

Actually, we have a dehydrator.
Hmmm.

that is what i was thinking might be best way to preserve it

or something in the ingredients is inflaming small intestines triggering pancreas which happened to my dog :( what are the ingredients in the food?

what did you change this last time in the diet that triggered it? as sweet potato is not inflammatory. Carrots i would probably not do as they are high in sugar and are tied to pancreas as pancreatitis over and over can lead to diabetes so that one i would be careful with. Dexter has reacted to peas and yams so those two i would not feed either

A few hours before she had some white potato and about a week before that she had some (lean) chicken. We are having a problem because she is so limited on what she can have.

yeah the white potato will do it for sure :( dex kept getting hospitalized on white potato diets then i pilled dd with white potato and after metacam she started vomitting it up and demi vomits white potato too and she is healthy. The white potato is inflammatory unlike sweet potato so sounds like she has ibd in small intestines and that can trigger her pancreas like my dex :( Also ibd dogs cannot tolerate chicken as well - now dex can but our ims told me many cannot so now that you know steer clear of those two for sure

Yes you can bake the food, and make it flat in a baggie or little balls, and then defrost a bag the day before you will use it. I think it would be fine.

Also, I plan on getting the Jarrows Goat Milk Protein for Roxy to add to her food for some of her meals protein and NOT have extra calories. Maybe that would be an option for you too?

Unortunately, I don't think it's that easy with Ellie.
Because she has pancreatitis, high bile acids, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth/IBD, and allergies, we are extremely limited.

Red meat, pork, and exotics aren't good for her liver and can trigger pancreatitis. Chicken obviously doesn't settle and we aren't sure if she is allergic to turkey or not. So our choice here is fish.

Grains aren't the best for allergies, and if she can't have white potato, then are only choice here is sweet potato (or a grain and hope it doesn't make her too itchy).

She does fine with most vegetables, but she is usually underweight, so these don't help really do a ton for that...

The fat % in her diet is now going to have to be lowered which means she will have to eat even more of the main ingredients everyday and she already gets bloated on the amount she is on now.

She does okay with fish, sweet potato, and vegetables, but it is pretty low calorie and if she starts not doing well on it, I have no idea what we are going to do.

She does not do well on rx diets at all, to the point where they are out of the question for now.

Oh and I am just hoping the food allergies don't start to really flare up now. She was on Temaril-P and I can't restart it for at least a week, and even then, it may not be a good idea because of her pancreas.

You don't think it would become a disgusting consistency after baking and then freezing and thawing?

I have one of those timed feeders for my diabetic Lady. They are wonderful! :thumbup:

Crystal, they have a spot underneath for a little ice pack that comes with it to keep food cold.