Historically, herbs and spices have been used for adding flavors and tastes to foods. They provide unique flavors and/or enhancing tastes to human diets. However, their uses may be beyond adding flavors and/or tastes to foods, because most herbs and spices used in culinary purposes have a long list of potential biological effects on health. In fact, herbs and spices are prepared from the plants, whose traditional uses are back to old medicinal remedies for preventing and/or treating human disease for many years. Numerous studies also indicate that phytochemicals in herbs and spices may be accountable for their health effects. Truly, phytochemicals isolated from plants have been a great resource for discovering a large proportion of commercially available medications for the treatment of a wide range of human diseases such as pulmonary diseases, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, and cancers. As indicated, in the old time, herbs and spices might play curative roles of medicines at a large scale. Indeed, herbs and spices have potentials in providing beneficial effects on human health through their life-long exposure to preventive and therapeutic phytochemicals, in contrast to medicines that provide therapeutic treatment in a short-term basis.

Prevention of disease is much easier than curing disease and herbs work to harmony the “Yin and Yang” of the body and help to make the body immune to, or more resistant against, many serious diseases. Quite simply the use of botanicals is in not only to help cure various disease but in the prevention of becoming ill.

The chosen herbs in our Botanical Blends strengthen and improve specific organs, systems, weaknesses or the body as a whole. They are generally gentle herbs that are used to stimulate and increase the function of organs that are not operating at their highest level and to prevent a decline in the function of organs. Tollden Farms Botanical Blends are designed to assist the body in healing itself for permanent cure.

Knowing about the nutritional value of herbs can change your attitude toward using them as part of your pet’s dietary intake; adding generous portions of herbs to food becomes more than just adding flavour. Herbs can also be added as a pleasurable way of avoiding nutritional deficiencies.

Not only is what your pet eating important, but the efficiency with which food is absorbed is crucial. Many herbs stimulate digestive enzymes and encourage efficient intestinal activity. Some of these are still used as culinary herbs; Bitter herbs such as Dandelion encourage liver function. Parsley is an excellent source of vitamins K and C, as well as vitamin A, folate and iron. Burdock Root is an excellent lymphatic system strengthener. Oatstraw tops are an excellent source of calcium, and helps perform cognitive performance. Lemongrass helps with alleviating stomach ache, achy joints, and exhaustion. Kelp contains a myriad of trace vitamins and minerals, as well as being an excellent support for the thyroid gland.

Why Consider Botanicals 

Ever watch your dog in an open field in the spring time? Chances are you’ll have witnessed him/her grazing on new grasses, eating dirt and even chewing the bark off of sticks.

How do animals in the wild keep themselves healthy? They seek out and eat plants with medicinal properties. They seek out foods for a nutritionally balanced diet.

When laboratory scientists started to explore how animals select their diets, they quickly found that rats that are presented with a range of foods “cafeteria style” will select a nutritionally balanced diet. This ability is termed “nutritional wisdom” and can be loosely applied to the way in which wild animals manage to meet their nutritional needs from foods that are often changing in composition, availability and location.

Animals clearly eat food that both prevents and cures ills. They are able to find substances that protect against future illness and seek out unusual substances that remedy ill health.

Most scientists describe this sort of behavior as self-regulation or homeostatic behavior as the substances involved are normally considered nutrients.

While the physical structure of a dog's teeth, jaws, and intestinal system tell us they are natural carnivores, they also require some plant matter in their diet. Canine and feline species in the wild ingest the stomach and intestines of their plant-eating prey. In doing so, they consume partly digested plant matter, which helps in digestion of the flesh and bone they feed upon.

In her book, The Complete Herbal Handbook For The Dog And Cat, author, herbalist and long-time dog breeder Juliette de Bairacli Levy writes: "I am always amazed at the way my Afghan Hounds have selected their medicinal plants, shrubs and trees, and know where to find them and how to use them.”

The concept of the Botanical Blend came about after years of research into what these “food items” were providing for dog.As a result of our research, we developed our Botanical Blend which has a mixture of ground seeds, roots and grasses, with unique properties to help enhance the immune system of your pet.

Subsequent to our feeding trials of this type of formulation and in feeding thousands of animals over the past decade, we’ve found some dogs and cats do better with this type of blend. Dogs with chronic allergies, dermatitis, yeast infections and various immune system challenges do well on this type of blend, as so dogs and cats with irritable bowel diseases, colitis, and inflammation of the intestinal tract.

Vegetable Blends

Tollden Farms strongly believes that dogs do require some vegetable matter in their diet to ensure longevity and health. Vegetables provide an excellent source of vitamins and minerals. The majority of the vegetable matter in our diets is of the green leafy variety, each providing their own unique properties to the diet for the health of your pet. Romaine lettuce provides an excellent source of fibre, potassium, biotin, copper, iron and vitamin C, as well as a variety of trace minerals. Kale is an excellent source of iron, Vitamin K, and is also considered an anti-inflammatory as well as good for cardiovascular health. Dandelion is rich in vitamins c and B6, thiamin, riboflavin, calcium, iron. Dandelion is an excellent support for liver function. Carrots are a very good source of Vitamins A, C K and B8 as well as being an excellent antioxidant. Sweet Potato is a good source of Vitamin C, A, manganese, and other trace minerals.

The combination of these vegetables helps to support immune health, and the addition of green, leafy vegetables is also believed to help support joint health, as well as providing excellent antioxidants which are proven to help fight disease.

Tollden Farms diets contain 10% of vegetable matter, making it an excellent choice for both Dogs and Cats.