By Aspen Anderson, Director of Retailer and Consumer Relations
When I was a kid, I remember forcefully when the Space Program came to my school and talked about what it was like to be an astronaut. Mostly I remember this because my awesome big brother, who was in 6th grade when I was in Kindergarten, was picked to participate, and they gave him a bag of freeze-dry ice cream to take home.
It tasted weird and awful, and I don’t think anyone explained to us kids that you were supposed to add water. That was my one experience with a freeze dry product in my childhood and thinking back I believe that it left me with a (literal) bad taste in my mouth over the whole process. This kindergarten understanding of what freeze-dry is apparently informed my biases up until just recently.
See, I wasn’t too hot on the idea of the new Freeze Dry products we here at Steve’s. I could see the benefit for traveling, and I was looking forward to that, but other than that I didn’t think it was going to be something that I would recommend over our frozen diets. Now, three months after the launch, I have a whole list of things that our freeze-dry can do, and I am thoroughly enjoying feeding it to my pets.
First off, my cats love it. You can see a whole lot more in other blogs about the troubles I have had transitioning my cats, but I have learned that the convenience and room-temperature of the freeze dry makes it easy to mix in with their canned. Now 2 of the 3 will now eat the turkey and the beef by themselves, so I am pretty much done with them, only 1 left! I have been adding milk (sometimes raw when I can afford it) and things like tuna juice and chicken stock, and they just go wild for it! It is such a great feeling, still fairly new to me, to see my cats so enthusiastic about something I know is good for them!
Secondly, my dogs love it! I ran out of the frozen stuff one day, so I fed them the freeze dry. It is so great to be able to have a couple of extra bags sitting around in case of an emergency, without having to worry about shelf-life or it taking up room in my freezer! The dogs get excited to eat it, and for some reason, my particular dogs like some of the freeze dry flavors better than the frozen! My dogs are big fans of the chicken, but they don’t like the frozen turkey that much. But with the freeze-dry, they must love the rehydrated texture or something because they nom it right up without complaints.
Third, it is so convenient! I haven’t travelled with it yet, but the last time we took the dogs to Idaho half the car was filled with what we needed to pack them in with their frozen food. It turned out the people we were staying with didn’t have room in their freezer for it, so we had to keep it in the cooler on their porch. That meant making more than one run to the rural town market for ice to keep our food frozen. Now I know the next time I go anywhere, I will actually be able to use my cooler space for my own food, and not my dog! I’ve used it as a training treat, which worked well because I could crumble it into little pieces or feed a whole piece, depending on which dog I was working with. Finally, I can have those few extra backup bags in case I run out of the frozen. I am loving feeding all my animals the same food, and seeing their excitement as they gather around me morning and night for their healthy meals I can feel good about. Now if only I could get my husband to feel the same way about good food!
If your local retailer hasn’t started carrying Steve’s Freeze Dry yet, be sure to tell them you want it! Visit our product page for more information.
