We Make Lovely Home-Cooked Meals for Ourselves. Why Not Do the Same for Our Dogs?

我们为自己烹饪美味的家常菜，为什么不也为狗狗这样做呢？

Home-cooked dog food has a more illustrious history than I could have imagined. In 1966, the ur-food writer M.F.K. Fisher reviewed cookbooks for pets in The New Yorker, and in the late ’90s, Jeffrey Steingarten chronicled the act of cooking chef Daniel Boulud’s “French Country Soup for Dogs and their Owners” for his pooch in Vogue. 自制狗粮的历史比我想象的要辉煌得多。1966年，美食作家鼻祖M.F.K.费舍尔（M.F.K. Fisher）在《纽约客》上评论了宠物食谱；90年代末，杰弗里·斯坦加滕（Jeffrey Steingarten）在《Vogue》杂志上记录了自己为爱犬烹制名厨丹尼尔·布鲁德（Daniel Boulud）的“法式乡村狗狗及主人汤”的过程。

French food writer Frédérick E. Grasser-Hermé put out Mon chien fait recettes (My Dog Makes Recipes) in 2001 and threw a launch party where doggie guests were served bone marrow topped with caviar. For her final publication in 2014, Judith Jones—editor of Julia Child, Edna Lewis, and many other gourmand greats—wrote Love Me, Feed Me, an ode to cooking for her Havanese featuring recipes like roast beef shoulder with broccoli rabe and lamb and sweet potato hash. Martha Stewart, in 2022, blogged about what farm-fresh foods her own canines consume. Nara Smith, in 2026, carries on the lineage as an influencer, serving a new rescue pup beef, cabbage, and sardines. 法国美食作家弗雷德里克·E·格拉瑟-赫尔梅（Frédérick E. Grasser-Hermé）于2001年出版了《我的狗做食谱》（Mon chien fait recettes），并在发布会上为狗狗宾客们提供了配有鱼子酱的骨髓。2014年，曾担任朱莉娅·柴尔德（Julia Child）和埃德娜·刘易斯（Edna Lewis）等美食大师编辑的朱迪思·琼斯（Judith Jones）出版了她生前最后一部作品《爱我，喂我》（Love Me, Feed Me），这是一封写给她哈瓦那犬的情书，书中收录了烤牛肩肉配西兰花苔、羊肉红薯杂烩等食谱。玛莎·斯图尔特（Martha Stewart）在2022年撰写博客，分享了她自己的狗狗所食用的农场新鲜食材。2026年，网红娜拉·史密斯（Nara Smith）延续了这一传统，为一只新领养的幼犬准备了牛肉、卷心菜和沙丁鱼。

Nowadays, with over 87 million dogs kept as pets in the US, the world of their wellness has gotten even more extreme: There is red-light therapy and longevity pills. But food remains the most fraught matter for many dog owners. According to a pair of American Veterinary Medical Association surveys that spanned more than a decade, there’s been an estimated 3 to 8 percent uptick in those who cook for their canine companions. 如今，美国有超过8700万只宠物狗，它们的健康领域变得愈发“极端”：红光疗法、长寿药丸应有尽有。但对于许多狗主人来说，食物仍然是最令人焦虑的问题。根据美国兽医协会跨越十多年的两项调查显示，为爱犬下厨的人数估计增加了3%到8%。

I’m now part of that demographic. When I first got my dog, Benny, in 2019, I worried about what to feed him. I’d given up meat in 2011, but I didn’t think it would be fair to feed vegan kibble to a natural carnivore. I couldn’t see myself sizzling up steaks for him, either. He’s a large, active dog, at 70 pounds; I worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with properly cooking for him. So I gave him commercial dog food that was recommended by his veterinarian, dressed it up with farm-fresh eggs, steamed vegetables, and sardines. We went on with our lives. 我现在也是这个群体的一员。2019年我刚养狗本尼（Benny）时，很担心该喂它什么。我从2011年起就不吃肉了，但我觉得给天生的肉食动物喂纯素狗粮并不公平。同时，我也无法想象自己为它煎牛排。它是一只70磅重的大型活跃犬，我担心自己无法坚持为它烹饪。于是，我喂它兽医推荐的商业狗粮，并搭配农场新鲜鸡蛋、蒸蔬菜和沙丁鱼。我们就这样继续着生活。

Then, in early 2026, Benny was diagnosed with lymphoma. I started to question myself all over again with the same line of thinking as all those gourmands who’d come before: If food were so important to me and I wouldn’t want to subsist on the same dry food all the time, why did I expect my dog to do so happily and healthfully? 然而，2026年初，本尼被诊断出患有淋巴瘤。我开始重新审视自己，想法和之前那些美食家们如出一辙：如果食物对我如此重要，我也不想终日只吃同样的干粮，那我又凭什么期待我的狗能快乐健康地这样生活呢？

I immediately began to research how to cook nutritionally sound dog food at home that would enable him to retain weight, strength, and vitality during his six-month chemotherapy treatment. But when I did, I felt like I’d fallen into a rabbit hole and couldn’t discern the MAHA from the science. 我立即开始研究如何在家烹饪营养均衡的狗粮，以帮助它在六个月的化疗期间保持体重、体力和活力。但当我开始研究时，我感觉自己掉进了一个深不见底的洞，无法分辨什么是伪科学，什么是真正的科学。

There were websites that looked like they hadn’t been updated since the ’90s, Facebook and Reddit threads in which people argued over whether or not to peel sweet potatoes, and concerns about carbohydrates that I hadn’t thought about since Atkins went out of style. Hadn’t dogs, the first domesticated animal species, at some point in pretty recent history just eaten whatever the humans around them were eating? And yet, it seemed like if I didn’t have access to pounds of organ meat or keep dried oyster powder in my larder, I shouldn’t even try. 有些网站看起来自90年代起就没更新过；Facebook和Reddit的讨论帖里，人们争论着红薯到底该不该去皮；还有关于碳水化合物的担忧，这些问题自从阿特金斯饮食法（Atkins）过时后我就再没想过。狗作为人类驯化的第一种动物，在历史上很长一段时间里不就是吃人类剩下的食物吗？然而，现实似乎是，如果我没有渠道获取大量的动物内脏，或者不在储藏室里备好干牡蛎粉，我甚至都不该尝试自制狗粮。

To understand why this dog food world seemed so complex, I talked to Jonathan Stockman, a board-certified veterinary nutritionist and assistant professor at the UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine. He has noticed that home-cooked food for dogs has been a growing trend for at least 15 years, and he suggests the “melamine crisis” as the origin point. 为了弄清楚为什么狗粮世界看起来如此复杂，我采访了加州大学戴维斯分校威尔兽医学院的助理教授、认证兽医营养学家乔纳森·斯托克曼（Jonathan Stockman）。他注意到，为狗烹饪家常食物至少在过去15年里一直是一个增长趋势，他认为“三聚氰胺危机”是这一趋势的起点。

That crisis occurred in 2007, when a company named Menu Foods that was responsible for making 1,300 recipes for various private-label contracts included wheat gluten that had been poisoned by the inclusion of melamine, a type of plastic. Dogs and cats both began mysteriously dying, and it was traced back to this ingredient found in their meals, initiating a massive wave of recalls—the biggest in pet food history. 那场危机发生在2007年，当时一家名为Menu Foods的公司负责为多个自有品牌代工生产1300种配方产品，其中混入了被三聚氰胺（一种塑料原料）污染的小麦面筋。猫狗开始离奇死亡，调查发现源头正是它们食物中的这种成分，这引发了宠物食品史上最大规模的召回潮。

Marion Nestle, a prolific author on public health and professor emerita at NYU who has written extensively on consolidation and political influence in the human food system, was inspired by this event to write Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine to chronicle how the recalls occurred and what could be learned from it. 纽约大学公共卫生领域的多产作家、名誉教授马里昂·内斯特尔（Marion Nestle）曾深入研究人类食品系统中的整合与政治影响，受此事件启发，她撰写了《宠物食品政治：煤矿里的吉娃娃》（Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine），记录了召回事件的经过以及从中可以汲取的教训。

Nestle tells me over email that though pet food recalls still occur regularly, none since Menu Foods’ have been as catastrophic in terms of the number of animals affected. “Most happen because somebody forgot a crucial step or otherwise got sloppy with protocols,” she says. “Dry food is not sterile, and it is a great growth medium for pathogens like Salmonella. If companies do not develop and maintain a ‘culture of safety,’ meaning that everyone involved follows food safety protocols to the spirit as well as letter, accidents happen.” 内斯特尔在邮件中告诉我，尽管宠物食品召回事件仍时有发生，但自Menu Foods事件以来，还没有哪次召回在受影响动物数量上达到如此灾难性的程度。“大多数召回是因为有人遗漏了关键步骤，或者在执行规程时马虎大意，”她说，“干粮并非无菌，它是沙门氏菌等病原体的绝佳培养基。如果企业不建立并维护一种‘安全文化’，即让所有相关人员不仅在字面上，更在精神上严格遵守食品安全规程，事故就会发生。”

That major event in the commercial pet food world inspired renewed interest in how to make feeding our animal companions more nutritious and safe, and thus the rise of home-cooked and homemade-style foods, like The Farmer’s Dog, which debuted in the mid-2010s. Its vacuum-sealed meals are made with what the company calls “human-grade” ingredients of meat, vegetables, and perhaps grain, mimicking what you might make at home if you were so inclined. 商业宠物食品界的这一重大事件激发了人们对如何让宠物饮食更营养、更安全的新兴趣，从而推动了家常烹饪和自制风格食品的兴起，例如2010年代中期推出的The Farmer’s Dog。其真空包装的餐食采用公司所谓的“人类食用级”肉类、蔬菜和谷物制成，模仿了如果你愿意在家烹饪时可能会做的食物。

Influencers Joelle Jay and R.A. Young go by the handle @TheCedLife on Instagram. The duo published a cookbook at the end of 2025 called The Dog’s Table and have a Substack named Precious Kitchen where they go more in-depth on dog nutrition. Their videos show them feeding extravagantly prepared meals like “pawella” and salmon coconut curry to their two small dogs, complete with bespoke mock labels for things like doggie beer and Dave’s Paw Chicken. 网红乔尔·杰伊（Joelle Jay）和R.A.杨（R.A. Young）在Instagram上的账号是@TheCedLife。两人在2025年底出版了一本名为《狗狗餐桌》（The Dog’s Table）的食谱，并经营着一个名为“珍贵厨房”（Precious Kitchen）的Substack专栏，深入探讨狗狗营养问题。他们的视频展示了如何为两只小狗准备奢华的餐点，如“狗狗海鲜饭”（pawella）和三文鱼椰子咖喱，甚至还配有狗狗啤酒和“戴夫爪爪鸡”等定制的仿制标签。

“When we started gaining a following we wanted to make sure that we didn’t harm our dogs or, worse, lead others to harm their dogs,” says one half of the couple, Young, over email. “We dug into literature going back over 50 years to understand the optimal nutrient requirements.” “当我们开始积累粉丝时，我们想确保自己不会伤害到狗狗，或者更糟糕的是，引导其他人伤害他们的狗，”这对搭档中的杨在邮件中说道，“我们深入研究了过去50多年的文献，以了解最佳的营养需求。”