Making Pieron's Cat Food- Weight After Grinding Question

[tef]

Hi all

I'm making cat food using Dr. Pierson's recipe. I've done it a couple times before but this time I forgot to weigh all of the chicken thighs before I baked (20 min) and ground them up.

I know that I bought about 50-60 lbs of thighs but after baking and grinding them, the mix weighs 36 lbs. I'm surprised it only weighs that much. Is this kind of reduction normal?

I'm trying to figure out how much chicken liver, vitamins, etc I should add and don't know if I should base it on this new after baking/grinding weight or the approximate weight of thighs I bought.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi - in case it's still helpful, I'm bumping this for you (I don't do homemade ) Although I would think that you're definitely going to have some reduction due to the baking eliminating the moisture...? but beyond that thought expressed out loud, I'll hush up because I really don't know.

 

[prairiepanda]

Much of the weight of the meat is from its water content, and a lot of the water evaporates during cooking. You'll notice that the physical size of the meat is reduced during cooking as well, for the same reason. Evaporated water shouldn't leach away significant nutrients, but you should try to keep all of the liquid that collects in your baking pan.

 

[Tobermory]

I use Dr. Pierson’s recipe, too. I can see why you’re nervous. That seems like quite a bit of weight loss. Still, since the measurements for supplements and liver are based on pre-baked weight, I guess I’d base it on the approximate weight of the thighs before you baked them—and maybe calculate based on your lower pre-baked number.

So if you calculate based on 50 pounds and you now have 36, you’re left with a math problem to solve!