This on-line article focuses primarily on feeding dogs but I thought it still might be of interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/dining/19pets.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/dining/19pets.html
Articles like this pop up alotOriginally Posted by Catapault
This on-line article focuses primarily on feeding dogs but I thought it still might be of interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/dining/19pets.html
Yeah, at some point I'm sure I'll have a raw-fed dog. . .it seems quite straightforward. But trying a raw diet for cats scares me. All that about taurine being destroyed if you mix it too hard or whatever. It just seems terribly complicated.Originally Posted by jcat
Interesting. I always made my own dogfood and our large breeds lived well into their teens, but I'm leery of making catfood more than once in a while.
I think there are varying degrees of extremes though, and it is a valid argument that diets consisting solely of processed food can lead to medical problems, in both people and cats. There's some good evidence to suggest a lot of the common "western diseases" we see in humans (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity) are the result of the highly processed western diet. It's not a stretch to think the same applies to the diets of other animals, especially those less-adapted to processed food than we are.Originally Posted by Ducman69
Nothing wrong with it if well researched, but this "processed food is bad" nonsense is a bit much.
People have been processing food since prehistory, from basic salting and drying meat, to making bread, to fermenting beer.
Supermarkets and our wide varied diet available today are thanks to advances in food processing, and while there are some processed foods that may even intentionally remove vitamins and minerals and add artificial colors, flavoring, sweeteners, and preservatives, there are quality processed organic foods and the like available, and its a heck of a lot easier and IMO safer than if I were to try and make my own lasagna from raw ingredients in my kitchen for example... creating the parmesan cheese alone might take a while, heh!
Convenience, time, cost effectiveness, and safety for those not knowledgeable enough to create a complete diet with the know-how, patience, and tools available to process their own food safely are obvious advantages.