Working with Raw Meat for Homemade Dog Food

Working with Raw Meat for Homemade Dog Food
Hi! This is Elise McMahon for Expert Village.com and in this video series we are talking about how to make your own dog food. If you would like to visit my website, it is www.canineheadstart.com. So in this short clip here, we are going to be talking about raw meat and how to handle it. Typically if you are going to be making your own dog food, you are going to be starting off with some type of raw meat. Right here, I have got a chicken and I have also got some liver. It is very important when you are dealing with raw meat that you use the proper methods to ensure sanitary conditions for both yourself and your dog. So we have got a closed up package of raw meat here; just going to open it up and take it out of the bag, so I will put it into the bowl first in case there is any liquid in there. So we are removing it from the bag, sliding it into a receptacle. You want to make sure that you remove all non-edible parts and dispose of them. So now I have got some little gifts in here. I have got my meat in a container and it is important that you thoroughly, when you are finished handling meat or anything that meat is touched, that you thoroughly wash everything in all surfaces with warm water. So for example in taking this out of the container, some of the chicken juice spilled on the counter top. When I am done, I want to make sure that I have completely cleaned all surfaces. If you are dealing with something like a wooden cutting board, note that a wooden cutting board has got a porous surface and if you do not clean it very, very thoroughly, then you can have some of the meat residue in here and this could be potentially harmful if you then go and start using it for something that you are going to be eating if it has been left sitting around. Here we have got some liver and again you would just remove it from the package, put it on whatever you are going to be using to cut it and then you want to make sure that you carefully wash your hands and any utensils that have touched the meat. So, the important thing to keep in mind when you are working with raw meat, it is not really that different from what we do with human food, but often times we give raw meat to the dogs is that we want to be careful that we washed all surfaces, washed all utensils and keep the whole area clean, so if we put food down after that it is not touching the surface, where the raw meat has touched previously.