GREEN TRIPE FOR THE WIN!

By rawexplorer on March 25, 2013 • ( 0 )

Urgh, beef tripe (stomach)! Smelly but good stuff–purportedly the secret of many top performing showdogs in the world.

It is also something that I have been trying to get my cats to eat to no avail, because they are rubbery and ropey. Even cutting them takes a lot of sweat and blood on my kitchen knife’s part and I felt like a cavewoman wielding a too-blunt stone on animal hide. My cats gave me a disgusted look–for all my efforts!–and walked away looking affronted: what’s wrong with our human? Why did she serve us car tyres for dinner???

A bucket of tripe. Tripe is made from stomaches of ruminating animals, but cow stomach is the most widely available form of tripe.

Why feed tripe then??

Well, for starters, it’s a must-feed for raw feeders because it contains many essential vitamins and minerals, plenty of fatty acids and chorophyll from the animal’s last meal.Good bacteria (lactic acid bacteria) and enzymes for digestion are also found on green tripe. Lactic acid is the main ingredient in probiotics, so if you are feeding your pet probiotic supplement, why not give green tripe a try?

I’m talking uncleaned green tripe here–most tripe sold outside is refined tripe, and I’ve read that many dog owners consider this an ‘outside treat’, which means they only feed green tripe to their dogs outside the house. GREEN (by green I am talking about it being unprocessed rather than colour) tripe is high in chlorophyll content–the tripe you can get in human markets is stripped of cow stomach contents, and so it appears white-grey rather than blackish-brown. You will only be able to get refined tripe in Singapore’s markets, I’m afraid!

Here’s a quote and book for you:

The Complete Herbal Book for the Dog by Juliette de Bairacli Levy:

“I would suggest breeders make good use of such flesh foods as the following:… paunches [stomaches] of all animals (the raw, uncleaned paunches of healthy grass-fed animals can be fed with much benefit to all breeds of dogs)..”

So since I couldn’t find green tripe anywhere here, I’ve gotten my hands on some from overseas!

Evanger’s raw freeze dried green tripe. It comes in a really pretty box and I’m glad I’m not handling raw green tripe because I believe my family will kill me for the pong in the house.

What tripe looks like inside…of course this is already cut up. Wheeeeew the smell is…not…soo…bad… I guess…but it is nothing that I want to eat.

One of the pieces. It doesn’t smell anything like BBQ meat but it drives dogs and cats mad. I am so brave! Look at me pick that piece up!

Snaps nicely with a bit of pressure, but I couldn’t crumble it. Also I could not snap the smallest piece into two with only two fingers (see video). Emailed the company (thank you Lisa for the question!) about re-hydrating the tripe and the company said that rehydration is fine. This will soften the tripe for aged animals who might not be able to chew the stuff.

For those who can, this is effective for scraping tartar off your pet’s teeth, AND you don’t have to worry about bone splinters.
A lovely, essential treat for both cats and dogs!

Well, I have a problem with freeze-dried raw foods: I often forget that I’m handling raw stuff and perhaps rub my eye without washing my fingers first. But I have no problems with this one, because my fingers smell rather gamey!