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Potato skins

    • Gold Top Dog

    Potato skins

    Is it okay to give your dog potato skins...such as sweet potatoes?   

    I have been feeding him regular skins...... now cooking  sweet potatoes for tomorrow......   but as I am going thru home cooking reading on the Interenet....there is soooooo much talk about the skins...especially of sweet potatoes. 

    • Gold Top Dog
    The skins are high in fiber and my girls love them. I scrub the sweet potatoes with a veggie scrubber really well first, before cooking. I stab them all over with a fork or knife, then microwave them. The length of time depends on the size of the potato, but I usually start with about 5 minutes on power level 6, let them sit in the closed micro for a few minutes, then check w/a knife for doneness and go another round, with a little less time. I don't like ours to get too squishy as I cut them into real small pieces, but if you're mashing them squishy is good! :)
    • Gold Top Dog

    Mine get both white and sweet potato skin - there is NO veggie that i peel other than turnip/rutabaga with the waxed skin.

     However, I cut the potato up into relatively small hunks and then boil and then mash it up. 

    The BIG HUGE CAUTION -- you can **NOT** give them white potato that has green tinge to the skin.

     But I've never peeled sweets -- my vet has encouraged me not to because most of the vitamins lie directly under the skin of most veggies.

    If you scrub the sweets good and trim off the woody ends I see no problem with the skins.  Honestly, most of the recipes that are crying about peeling them, are also feeding completely STUPID stuff like peanut butter which is well known NOT to be good for dogs (it's a tree nut and not digestible for them).

    In a perfect world I'd use all organic stuff but I can't afford that.  And *I* don't eat the organic stuff -- but I do wash everything carefully.

    If you have any specific links yosu want me to look at holler.  But just because you see a caution online about something don't take it as gospel. 

    I would NOT BAKE a sweet potato and then give them the skin.  Then the skin is tough and not digestible.  I'm talking about cutting/dicing it up so there are no big pieces of skin and then BOILING them - that makes them tender and just good bulk for the digestive system.

    • Gold Top Dog

     Peanuts that I've seen are not a tree nut, LOL. They come straight out of the dirt, into a pot to be rinsed, boiled, and salted. They are a root.


    And yup, mine get the skins, too! The skins off of baked potatoes are highly coveted. I love them, too, but I probably like a little more salt than the dogs should get (or me).

    • Gold Top Dog

    Thanks Guys!   I scrubbed them and they are ready to go.....will work on them tomorrow.  Was initially going to bake them...but maybe will microwave or cook..... not sure how many I really need right now....but maybe will do some of each way to decide.   I myself love baking potatoes skins.....and had always heard that is where all the nutrients are.....     I actually don't like them as well in the microwave because the skins seem really soft...so maybe that might be good for gibby.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Peanuts that I've seen are not a tree nut, LOL

    lordy, can you TELL how tired I am tonight?? DUH!!!

    yes, they are a "root" but they are a kind of fat that dogs really don't digest well.  (I give up on myself tonight!! I am SO frigging tired)


    • Gold Top Dog

    microwave or cook.....

    Don't microwave Dyan - that literally changes the chemical composition of them -- if you are doing this to help Gibby then don't microwave. 

    I don't try for tiny pieces when I cut them up -- just enough so it breaks the skin down a bit and makes them easy to work with. 

    I don't throw away the water either -- I just cook the next thing in there and eventually add the meat to that broth and it keeps all the nutrition in it.  In other words -- I don't try to cook things separately -- you really WANT the flavors to mingle.  It's part of what keeps it all edible for them -- then they aren't trying to pick out this or that.  It all becomes just one pretty blended thing so no one is trying to nose this or that out of it.  It's all incorporated.


    • Gold Top Dog

    Hahaha.....don't have to worry about Gibby picking anything out.....there is not much that he doesn't LOVE.  Actually off hand...can't think of anything besides pills....and half the time you can put a pill in his food and he eats around it..but then when everything is gone he looks at his bowl and says "you know...I'm still kind of hungry...think I'll eat that too!"   Just doesnt' always work like it used to ....lol!

    Somehow Callie....I was thinking that baking or microwaving would keep nutrients in better that cooking in water.

    • Puppy

    I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to add two things because I was trying to answer the same question. This is what I found out - moldy sweet potato skins are hazardous. Not that anyone would be feeding moldy skins, but this is something to watch for. I had a black spot on one potato I was making chews out of and I cut it out. The second thing - microwaving does not remove nutrients, water does. So if you microwave in water, it will remove nutrients, just as boiling will. See: www.nytimes.com/.../17real.html

    • Bronze

    Mainly most of Dogs contains Potato Skins only so they gently look like Peel of Potato.
