An alternative to wet food (due to recent recalls)

This is a great thing that we recently started on in replacement of our wet food since I don't really trust any of the companies right now (especially after finding out Natura, Wellness and Nature's Variety use Menu pet foods)....

Worth a try!
http://www.felinefuture.com/products/

(just an aside---you can add cooked meat instead of raw if it suits you)

Interesting link!

Please do not use their product with cooked foods. Their site specifically says that the meat used should not be cooked; therefore it is not formulated for cooked meats, only raw. From their "Our Cat Food" page:
"Muscle and organ meats are the most essential foods for cats, and special care should be applied when selecting them. Meats must be raw, fresh (e.g. not spoiled) and preferably not previously frozen. Heat processing of meat will destroy or alter most essential nutrients. Feeding cats cooked meat therefore leads to deficiencies and results in poor health, and ultimately to a premature death."

Substituting cooked meat would result in deficiencies of several nutrients including the all-important Taurine, which is drastically diminished in cooked meat.

I emailed them and they said that if you used a cook meat and used their liver powder (they have this if you can't find a liver source of your own) it will have less taurine, but still plenty. They said it will still have significantly more taurine than NRC recommendations for cats.

That seems odd only because their own website repeatedly says that using cooked meat will not suffice. I would encourage anyone who is considering feeding home-made meals to do a lot of research and not enter into it lightly.

Just add extra Taurine, and add digestive enzymes, and it should be be fine. You can't harm them with more Taurine - you can get powdered taurine at any good heathfood store. Digestive enzymes are important too (pro/prebiotices). Just read the labels to make sure there aren't any bad ingredients for kitties.

Don't forget you are comparing this to the wonderful commercial food. "Food" that is NOT inspected by FDA. "Food" that we are taking on faith that the producers are being honest about the quality and ingredients. Of course these commerical producers CARE about our pets and want what's only best for them. Making as much money and as big a profit margin as they can get is NEVER in their minds! Pet parents as a whole MUST get out of the mind set that just because the bag/can says it's complete and balanced, doesn't mean it is!!! This is ADVERTISING to sell as much of their product as they possible can. As for Vets, they are human and fallible and gullible like all humans are. Do you trust everything your human doctor tells you? I hope not. When I started the peri-menopause thing, my human doctor tried to push hormone therapy for all the wonderful side effects I was having. I chose to try soy and vitamins. I am doing great. So now the perfectly "safe" hormone therapies are coming under attack for a tremendous increase in breast cancer in women. Not to mention all the other potential risks. They also torture horses to make it. Lots of vets now are finally seeing that homemade isn't bad. Sorry - off my soapbox now!

Yes, raw is healthier, but some cats can't tolerate it, or would rather starve than eat it, and for some folks its not do-able.

Puddin eats raw chunks. She won't eat raw ground. She gets raw chickie junks, with raw turkey heart and chickie liver chunks mixed in. I do mix in some taurine powder and powered egg shell, and a bit of powdered kitty multi-vitamin in the juice. She gets that for 2 meals a day, then the other meals she gets cooked home-made. She is the 10+ year old kitty we adopted in December who was 1/2 what her body weight should normally be. She had totally liquid diarreha and spent a week at the vet hospital. After 3 months, she is 10.3 pounds. Her fur is soft and silky. Her teeth are beautiful - whiter than mine are (her people drink lots of sweet iced tea). Her stool is perfect. Tell me raw is bad... She will not eat canned food - she looks at it like its garbage.

I am trying very hard to get our other cat, Tumper to eat homemade cooked. He can't eat raw. Comes right back up. He has a very sensitive tummy due to severe IBD when we adopted him 7+ yrs ago. He is not a foodie, and I believe would get close to starvation before and if he would give in and eat something that he hated. Unfortunately, I have to still feed him canned, otherwise he wouldn't eat at all! I am working on sneaking in homemade cooked w/his canned little by little.

I'm not against raw or cooked foods. I'm just concerned that as a backlash against the recall a lot of pet owners will jump in head first without researching what it will really take to provide their pets with a healthy diet. My only concern about Feline Future is that their website specifically says that their product shouldn't be used with cooked food--I wouldn't want people to use it anyway and find out later that their cat is deficient in a nutrient because they thought Feline Future was okay to use with cooked food and no additional supplements. If people are willing to do the research so that they are providing their cats with complete raw or cooked foods, that is wonderful, but I fear that some will not and their cats may suffer as a result.

OMG too much work for me. Seriously, how do you guys find the time? Are you working?

I and my vet have talked to Feline insticts(sp) and Both were told NOT to use with cooked meat.... Folks there are PLENTY of appropriate supplements for RAW or COOKED but most are not good for both.... I am going to start sounding like a broken record .... Talk with your vet prior to feeding wither homeade or raw ... for those I sent recipes to yes it is complete but show it are talk about it with your vet...

Raw takes me two minutes to prep .... Homemade takes about 1 hour to make ... i work on ave three job s a day and take care of Mom

Thank you sharky. That is what my concern was--since their website is some emphatic that it should not be used with cooked food, I was very skeptical that Feline Instincts was safe to use with cooked food at all. It is designed for raw alone, so those wishing to cook food should find a different supplement designed for cooked food.

I still feed canned with occasional bits of raw chicken as "dessert" to Odo, and I haven't been able to get Willow off of dry (when I tried she lost weight and stopped eating, so I haven't wanted to try since).