How to prepare first recipe?

How to "GiveMeRaw"?

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TL;DR – How to create your first recipe in GiveMeRaw?

1. Add a pet - go to My pets → Add new pet, enter your dog’s details (age, weight, activity).
2. Add a supplement set – go to Supplements set, select or create a set for their diet type (raw/cooked, with/without bones). You can remove or add your own supplements.
3. Build your recipe – Go to Calculator:
   • select pets and set % body weight,
   • choose diet type and category percentages,
   • add ingredients by clicking + and adjust grams based on what’s available,
   • finally, add supplements (the app calculates amounts for you),
   • Check the table – green values mean all nutrients are balanced.
   • Save your recipe. Done!

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1. Add your pet

There’s no recipe without… a pet profile. Go to the My Pets tab, click Add new pet, and fill in your pet’s details.

📌  Warning
For now, you can only add dogs - cats are coming soon.

Enter your pet’s age and adjust their activity level. Based on this, the app will calculate their caloric needs (DER) and set appropriate nutritional targets.

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2. Set up supplements

Modern diets are often lacking in certain nutrients and tend to be more repetitive than human diets. That’s why your dog’s meals may need a boost from the right supplements.

Go to the Supplements set tab to see a list of suggested supplements tailored to your dog’s diet type. For example, if your dog is on a raw diet, taurine isn’t needed; if they eat bones (raw diet only), these provide calcium.

📌  Example
For an adult dog on a raw, boneless diet, a basic supplement set might include omega-3 oil, vitamin D3, brewer’s yeast (B vitamins), iodine, and a calcium source.

Don’t have fish oil for omega-3? You can skip it and add salmon to the recipe instead. To remove a suggested supplement, simply click the X button.

If a supplement isn’t in our database, you can add it yourself in the Supplements tab or email us at contact@givemeraw.com and we’ll add it for you.

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3. Build your recipe in the calculator

Go to the Calculator tab and follow these steps:

Who is the recipe for?

Select which pets you’re creating the recipe for. You can mix species and activity levels – our app calculates nutritional values separately for each pet.

In BARF diets, portions are often based on a percentage of body weight. We’ve adopted the same strategy. Smaller dogs typically need a higher percentage, while larger dogs need less.

Not sure what percentage to use? As a reference, 100g of food equals about 120 kcal. Compare this to your pet’s DER (Daily Energy Requirements), which is shown next to their name.

📌  Example
My spayed, moderately active female (6.6 kg) gets 4.5% daily.

Set the recipe basics

Choose:

• diet type (raw / cooked / with bones / boneless)
• percentage of each category (meat, vegetables, etc.) – for example, if your dog doesn’t eat bones, select the boneless option or slightly increase the vegetable percentage.
• number of days you’re preparing food for

Add ingredients

Pick your dog’s favorite products. Add more ingredients by clicking + next to each category name.

Sliders will show how many grams from each category you should include. These are just suggestions – you don’t need to follow them exactly. We know you can’t buy meat down to the gram at the store.

📌  Example
If the calculator suggests 411g of liver and you have 400g, go ahead and use that. You can make up the difference with another ingredient.

For bones, we already calculate the weight of the actual bone content in the meat – not the total raw meaty bones weight. Nutrients from meat and bones are calculated separately and automatically.

You can monitor nutrient levels live in the macro table to see how your choices impact the recipe. For example, if fat is too high, swap fatty pork shoulder for lean pork loin.

Add supplements

The final step is supplementing the diet.

Here, select the supplement set you created earlier. The app will automatically calculate optimal amounts based on your dog’s diet type and needs.

We’ve focused on critical micro- and macronutrients that must be balanced in a dog’s diet. The algorithm checks for any gaps or excesses and will alert you if adjustments are needed:

• Too much of something? The app will show which ingredient is high in that nutrient so you can reduce it.
• Not enough? It will suggest adding a food source rich in the missing nutrient or topping up with a supplement.

Remember, the core principle of a BARF diet is regularly rotating meats and other ingredients to keep your dog’s diet healthy and balanced.

Save your recipe

Double-check that all critical nutrients are “green” (balanced), give your recipe a name, and click Save.

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That’s it! Your recipe will appear in the Meals tab, where you can view it anytime. The ingredients are set, but you can still adjust the number of days or the pets you’re preparing for. Happy cooking!