On my last trip to pick up meat for my dogs, I was chatting with the lady at Big Dan’s Trucking and Dog Food.  She mentioned that she had recently gotten a complaint on, what that customer felt, was the excessive bloodiness of their beef.

It threw me for a bit of a loop as it never dawned on me someone would be unhappy about that.  Their beef is “excessively” bloody for a couple main reasons:

• It is very fresh.  Often the beef I’m taking home on a Friday was a live cow that previous Monday.
• Perspective.  The beef to which most of us are accustomed, typically has some sort of packaging to absorb blood.

As someone who has been feeding raw for many years, I admit, I am a bit desensitized to the blood.  But, I know that many who are first starting raw have to overcome a certain “ew” factor.

I like the bloodier meat as it makes it easier to mix in anything I want to add to the food.  In the case of the beef, I have to add bone meal powder, so I typically pour a little blood into each dog’s bowl.

The blood is also good for the dog to consume as blood itself is a quality source of animal protein.

The only time I discard the extra blood is if the meat is starting to get a little….well, ripe. 🙂  The blood is what gets the worst odor, so if you drain the blood off (and rinse the meat if you’re working with RBM’s), you get rid of most of the gross odor.

Ground beef