Holistic Cancer Treatment Protocol: Cancer SLOP

Cancer SLOP includes as few carbs as possible
and cancer fighting super foods

I've been feeding my girls a raw diet for approximately five years. Seka has always been a bit of a picky eater when it comes to kibble, and switching to raw allowed meal time to not be a game of begging, pleading and guessing what she would like to have that day. I used to feed lots of chicken backs, turkey necks, beef heart and ground beef/turkey, but as the girls have aged - and lost their teeth - I've moved to a ground mix of organs and muscle (both beef and chicken/turkey) with a calcium supplement. 

Most people who feed raw also feed a SLOP mixture of pureed vegetables alongside the meat. I'm no different. After experimenting for a few months, I finally found a go-to recipe that my girls ate without question. This recipe included:

• Carrots
• Kale
• Black Beans
• Tuna water or chicken broth
• And whatever veggies I had left over from the week

According to my research, this SLOP recipe could do more harm than good when it comes to feeding a cancer dog. Evidently, cancer likes carbs. Really, who doesn't? But the goal is to starve the cancer, not make it fat and happy. 

Our new Cancer SLOP includes the following vegetables that are considered super foods in combating cancer:

• Kale
• Mushrooms
• Parsley
• Broccoli
• Red Pepper
• Tumeric
• Mackerel water

I blanch everything together in one pot - just enough for the greens to turn bright green and the mushrooms and peppers to soften. I throw everything into the food processor and pulverize away. Think of this like pre-chewing your baby's food like Alicia Silverstone did for a year. The dog's stomach can't breakdown the cellulose so the only way to get the benefits of the veggies is to do some of the chewing before hand. I stir in the tumeric by hand b/c it stains everything it comes in contact with, including my food processor blade. 

Each of my girls get 1 lb of food a day. Slop usually makes up 1/3 of that total weight, but because even this mix includes some natural carbs, I've dropped that to 1/4 of that total weight. So they get 2 oz of slop at each meal (2 oz SLOP, 6 oz meat = 8 oz in the morning and at 5:30p).

My kitchen now smells a little spicy at the end of a SLOP making session (I make enough for the week). But after making Tuna Fudge or dehydrating liver jerky, the spicy smell is very tolerable. 

This is the first in a series of posts where I'll describe the protocol we are using to manage Seka's osteosarcoma. Notice I said "manage". This isn't a cure. I'm not delusional, although you may think so based on some of the things I'm doing. Please know this isn't our first choice of treatment. This is our only choice. So you play the cards you are dealt. 

Smell My Feet

There are three types of grocery stores in the south:

1. The Uppity Grocer: a store full of lots of ingredients that you have no idea how to pronounce, let alone be able to afford to buy. These store can easily be identified by their display of cheeses, truffle oils and fancy people behind the meat counter who may have actually met the cow you are about to buy thanks to a tour of the organic beef farm.

2. The Middle Class Grocer: this is usually a large chain store that offers the usual fare with a few specialty sections of organic, vegetarian and gluten-free offerings. You know you're in a middle-class store when their generic brands have fancy labels to make you feel better about the fact you are really buying the rejects of the brand-name foods.

3. The Country Grocer: this store is usually found in an abandoned shopping center where a middle class grocery used to be located. Due to the giant jars of pickled foods, you really have to watch your kids so they don't ruin the pig's feet display.

I tend to shop at option two when restocking our cabinets, and those fancy generic labels really do make my pantry look very delectable. But when I'm looking for foods to feed my girls, I make a trip to the country store. A middle class or uppity grocery would never have all of the animal parts for sale that I use to make up my girls' raw diet. You can't find backs, necks, gizzards, livers or hearts at the normal meat counter - middle class folks might get scared. But at the country grocery store, they have all this - and more.

Yep, I said more. For the first time ever at a commercial grocery store - country or otherwise - I purchased a package of chicken feet for the girls to nibble on. Chicken feet, while attached to a live bird, aren't the prettiest things to look at. Chicken feet detached and piled into one of those butcher trays and wrapped in plastic wrap is down right gross and creepy. Even worse, is looking at a display full of them.

I really don't want to know who buys these other than people who feed raw. I'm pretty sure that anyone who practices voodoo or witchcraft would need the feet from a live bird and not those that are packaged, but maybe I'm wrong.

Nonetheless, my girls enjoy their mid-day snack, talons and all. But I've asked them not to get too used to such a delicacy. I really don't like seeing these things clawing to get out of the plastic bag in the bottom of my fridge every time I go to get a drink.