By Ethan Goode
Special to Inside
The pampered pets that populate Lincoln Park now have a new source of nutritious homemade dog foods without the fuss of doing it yourself. Earlier this year Carnival Grocery, 458 W. Dickens Ave., introduced their own line of fresh, homemade dog foods at reasonable prices.
"If I was a billionaire, this is what I'd do," said Arthur Paris, owner of Carnival and the master chef to discerning pets in Lincoln Park. For health reasons Paris has been making homemade dog food for his own Sharpei for 12 years. At the suggestion of a friend, he now cooks up large batches of his custom recipes and sells them out of a refrigerated case in his store's pet food section.
"My dog, Cassie, suffered a heart attack as a puppy from congenital heart failure and was on her death bed," said Paris. "She was fed by IVs and quickly dropped from 50 to 34 lb. So, I decided to make her food myself to try to nurse her back to full strength and it worked. She's now 13 years old and has lived a happy, normal dog's life." Paris custom mixes a blend of fresh cut meats, bone meal, grains, kelp and blood, then steams and grills it so it's ready to serve right from the grocer's counter. "The blood is like super food, put it on anything and a dog will eat it. It's really not that bad-I taste all the food myself."
Most dog owners would be sickened at a look behind the curtain hiding the dark side of the commercial pet food production process. "There are no standardized labeling requirements for pet foods. The industry is self-regulated," said Paris. "If consumers really knew what goes into making most commercial pet foods, they would think twice about what they're feeding their pets. They're made from rendered meats emanating from the four D's of the carcass world: down, diseased, dying and dead animals. Look, dogs will eat anything, they're scavengers, but that doesn't mean it's good for them."
Paris has his store's butchers chop up their own mix of meats and bones and uses the store's commercial kitchen to mix in the grains and other nutrients. Paris then grills and steams the batches until they're sterile and ready to eat. "At first we displayed it by the deli counter and people thought it was some exotic type of salsa-that's why we moved the display case into the pet section."
Paris is making several varieties of dog foods now, including chicken gizzards and livers, lamb, beef, and beef liver. Many of the foods are raw and ready to eat that way and he sells them in 1 lb. containers for $1.69 to $2.69, or just slightly more than a comparably-sized can of IAMS or Alpo. And visitors to the venerable Lincoln Park grocery at Lincoln, Dickens and Cleveland avenues can take home free pre-packaged sample containers to see which blend their own pets prefer. "I recommend they start their pets off slowly and transition out of the commercial brands most dogs are used to." He is also experimenting with recipes for cat foods now. However, he says that since cats are by nature hunters, this creates its own challenges.
"I've got a few customers now who ask for special blends that I mix up in 20 to 50 lb. batches," said Paris. Other customers come in and fill up their grocery carts just with pet foods. "I think some of them must have refrigerators at home set aside just for their pet foods."
Carnival accepts phone orders for pet foods at (773) 472-2929, and will deliver to the home, too. |
