How to make golden paste

*MAKE SURE YOU READ WARNING AT BOTTOM! ALTHOUGH TURMERIC IS A FOOD AND IS GENERALLY SAFE, THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT’S SAFE FOR EVERY APPLICATION 

If you can boil water, you can make Golden paste! fear not!

The active ingredients in Turmeric are difficult to absorb, and this is why it’s slowly cooked and made into “Golden Paste” to make it more soluble and easier to absorb, cooking it breaks down the starches and helps make it become more bioavailable for the body to absorb.  It’s incredibly easy to make golden paste, very affordable to keep it as a staple item in your dog’s daily meal regimen and even perhaps your own! it’s good for both dogs and people. 

Information from the Turmeric User Group lists the following positive effects which are able to be backed with scientific evidence: Anticoagulant, Arthritis/Anti inflammatory, Cancer, Cognition and brain health, Diabetes, Depression, Energy, GI/Stomach health, Liver health, skin/hair/nails, weight loss, wound healing,

When dosing for your dog always starts with a very little amount and work your way up to increase. I started my 50# dog with 1/4 teaspoon mixed into her meal so she couldn’t pick it out, and eventually worked up up about 1 Tablespoon. Search turmeric users group on Facebook for more information as they are the #1 source of Turmeric related info !

Recipe: (My written recipe is slightly modified from the video version you can watch below)

1 cup water plus extra as needed to keep consistency; you will wind up adding water as mixture starts drying out while you’re simmering. * Pro tip- Don’t let the mixture get too watery while simmering- remember, we have to add coconut oil at the very end so this will help thin out the overall consistency of the paste!

1/4 cup turmeric: caution! It stains everything! So be very careful handling it- thank me later for this tip. If you spill it on clothing or carpet, you will never get it out. and if you touch it be prepared to have orange-stained hands for a while and explain over and over to everyone why your hands are orange.- protip: I lay a piece of paper towel on my counter while I’m working with the open bag of Turmeric scooping it out into my measuring cup. if I spill any, it simply gets on the paper towel, and I discard when done

Whisk together on very low heat for 7-10 minutes, make sure you’re using a pretty small pot. And make sure your burner is set LOW, we don’t want to heat it up so fast that it “burps” and explodes a huge mess on your stove top. So, heat up very slowly to a very, very low boil just so it begins to “burp” very slowly as I call it. and you will find yourself adding more and more water as it simmers. You want to keep adding water to keep the consistency like a very thick pudding or thick oatmeal. The very last step will be adding the coconut oil, so we don’t want the golden paste too watery before adding the oil which is going to thin it out a bit. pro tip: I just use a fork to whisk/stir the paste- you don’t have to whisk it like you’re beating eggs, just lightly keep stirring the paste

Add 1/3 cup coconut oil and mix well ( 1/3 of a cup = approx. 25grams of oil- It’s much easier to weigh than it is to try and measure in a measuring cup) 

Let the paste COOL down BEFORE adding the fresh ground pepper! Cooking it on the stove top will reach temperatures above 180 degrees and high heat can damage the piperin in the pepper, so we want the mixture to cool down before adding the pepper. To speed this process up I put the entire pot in the fridge to cool it down. 

Fresh ground black pepper 1-2 teaspoon and mix well. It’s very important you use freshly ground black pepper because of the piperine compound it has. Pre-ground black pepper will not contain any beneficial levels of piperine . It’s important to let the paste cool down for a good 10 or 15 minutes before adding the pepper as to not degrade the piperine.
At 100 degrees C, Suresh et al. (2007) reported 28% losses of piperine in black pepper

As your dog gets adjusted to the golden paste, you can increase the amount of pepper as you see fit. I find myself using about 1 tablespoon of pepper these days.

You may be asking; Do I have to use pepper?! YES !!!!

Piperine helps prevent the liver from just flushing the golden paste/turmeric out of the system.
ideally, we would sprinkle fresh cracked pepper on the golden paste at the time of consumption to ensure the pepper is getting ingested vs. mixing the pepper in the big batch where we may not be absolutely guaranteed the dose you scoop out has much pepper. Now, is a dog going to eat it with fresh cracked pepper at the time of feeding? well, who knows as each dog is different. but you get the concept I am trying to explain.

Let cool and freeze anything you won’t use within 2 weeks, keep what you’re using in fridge. My tip is perhaps only making half of this batch recipe at first to better gauge how much you’ll use in any given month. It’s so easy to make I personally prefer making smaller batches and use fresh without freezing any extra.

You can also find many different styles of silicon mold trays typically used for candy making on amazon of varying sizes, these can be useful if you wish to freeze smaller daily size portions of the paste. Here are a few suggestions you can find on amazon. HERE and HERE

tip: I put a little sticker on the container with the date I made it so I know how long its been in the fridge.
tip: if your dog starts to smell like cat pee, add *Ceylon cinnamon to the golden paste. for some odd reason some dogs will develop an odor like cat pee when they take golden paste. It happens to 1 of my 2 dogs. * DO NOT USE NORMAL CINNAMON! IT MUST BE CEYLON- THERE IS A DIFFERENCE IN THE AMOUNT OF COUMARIN- READ BELOW

 

*All cinnamon contains coumarin, a plant-based compound that can cause liver damage in large amounts or extended use. Ceylon cinnamon has such a negligible amount that it is not an issue even with regular consumption-  source- turmeric life
WARNING !
* Turmeric/Golden paste can potentially create anticoagulant properties in the blood, therefore it is important to point out with bleeding types of cancer! BUT the caveat is many people are able to give golden paste to their dogs afflicted with such cancers and have no issues. So, just because the potential is there doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to be an issue. but nonetheless it’s important to know and for you to assess and decide what’s best for your own dog. 
or lets say, a dog with Von Willebrand disease (sometimes common in Dobermans but “also found in At least thirty different breeds including, Scottish terriers, Shetland sheepdogs, Chesapeake bay retrievers”- VCAhospitals.com)- your vet can test for VWD, and there are also third-party testing facilities that make testing at home an option, such as GenSol diagnostics
* Turmeric may have interactions with certain prescription drugs, Turmeric/golden paste should be stopped and restarted at certain times before/after surgical procedures, I would advise consulting with Turmeric User Group who are experts in the subject. Turmeric can have interactions with certain prescription drugs- such as some hypertension medications. follow the link below to the Turmeric User Group on facebook. They are the pros on all things turmeric and can offer advise on any possible drug interactions- and always, check with your prescribing vet for advice on any possible interactions! *

The Turmeric is very inexpensive to buy in 1 pound packages. It will last you quite awhile.
click on picture to purchase from Amazon

CEYLON CINNAMON

WHOLE BLACK PEPPERCORNS
If you have a coffee/grinder these are much easier to grind vs. using a hand grinder/twist bottle of peppercorns

spice grinder
If you don’t already have one of these in your kitchen, this makes grinding the peppercorns MUCH faster than by hand!
this model is on the higher price end, but It has served me well for 3+ years and counting. I started with cheaper models that broke within the 1st year. The added bonus of multiple stainless steel grinding cups and lids also come in handy with this model. AND the stainless-steel grinding cups are removable which makes cleaning them very easy. I find myself using this grinder multiple times a week, it’s an indispensable piece of equipment for both my dogs food prep and my own food prep!

BLACK PEPPERCORNS IN TWIST/GRINDER BOTTLE
If you do not have a coffee grinder to grind the whole corns you can use a manual grinder, but fair warning! it takes a long time to grind any measurable amount of pepper this way! 

 

Fast Track your dog onto a properly balanced home prepared Raw Ketogenic Diet Today! click here for details

Do Ketogenic Diets for dogs really work? Read real world pet owner stories HERE!