Otago Valley Recipe

Found throughout the body, especially the brain and eyes. As you might expect, these nutrients are crucial for supporting healthy brain function, growth, and development (particularly for puppies and kittens). But they also play an important role in helping your pet’s blood vessels, heart, immune system, and lungs work properly.

They’re also great for supporting healthy skin and coat. Poultry is an important source of Omega-6 fatty acids, while New Zealand green mussels and other seafoods are a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids.

Glucosamine is a combination of ‘glucose’, a sugar, and ‘glutamine’, an amino acid. It helps form and repair cartilage. Together, they’re ideal for building healthy joints and resisting joint tissue breakdown - particularly crucial for our senior pets and puppies. Beef, lamb, poultry, and bones are a good source of these nutrients.

An amino acid and one of the building blocks of all proteins. Necessary to maintain normal vision, digestion, heart muscle function, and to maintain a healthy immune system. Dogs can make taurine, but cats rely on taurine exclusively from their diets. All animal proteins are an excellent source.

Calcium builds and maintains strong bones. But it’s also needed for the heart, muscles, and nerves to function properly. In the wild, cats and dogs would eat bones along with meat to get the calcium they need. We think they have the right idea, so ZIWI Peak recipes include ground bone to reflect what your pet would eat in the wild.

Magnesium plays a vital role in just about every process in the body. Important for bone mineralization, muscle contraction and relaxation (i.e. movement), and neuronal signal transduction. A source is New Zealand green mussels.

Zinc is essential for a healthy immune system, to make proteins and DNA, for healing, to maintain a strong sense of taste and smell, and for puppy and kitten growth. So, rather important then! The good news is that red meat and poultry are good sources of zinc, which you’ll find plenty of in ZIWI’s PeakPrey recipes.

Protects cell membranes from oxidative damage and is found in meat and fish.

Regulates energy and carbohydrate metabolism, and activates ion channels in neural tissue. Found in liver and kidney throughout ZIWI Peak recipes.

Methionine supports good urinary health, reducing the risk of kidney disease, bladder stones, and struvite crystal formation. This nutrient is important for skin and coat health, eye health, heart health, and more. It is also one of the essential amino acids required and is a precursor to other amino acids like cysteine which can then be converted to taurine by dogs. Fish is a good source, along with meat.