The "Natural" Fallacy

medicate · Dec 16, 2011

A common theme I've been seeing on these forums is that things should be "Natural" for the cat. For example, raw food proponents often use this as the foundation for why a cat should eat a raw diet.

But what does the word "Natural" mean?

That it comes from nature?

That it is not chemically changed at all?

That none of it's products are made in a lab synthetically?

Also, Why is "Natural" stuff good?

Cyanide and snake venom are natural. Does that make them healthy?

It's natural for a cat to be at risk of starving on a daily basis if it does not catch its meal. Should we starve out cats every now and then?

If you dig really deep, and ask enough questions like these, the conclusion you will eventually stumble upon is not an easy one.

For one, the word "natural" means different things for different people. For some, it means anything resembling nature. For others it means not made by people. And for most companies, it doesn't actually mean anything at all. It's just a way to make things sound more healthy, without actually meaning anything specific...

Furthermore, "natural" things don't actually prove to be safer or more healthy than "artificially-made lab-synthesized" products. There is un-disputable evidence that many lab made, scientifically discovered chemicals are keeping a lot of cats alive today that would have died long ago in their 'natural' environment. Meats treated before slaughter with antibiotics made in factories cause less poisoning than foods dubbed 'natural' or 'organic' without any antibiotic use. And wet/dry food is sprinkled with mass-produced vitamins and nutrients to provide a balanced diet, leading to less malnutrition or vitamin deficiencies compared with cats receiving 'natural' diets of rabbit heads and deer liver. Of course I have to mention vaccines, one of the least natural-seeming therapies, with probably the best outcomes of any other therapies.

Perhaps we should be more critical when we are told something is good because it is Natural. Food for thought.

ducman69 · Dec 16, 2011

Honestly, I think its just another fad.

I'm only thirty and yet have seen so many food fads come and go in my lifetime alone.   First it was all about low fat, fat was the enemy without question! But then wait good fats are good its all about low cal, gotta count those calories.   No thats yo-yo, so soon after it was all low carb, kill those carbohydrates. And now its all natural, probably an extension of the "going green" movement.

That is a good point, and like you say most know that natural essential oils are one of the most toxic air fresheners to your cat you can have in your home, whereas an unnatural alternative like febreze (primarily artificially modified starch and a bit of zinc chloride) is perfectly harmless used as directed.

I believe you are also right and marketing bombardment is primarily to blame, as it looks good on the packaging but is essentially meaningless and thus doesn't have to be backed up.   Plus the unknown is scary, and simple things found in nature sound a lot less threatening than some foreign chemical in their food like dihydrogen monoxide.

One benefit of going with "natural" though is that its tried and tested if going by a strict definition.   If something has been done for thousands of years one way successfully, why mess with success compared to experimenting with new man-made techniques that aren't realized until later to be harmful in some way not yet understood (like partially hydrogenated veggie oil).    But then you also have to properly define natural, as raw chicken or lamb is certainly not a natural prey for cats, it is not bred/fed/or housed in a natural way, nor is it slaughtered and consumed naturally for example hence the need to cook it to a minimum internal temperature of 160oF to kill bacteria introduced by the constantly reused machinery at the plant.   Raw may be great depending on who you listen to, but it is certainly not "natural".

maxkitteh · Dec 16, 2011

This is very similar to Penn and Teller's takedown of the whole organic food ideology (another fad I reject, since all food is inherently organic).

But, the raw diet for cats is not just a naturalistic fallacy, though there is a lot of woo-promotion by people who do insist on 'natural' remedies, diets, etc, so I understand misgivings.

The raw diet being beneficial to cats is based not just on observation or 'nature' but also physiology. Since evolution is the foundation of biology, and since we know that cats have evolved for millions of years to be obligate carnivores, and since we know they don't cook food, we can infer that feeding a cat what it's physiologically evolved to eat is a safe practice. While cyanide is 'natural' (in trace amounts, since the poison is in the dose), we do know that sufficient quantities will kill many living things, cats and humans included. It's natural to defecate too, but cats don't generally roll around in it, and they can be quite fastidious about cleaning. Bacteria is natural, yet cats have a limit as to how long they'll let food sit at which point they'll refuse to eat it.

Raw food is demonstrably better for all cats, namely because we can see the ill-effects of kibble or dry food (urinary tract blockages, diabetes, weight-gain, low nutrition) compared to canned (and there are levels of quality here too) compared to raw. We can see reactions cats have themselves to the food they're eating, where a low-food-drive cat might suddenly perk up eating canned compared to kibble, and raw compared to all else, with meat-on-bone being prized by most cats. To be fair, we should compare apples to apples where all cats compared are raised on various types of foods, so we don't compare cats raised on kibble who show distaste for raw compared to cats being newly-introduced to raw.

Raw food tends to mean more ideal weight, slower eating (thus better digestion), exercise for the cats jaw and body (watch a cat eat meat on bone to see this), emotional and psychological stimulation, cleaner teeth, less odorous stool (good for an animal who may want to keep a low profile), more compact stool, and MUCH more water intake (important for desert creatures with a low-thirst drive who evolved to gain their moisture from meat). In fact I've read that a cat who drinks water eating dry food is still going to get a lot less water than a cat eating raw. You can observe this directly from the litter box, and I've seen the change in my cat. when I first got him, he was eating kibble and canned...and his urine-chunks from the litter box were much smaller than they are now. You'll see a difference in their coat too. Incidentally, meat is about 80% water and in fact humans are 80% water...it just so happens that the 20% is important stuff. Even our DNA is mostly non-coded junk and it's hard for humans to understand how meat can contain so much water, but it does. This is one of the reasons the myth that humans should drink 8 glasses of water a day is inaccurate—humans get most of our water from food or drinks which contain water.

Anyhoot...we know that cats are obligate carnivores, and we know that a raw meat, organ and bone diet is ideal. Likewise, we wouldn't feed lollipops and meat to a gorilla evolved as a herbivore or try to feed anything but Eucalyptus to a Koala.

Natural is just one factor, but it's not sufficient by itself to understand the care and feeding of cats. We must invoke the disciplines of physiology, evolution, biology, etc. to be best-informed.

mediCATe said:
A common theme I've been seeing on these forums is that things should be "Natural" for the cat. For example, raw food proponents often use this as the foundation for why a cat should eat a raw diet.

But what does the word "Natural" mean?

That it comes from nature?

That it is not chemically changed at all?

That none of it's products are made in a lab synthetically?

Also, Why is "Natural" stuff good?

Cyanide and snake venom are natural. Does that make them healthy?

It's natural for a cat to be at risk of starving on a daily basis if it does not catch its meal. Should we starve out cats every now and then?

If you dig really deep, and ask enough questions like these, the conclusion you will eventually stumble upon is not an easy one.

For one, the word "natural" means different things for different people. For some, it means anything resembling nature. For others it means not made by people. And for most companies, it doesn't actually mean anything at all. It's just a way to make things sound more healthy, without actually meaning anything specific...

Furthermore, "natural" things don't actually prove to be safer or more healthy than "artificially-made lab-synthesized" products. There is un-disputable evidence that many lab made, scientifically discovered chemicals are keeping a lot of cats alive today that would have died long ago in their 'natural' environment. Meats treated before slaughter with antibiotics made in factories cause less poisoning than foods dubbed 'natural' or 'organic' without any antibiotic use. And wet/dry food is sprinkled with mass-produced vitamins and nutrients to provide a balanced diet, leading to less malnutrition or vitamin deficiencies compared with cats receiving 'natural' diets of rabbit heads and deer liver. Of course I have to mention vaccines, one of the least natural-seeming therapies, with probably the best outcomes of any other therapies.

Perhaps we should be more critical when we are told something is good because it is Natural. Food for thought.

ducman69 · Dec 17, 2011

MaxKitteh said:
Raw food is demonstrably better for all cats, namely because we can see the ill-effects of kibble or dry food (urinary tract blockages, diabetes, weight-gain, low nutrition) compared to canned (and there are levels of quality here too) compared to raw. We can see reactions cats have themselves to the food they're eating, where a low-food-drive cat might suddenly perk up eating canned compared to kibble, and raw compared to all else, with meat-on-bone being prized by most cats.

We don't know that raw food is ideal as there certainly is no consensus, and it is currently recommended against by the American (as of June 21 2011 the JAMVA states first and foremost "Recommendations include: Avoiding raw food diets for pets", Canadian, and British Veterinarian Medical Association. If we were to go out fishing in clean waters, there would be little concern cutting off a slice of meat from the fish and eating it on the spot. However, if you were to do the same with fish you find at the grocery store you are playing russian roulette with your health. The meat at the grocery store per the FDA is not intended to be consumed raw, as the animal has long since been butchered before it reaches the consumer, and there are limitations to hygiene at meat processing plants. A few videos on youtube of how unclean these facilities are is enough to convince most that the recommendation to cook food to a minimum internal temperature (varies by meat type) are good suggestions. The AVMA conducted tests of various raw food recipes found online for example (can dig up the thread with all the links) and found that many were nutritionally incomplete according to minimum standards set by the AAFCO/FDA and contained potentially unsafe levels of bacteria. In fact, the AVMA convention is holding seminars specifically to fact-check various claims made by raw food advocates online that aren't verified (both for raw and against commercial), as seen quoted here:

"Raw diets evoke a lot of passion and emotion from pet owners who feel they are doing what is best for their pets. Unfortunately, the internet is filled with misinformation about the benefits of raw diets and even more misinformation about problems with commercial pet foods. The purpose of the lecture Raw Diets is to show some of the information clients see on the internet and then discuss how accurate this information is."

Regarding the claimed benefits of raw food, you will note the lack of peer reviewed scientific studies to confirm these claims. I could say for example that a multivitamin I sell can cure cancer and freshen your breath, but unless I can show you real data, it should be considered bogus. "Reactions from a cat" like perking up for example simply isn't a real gauge, its not performed in any impartial scientific way, and there are certainly some cats starting up on raw that just end up throwing up all over the place or experiencing diarrhea from the transition or having little interest or losing it for the raw shortly.

Regarding the "ill-effects of kibble", again which studies compared to canned or raw and how is all dry food, wet food, and raw food the same when these recipes are so very diverse. Welleness Core kibble shares little in common with Friskies Chicken Feast kibble for example. So certainly there are dry recipes full of cheap veggie fillers and high in carbs, but if you check my sig you will see there are also several that use excellent ingredients in low carb recipes while conversely there are some REALLY poor quality wet foods on the market. It is also important to remain subjective on cause and effect. A cat experiencing a UTI may conclude that because the pain urinating occurs while in the littlerbox, that its the litterbox that is to blame, when we know this is bogus. Likewise, when looking at UTIs, diabetes, weight-gain, and such it would be silly to conclude that ALL dry food of any recipe is to blame, when in reality you are specifically looking at medical side effects of overweight cats that are free fed on unlimited calories of a very high carb dry recipes. The real issue is not how the food was processed, but what ingredients are in the food and how much is being fed.

missymotus · Dec 17, 2011

MaxKitteh said:
This is very similar to Penn and Teller's takedown of the whole organic food ideology (another fad I reject, since all food is inherently organic).

But, the raw diet for cats is not just a naturalistic fallacy, though there is a lot of woo-promotion by people who do insist on 'natural' remedies, diets, etc, so I understand misgivings.

The raw diet being beneficial to cats is based not just on observation or 'nature' but also physiology. Since evolution is the foundation of biology, and since we know that cats have evolved for millions of years to be obligate carnivores, and since we know they don't cook food, we can infer that feeding a cat what it's physiologically evolved to eat is a safe practice. While cyanide is 'natural' (in trace amounts, since the poison is in the dose), we do know that sufficient quantities will kill many living things, cats and humans included. It's natural to defecate too, but cats don't generally roll around in it, and they can be quite fastidious about cleaning. Bacteria is natural, yet cats have a limit as to how long they'll let food sit at which point they'll refuse to eat it.

Raw food is demonstrably better for all cats, namely because we can see the ill-effects of kibble or dry food (urinary tract blockages, diabetes, weight-gain, low nutrition) compared to canned (and there are levels of quality here too) compared to raw. We can see reactions cats have themselves to the food they're eating, where a low-food-drive cat might suddenly perk up eating canned compared to kibble, and raw compared to all else, with meat-on-bone being prized by most cats. To be fair, we should compare apples to apples where all cats compared are raised on various types of foods, so we don't compare cats raised on kibble who show distaste for raw compared to cats being newly-introduced to raw.

Raw food tends to mean more ideal weight, slower eating (thus better digestion), exercise for the cats jaw and body (watch a cat eat meat on bone to see this), emotional and psychological stimulation, cleaner teeth, less odorous stool (good for an animal who may want to keep a low profile), more compact stool, and MUCH more water intake (important for desert creatures with a low-thirst drive who evolved to gain their moisture from meat). In fact I've read that a cat who drinks water eating dry food is still going to get a lot less water than a cat eating raw. You can observe this directly from the litter box, and I've seen the change in my cat. when I first got him, he was eating kibble and canned...and his urine-chunks from the litter box were much smaller than they are now. You'll see a difference in their coat too. Incidentally, meat is about 80% water and in fact humans are 80% water...it just so happens that the 20% is important stuff. Even our DNA is mostly non-coded junk and it's hard for humans to understand how meat can contain so much water, but it does. This is one of the reasons the myth that humans should drink 8 glasses of water a day is inaccurate—humans get most of our water from food or drinks which contain water.

Anyhoot...we know that cats are obligate carnivores, and we know that a raw meat, organ and bone diet is ideal. Likewise, we wouldn't feed lollipops and meat to a gorilla evolved as a herbivore or try to feed anything but Eucalyptus to a Koala. Natural is just one factor, but it's not sufficient by itself to understand the care and feeding of cats. We must invoke the disciplines of physiology, evolution, biology, etc. to be best-informed.

I was going to just agree with a quote here and there but couldn't decide lol, excellent post! I agree with all you've said

I

jennyr · Dec 17, 2011

I also agree. It is such a controversial subject and thanks for writing an informative and well balanced post.

medicate · Dec 17, 2011

MaxKitteh said:
This is very similar to Penn and Teller's takedown of the whole organic food ideology (another fad I reject, since all food is inherently organic).

But, the raw diet for cats is not just a naturalistic fallacy, though there is a lot of woo-promotion by people who do insist on 'natural' remedies, diets, etc, so I understand misgivings.

The raw diet being beneficial to cats is based not just on observation or 'nature' but also physiology. Since evolution is the foundation of biology, and since we know that cats have evolved for millions of years to be obligate carnivores, and since we know they don't cook food, we can infer that feeding a cat what it's physiologically evolved to eat is a safe practice. While cyanide is 'natural' (in trace amounts, since the poison is in the dose), we do know that sufficient quantities will kill many living things, cats and humans included. It's natural to defecate too, but cats don't generally roll around in it, and they can be quite fastidious about cleaning. Bacteria is natural, yet cats have a limit as to how long they'll let food sit at which point they'll refuse to eat it.

Raw food is demonstrably better for all cats, namely because we can see the ill-effects of kibble or dry food (urinary tract blockages, diabetes, weight-gain, low nutrition) compared to canned (and there are levels of quality here too) compared to raw. We can see reactions cats have themselves to the food they're eating, where a low-food-drive cat might suddenly perk up eating canned compared to kibble, and raw compared to all else, with meat-on-bone being prized by most cats. To be fair, we should compare apples to apples where all cats compared are raised on various types of foods, so we don't compare cats raised on kibble who show distaste for raw compared to cats being newly-introduced to raw.

Raw food tends to mean more ideal weight, slower eating (thus better digestion), exercise for the cats jaw and body (watch a cat eat meat on bone to see this), emotional and psychological stimulation, cleaner teeth, less odorous stool (good for an animal who may want to keep a low profile), more compact stool, and MUCH more water intake (important for desert creatures with a low-thirst drive who evolved to gain their moisture from meat). In fact I've read that a cat who drinks water eating dry food is still going to get a lot less water than a cat eating raw. You can observe this directly from the litter box, and I've seen the change in my cat. when I first got him, he was eating kibble and canned...and his urine-chunks from the litter box were much smaller than they are now. You'll see a difference in their coat too. Incidentally, meat is about 80% water and in fact humans are 80% water...it just so happens that the 20% is important stuff. Even our DNA is mostly non-coded junk and it's hard for humans to understand how meat can contain so much water, but it does. This is one of the reasons the myth that humans should drink 8 glasses of water a day is inaccurate—humans get most of our water from food or drinks which contain water.

Anyhoot...we know that cats are obligate carnivores, and we know that a raw meat, organ and bone diet is ideal. Likewise, we wouldn't feed lollipops and meat to a gorilla evolved as a herbivore or try to feed anything but Eucalyptus to a Koala. Natural is just one factor, but it's not sufficient by itself to understand the care and feeding of cats. We must invoke the disciplines of physiology, evolution, biology, etc. to be best-informed.

I completely disagree but I'll save it for a Raw Food debate, not a debate on the semantics of the word Natural.

maxkitteh · Dec 17, 2011

Hey Ducman,

We have to separate a few things here:

1. The consensus of vets does not best nutrition-practices make. Vets are often beholden to manufacturers like Science Diet, and these corporations tend to trained vets yet have an inherent conflict-of-interest because they also sell pet food. Vets are not necessarily trained nutrition experts (though some may be), and some may not even accept the fact of evolution or consider its ramifications pertaining to the diet of an obligate carnivore. Some may have ideological biases (organic food, veganism) or may just not think too much about the topic. Basically, vets are not necessarily an authority here with regard to dietary considerations.

2. Common practices. This of course does not connote 'best practices', and we need to be scientifically rigorous here. Commonly, cats have been food too low in protein, too reliant on grain fillers, unnecessary or harder-to-digest vegetables with too much reliance on thirst-drive (which is naturally low for desert-evolved cats who derive most of their moisture from meat).

Evolution is a peer-reviewed fact, and since we know factually that cats evolved as obligate carnivores and that they eat small prey animals raw, we know that their digestive systems are based around this prey. This is why they have the digestive systems of a carnivore, the quick reflexes needed to catch mice and other prey, a strong hunting drive, claws and incisors, binocular, motion-sensitive vision, etc. Likewise, the cheetah evolved speed to catch it's ever-evolving (and fleet of hoof) prey animals on the savannah. It's basically an evolutionary arms race. Cats are no different, and we can learn a lot through evolution and simple observation (including the litter box after switching to a raw diet).

You're talking specifically about fish, but I am talking about raw food in general. We know there are some toxicity concerns with trace, note, *trace* mercury levels in fish, but remember that the poison is in the dose. Trace levels of ethyl mercury are not an issue for cats or humans, as they've been used in vaccine preservatives for years. Many have erroneously attributed the seemingly-increased incidence of autism to mercury-usage in vaccines but of course, this has been proven not to be the case, especially since the incidence of Autism increased even when Thimerasol was discontinued (as a precaution). The autism scare was actually started by Dr. Wakefield, or should I say, the former Dr. Wakefield since he was found to be a fraud and had his medical license revoked, but I digress.

I'm talking about raw food—chicken, beef, turkey, venison, mice, etc., generally considered 'Frankenprey' unless whole prey is fed. If we *only* compare nutrition and water intake, raw is superior as there are absolutely no grain fillers for obligate carnivores and you can better control the meat source. When you feed a cat human-quality meat, there is little risk, especially since cats can handle a much greater bacterial-load than humans and remember, dry food is not without risk. The salmonella outbreak of 2007 killed thousands of pets due to the mold spores and other pathogens inherent to dry food manufacturing and long-term storage.

Why would you feed vegetables to an obligate carnivore? Logic tells us that we shouldn't. Same for grain. Why would you cook the food of an animal who has eaten raw prey for millions of years? Evolution as you know is a slow process, and cats are highly-adapted to catch small prey. They don't cook their food, so why would we cook it for them? This alone doesn't need peer-review because evolution is already peer-reviewed and is a non-controversial fact. It's the same reason we know humans evolved as omnivores (though we can adapt our diets to fit our religious or ideological concerns more easily). What would happen if you made a cat vegan? I shudder to consider it.

Finally, you're also talking about transition from one diet to another which causes some cats to vomit or react badly. This is a known phenomenon, even if raw isn't considered. Obviously, you should transition a cat slowly. My cat would not even eat canned food (aside from some nibbling) but he took to raw like a champion. He loved kibble (as most cats do) but kibble is demonsrably bad for cats in the long-term, mainly due to the lack of moisture (cats don't often drink enough to offset this), the grain-fillers (cats are not evolved to process grain/plants as well as meat/bone/organ), lower nutrition content (causing cats to overeat), etc.

There is nothing shocking about the proposition of a raw diet for cats any more than this should be shocking or controversial for lions, tigers, bobcats or other felids. It's just evolution and giving a cat a natural, evolution-based diet while removing all of the downsides (say, having to fight a rat and getting bitten). There are observations we can make from a raw diet too, as I've mentioned earlier, such as the cat's litterbox and the much large urine balls you'll see compared to a dry/canned food diet. I hardly see my cat drinking, but his moisture intake is obviously great because I clean his litter box every day (again this isn't just anecdote and can be tested). Cats also respond to raw food in a way you can observe compared to canned or dry food...but this has to be seen as well. Just like humans, cats benefit from the psychological stimulation they get from working to eat (chewing meat/bone) and from the various textures (imagine being fed paste rather than whole foods with various textures and tastes).

Simply because raw hasn't caught-on is no argument against raw. After all, why would corporations who favor canned/kibble want to encourage this? They are very well established. But, leave a cat out in the wild and guess what, it will hunt its own prey...just as they've been doing for millions of years.

Ducman69 said:
We don't know that raw food is ideal as there certainly is no consensus, and it is currently recommended against by the American (as of June 21 2011 the JAMVA states first and foremost "Recommendations include: Avoiding raw food diets for pets", Canadian, and British Veterinarian Medical Association.   If we were to go out fishing in clean waters, there would be little concern cutting off a slice of meat from the fish and eating it on the spot.   However, if you were to do the same with fish you find at the grocery store you are playing russian roulette with your health. The meat at the grocery store per the FDA is not intended to be consumed raw, as the animal has long since been butchered before it reaches the consumer, and there are limitations to hygiene at meat processing plants.   A few videos on youtube of how unclean these facilities are is enough to convince most that the recommendation to cook food to a minimum internal temperature (varies by meat type) are good suggestions.   The AVMA conducted tests of various raw food recipes found online for example (can dig up the thread with all the links) and found that many were nutritionally incomplete according to minimum standards set by the AAFCO/FDA and contained potentially unsafe levels of bacteria.    In fact, the AVMA convention is holding seminars specifically to fact-check various claims made by raw food advocates online that aren't verified (both for raw and against commercial), as seen quoted here:

Regarding the claimed benefits of raw food, you will note the lack of peer reviewed scientific studies to confirm these claims.   I could say for example that a multivitamin I sell can cure cancer and freshen your breath, but unless I can show you real data, it should be considered bogus.   "Reactions from a cat" like perking up for example simply isn't a real gauge, its not performed in any impartial scientific way, and there are certainly some cats starting up on raw that just end up throwing up all over the place or experiencing diarrhea from the transition or having little interest or losing it for the raw shortly.

Regarding the "ill-effects of kibble", again which studies compared to canned or raw and how is all dry food, wet food, and raw food the same when these recipes are so very diverse.   Welleness Core kibble shares little in common with Friskies Chicken Feast kibble for example. So certainly there are dry recipes full of cheap veggie fillers and high in carbs, but if you check my sig you will see there are also several that use excellent ingredients in low carb recipes while conversely there are some REALLY poor quality wet foods on the market. It is also important to remain subjective on cause and effect.    A cat experiencing a UTI may conclude that because the pain urinating occurs while in the littlerbox, that its the litterbox that is to blame, when we know this is bogus.    Likewise, when looking at UTIs, diabetes, weight-gain, and such it would be silly to conclude that ALL dry food of any recipe is to blame, when in reality you are specifically looking at medical side effects of overweight cats that are free fed on unlimited calories of a very high carb dry recipes.    The real issue is not how the food was processed, but what ingredients are in the food and how much is being fed.

nekochan · Dec 17, 2011

I am not quite sure what this post is trying to say. Just that "natural" does not always mean better? Of course, I don't think anyone here believes that anything called natural is inherantly better than otherwise, just like everything synthetic is not necessarily better. This does not mean that some things called natural aren't better than synthetic products.

Also, Why is "Natural" stuff good?

Cyanide and snake venom are natural. Does that make them healthy?

What is the arguement here? This seems like a red herring. Of course no one things that snake venom and cyanide are healthy. That does not mean that everything natural is toxic. Even things that may be toxic to some people or at some doses are not necessarily always harmful. Take all the items that are toxic to cats but not humans for example. What about things like Digitalis (foxglove)? You can say this is a poison, but helps thousands or millions of people with heart conditions.

For one, the word "natural" means different things for different people. For some, it means anything resembling nature. For others it means not made by people. And for most companies, it doesn't actually mean anything at all. It's just a way to make things sound more healthy, without actually meaning anything specific...

Yes, there are different definitions of "natural". In terms of "natural medicine" natural means something different than if say talking about a "natural diet" meaning a diet closer to what an animal would naturally eat if humans were not in the picture. I am not sure why feeding an animal what they biologically were made to eat is considered a bad thing?

Furthermore, "natural" things don't actually prove to be safer or more healthy than "artificially-made lab-synthesized" products. There is un-disputable evidence that many lab made, scientifically discovered chemicals are keeping a lot of cats alive today that would have died long ago in their 'natural' environment.

Yes, and better diet and vet care also help animals live longer, but what is the point of this statement? Are you saying naturally derived medications are bad or harmful or not as good as synthetic? Many of the medications we use today are NOT synthetic or were originally produced from plants. Is aspirin bad (for humans) because it was originally extracted from plants? Is something synthetic necessarily safe? I think there are many natural products out there that are better or safer than others.

Meats treated before slaughter with antibiotics made in factories cause less poisoning than foods dubbed 'natural' or 'organic' without any antibiotic use.

Do you have a cite for this, and/or can you explain what you mean here? What poisoning is being prevented by treating food animals with antibiotics?

And wet/dry food is sprinkled with mass-produced vitamins and nutrients to provide a balanced diet, leading to less malnutrition or vitamin deficiencies compared with cats receiving 'natural' diets of rabbit heads and deer liver.

First of all, not all synthetic vitamins act the same as that nutrient if derived from a whole food source. Second, I don't think animals necessarily require synthetic vitamins to avoid malnutrition/deficiencies. It sems very unlikely animals would have evolved to require synthetic vitamins. What about wild animals? Do they sprinkle vitamins on their food? Yes, they can have deficienies but that is generally due to either a lack of food in general or a lack of their ideal food (which is not a bowl of kibble.)

Of course I have to mention vaccines, one of the least natural-seeming therapies, with probably the best outcomes of any other therapies.

While vaccines have been beneficial in many ways, that does not mean they are perfect or all good. People and pets can die from or develop reactions or illnesses due to vaccines. I don't want to get in a vaccination debate but there are strengths and problems with vaccines, especially with over-vaccination. For example is it really healthy to give an animal an injection of something every year if show immunity to it for 3, 5, or maybe even 7 years?

Here is some info on this: http://www.cedarbayvet.com/duration_of_immunity.htm

I guess I just don't understand what your post is trying to say. If you are just saying not everything "natural" is necessarily good I think everyone knows that. But not everything natural is bad either, and "natural" can be better than the alternative. I don't think feeding an obligate carnivore like a cat a corn-based diet is ideal for example. I also don't think kibble/can is the be all end all of cat nutrition. The idea that animals can only be healthy if fed a mass-produced diet is a fairly new one from a historical point of view and even newer from an evolutionary point of view so I highly doubt that cats have evolved to require it. It is also somewhat surprising that this has become so ingrained in people that they think their animals can't be healthy without being fed this-- can you imagine if doctors started telling parents that they can't possibly be trusted to provide the proper vitamins and nutrients to their kids so they should feed them a mass-produced pellet instead of whole foods? Sure, some people might feed a homemade diet to their pets improperly, just like some people don't feed their kids a balanced diet but that does not mean all homemade diets are bad.

Although if people are concerned about whether they can feed a proper homemade diet or are not willing to research how to provide one, or are otherwise unable to do so of course it is better if they don't. There are also other options out there such as premade raw or cooked foods for pets. I am not saying pets should only be fed a homemade diet, just that it can be a valid option as can a commercial raw or cooked diet, or canned/kibble diets although I think the quality and suitability of these varies a lot.

ducman69 · Dec 17, 2011

MaxKitteh said:
You're talking specifically about fish, but I am talking about raw food in general. I'm talking about raw food—chicken, beef, turkey, venison, mice, etc., generally considered 'Frankenprey' unless whole prey is fed. If we *only* compare nutrition and water intake, raw is superior as there are absolutely no grain fillers for obligate carnivores and you can better control the meat source.
Why would you feed vegetables to an obligate carnivore? Logic tells us that we shouldn't. Same for grain. Why would you cook the food of an animal who has eaten raw prey for millions of years? Evolution as you know is a slow process, and cats are highly-adapted to catch small prey. They don't cook their food, so why would we cook it for them?

I was not talking specifically about fish, but about raw food in general. Yes, cats are obligate carnivores, but as with the fish analogy this is inherently fresh meat eaten while the prey is still twitching more often than not. It is an obvious fallacy to believe that this is the same as industrialized farmed chicken that you find at your grocery store.

Take the "fresh" chicken you find at your Kroger's meat section. Starting from the egg, the hens are typically cramped in very tight cages in very close proximity to vast numbers of other chickens which introduces health concerns. The egg itself passes through the same passageway as feces down a constantly reused conveyor belt. After incubating and brought to the hatchery, they are crowded with other chicks, debeaked, and injected which may or may not kill all pathogens already in the animal at this point. The chicken is then fed massive amounts typically with little sunlight crammed together in large lots in a dust cloud of fecal particulates. When they reach market weight, they will be brought for slaughter which passes it through various machines that will prepare well over a hundred thousand other chickens that day alone before shut down and cleanup. The meat is then usually not frozen but transported fresh to the grocery store in trucks and then reach the shelves for consumers to purchase generally within approximately 24 hours. The meat then sits waiting until it is purchased, typically another day or two before the consumer transports it unrefrigerated for typically an hour before finally has it in their refrigerator many more hours before serving.

This is why the FDA so strongly urges the public to heat meats to various minimum temperatures before consumption, as this meat is not considered fresh or sanitary enough to be consumed raw, nor is this man-made meat processing of non-prey animals for cats somehow natural to their evolutionary diet.

So mainstream commercial meat is cooked, which costs more than NOT cooking the food, but provides a greater safety margin since it kills contaminants picked up during the life cycle and processing of the prey. However, the unfortunate side effect is that cooking and processing does destroy some of the nutrients originally in the meat. These can and are supplemented after the cooking though into the recipe per AAFCO minimum guidelines for a complete and balanced diet. It is more economically viable to obtain some of these lost nutrients from plant sources, say omega fatty acids from flaxseed meal, vitamin B2 from riboflavin, or carrageenan to improve the texture of the recipe to improve palatability.

This meets the naturally evolved nutrient needs of the cat, without subjecting it to the bacterial risks associated with industrial processing and long dead meat.

jenl · Dec 17, 2011

Maybe this doesn't pertain to cats per se, but I don't buy into every fad and trend in food, but when it comes to certain things of an organic nature, I'd rather some things I eat be organic. If I'm eating berries for instance, I'd prefer they be organic and not sprayed with pesticides. If I'm eating a pear, and I'm not going to be eating the skin, then I'm not going to be so concerned.

Also, hormones added to things are bad for me-I have a hormone disorder- so for me, I try to eat meat and milk that is free from hormones and other antibiotics.

Natural is better when it comes to many foods, but it's up to us as consumers to make that decision. Everything in moderation.

*shrug*

ldg · Dec 17, 2011

Nekochan said:
I am not quite sure what this post is trying to say. Just that "natural" does not always mean better? Of course, I don't think anyone here believes that anything called natural is inherantly better than otherwise, just like everything synthetic is not necessarily better. This does not mean that some things called natural aren't better than synthetic products.

What is the arguement here? This seems like a red herring. Of course no one things that snake venom and cyanide are healthy. That does not mean that everything natural is toxic. Even things that may be toxic to some people or at some doses are not necessarily always harmful. Take all the items that are toxic to cats but not humans for example. What about things like Digitalis (foxglove)? You can say this is a poison, but helps thousands or millions of people with heart conditions.

What's the point?

mimosa · Dec 17, 2011

Originally Posted by mediCATe

A common theme I've been seeing on these forums is that things should be "Natural" for the cat. For example, raw food proponents often use this as the foundation for why a cat should eat a raw diet.

But what does the word "Natural" mean?

Most raw food proponents I know use "natural" as a loose synonym for "biologically appropriate".

Also, Why is "Natural" stuff good?

It is common knowledge that "natural" food - by which is at least meant fresh and unprocessed or little processed food vs overly processed food with a lot of additives - is better for people too. Processing destroys a lot of the original nutritional value and additives are often added for other reasons than health.

People who feed their cats a "natural" diet are trying to feed them the same way we are told to feed ourselves (but in a species appropriate way, of course).

Furthermore, "natural" things don't actually prove to be safer or more healthy than "artificially-made lab-synthesized" products. There is un-disputable evidence that many lab made, scientifically discovered chemicals are keeping a lot of cats alive today that would have died long ago in their 'natural' environment. Meats treated before slaughter with antibiotics made in factories cause less poisoning than foods dubbed 'natural' or 'organic' without any antibiotic use. And wet/dry food is sprinkled with mass-produced vitamins and nutrients to provide a balanced diet, leading to less malnutrition or vitamin deficiencies compared with cats receiving 'natural' diets of rabbit heads and deer liver. Of course I have to mention vaccines, one of the least natural-seeming therapies, with probably the best outcomes of any other therapies.

Although I agree with you on some of the points above, it seems like you forget that it is also the other way round; artificial things still don't actually always prove as better than the "real" thing. For example, as hard as we have tried, baby formula hasn't got all the benefits of real mother's milk. In (whole) foods there are a lot of micronutrients, interactions between nutrients and other compunds whose function hasn't been fully studied/understood yet.

In recent years I've seen instutions like the Waltham centre update their standard nutrient profiles that a pet food should conform to. It's great that science has booked progress in their understanding of cats' nutritional needs, but we don't know everything yet. Plus in the past pet foods weren't always giving pets everything science now tells us they need. In the future we will probably learn that the same thing is the case today.

Another thing; it's also a fallacy only to look at nutrients or even ingredients when evaluating a food. Other things are important too, texture for instance plays an important role in maintaining oral health.

Yes, raw diets can be dangerous when fed by people with too little knowledge and/or common sense. On the other hand, feeding cats a balanced diet isn't as hard (or dangerous) as some people are trying to make it seem, just as choosing your own food without a degree in nutrition isn't very hard or dangerous. Most serious flaws in our own diets are not a result of ignorance but of other factors, like no time (fast food), no money (fast food seems cheap) and lack of willpower (I know I should lay off the sugar

).

Perhaps we should be more critical when we are told something is good because it is Natural. Food for thought.

I definitely agree with that. It is important people do their own research, whatever is being recommended to them.

ducman69 · Dec 18, 2011

The point as I understood it is very simple: NATURAL is not BETTER its just natural, sometimes it is in fact much worse. However, marketing researchers can tell you with conviction that right now putting "natural" as a label on the box or can of food is considered a positive thing in and of itself, and conversely synthetic is viewed as a negative, even if the synthetic is actually far healthier.

JenL said:
Maybe this doesn't pertain to cats per se, but I don't buy into every fad and trend in food, but when it comes to certain things of an organic nature, I'd rather some things I eat be organic. If I'm eating berries for instance, I'd prefer they be organic and not sprayed with pesticides. If I'm eating a pear, and I'm not going to be eating the skin, then I'm not going to be so concerned.

The point was that natural isn't inherently better.

For example, one criticism with organic labeled food is that while it may not be sprayed with synthetic pesticide, it may be sprayed with organic pesticide. Some of the organic pesticides used are believed to have higher toxicological values for humans than their synthetic counterparts.

So if natural is more toxic and damaging to the soil than the synthetic alternative, its not better, its WORSE.

I do promote the organic movement as a whole though, as at least an attempt by most in the industry to find more sustainable and environmentally friendly farming practices.

mschauer · Dec 18, 2011

Nekochan said:
I am not quite sure what this post is trying to say. Just that "natural" does not always mean better? Of course, I don't think anyone here believes that anything called natural is inherantly better than otherwise, just like everything synthetic is not necessarily better. This does not mean that some things called natural aren't better than synthetic products.

I also don't see what the point is. In the context of marketing it is quite common to use exaggerated and mostly unsupported claims to get people to buy products. Marketers will go as far as regulations allow them. This is nothing new. People should know better than to get sucked in by marketing hype and I think most people do know this.

In the context of raw feeding, IMO, many of the advantages of raw feeding are often misrepresented by lay people trying to express their interpretation of the science based reasons for those advantages and doing a poor job of it. This is also nothing new. If you read enough posts in the non raw part of the nutrition forum you will find plenty of the same type of misrepresentations with regards to non raw foods.

I'll refrain from posting more until mediCate clarifies the point being made. If it is just that the word "natural" is frequently misused, then I agree.

maxkitteh · Dec 18, 2011

Duc,

You mentioned fish and 'clean waters' specifically, implying a risk from either water pollution or the more common concern, mercury toxicity. While you're correct about *humans* not eating raw meat, cats can handle raw meat just fine, though I would agree that one should check the source of raw meat as much as possible. Cats as you know can handle the bacterial load of raw meat, and their carnivore digestive systems are much shorter than ours as humans, thus less time for bacteria to do its thing.

I understand your concerns about the human processing, and that's something to look in to, though I question whether the human-processed meat is riskier than say, a dirty mouse in the wild. I still think, on balance, the concerns you have are more for human consumption of raw meat more than cats.

Of course, this is an argument about the processing of raw meat and factory-farming reform and not against feeding raw food to cats...as it's easy enough to source whole prey from various online sites and go that route as well, and there's the whole commercial raw option as well (Primal, Rad Cat, Feline Pride, etc.).

Your initial post to me was against raw food for cats in general, it seemed (which we disagree on, clearly), but you might have a point about store-bought meat which comes from factory farms. Even if we grant that there are pathogens in the meat (which there certainly are, most likely), my contention is that evolution has equipped cats to deal with raw meat better than humans can imagine. What do you think of places which sell hand-raised whole-prey or the commercial raw food?

As far as vegetables and all this hooey about anti-oxidants and other supplement-industry buzzwords, that's to appeal to humans. Cats get all the nutrition they need (as guided by evolution for millions of years) from meat, bone, organs, etc. from the animals they'd normally hunt and eat. It's quite possible to overdo it on supplements...and humans do this to themselves all the time. In fact, anyone on a regular diet shouldn't need *any* supplements unless prescribed by a doctor, or unless their diet substantially lacks nutrients for some reason. For instance, Vitamin B12 is only available in meat, and vegetarians/vegans might supplement to compensate. The supplement industry is *big business* and their claims should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. Bodies evolved to get their nutrition from food anyway, not necessarily supplements. I'm not saying people can't absorb supplements, but a lot of people are taking supplements they simply don't need or are going right through their bodies (while the money comes out of their wallets). In some cases, people overdose on certain supplements which can cause a cascading effect on the balance of other vitamins in the body...so I would never try to self-prescribe random supplements to my cat (Enzyme CoQ10, anti-oxidants, etc.).

I don't support the 'organic' movement because while I think the intent is good and I am green-conscious, the organic movement is plagued with some anti-science views and can be hysterically anti-GMO (genetically modified organism). Anyone who understands the history of botany/horticulture knows that almost every domesticated fruit/vegetable we humans eat has been shaped by artificial selection or even genetic modification whether that's 'seedless' grapes, seedless mini Clementines (Cuties is one brand), seedless watermelon, giant ears of corn, more nutritious foods, etc. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as 'seedless' watermelon. Corn of course (maize) is hardly recognizable in its 'natural' an unmodified form. The reason farmers can patent seeds is because it takes years of work, growing, artificial selection with genetic considerations to get an ideal seed....such as that for seedless, personal-sized watermelon. I appreciate the science that goes into that. It seems many people in the 'organic' movement have an inherent distrust of science, at least with respect to genetics and horticulture.

Synthesized insecticides, as you've touched on, are generally going to be safer than the 'natural' pesticides and fertilizers used by the organic industry, and this is true both for the environment, relating to pest-control and for human consumption. My main beef (heh) with the organic movement lies more with the higher pricing, false claims about better nutrition and its lower crop yields (less green and efficient). Due to the wide use of manure as fertilizer, there's a risk of E-Coli contamination. E-Coli as we know is perfectly natural.

As I've mentioned before, synthetic varieties of Human Growth Hormone giving to children today is safe, but this used to be made from crushed cadaver pituitaries...and that put some kids at risk for debilitating illnesses such as CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease), which was only discovered decades after the intial batch of 'natural' HgH was given to test subjects. With synthesized agents, the impurities can be perfectly-controlled, which is why Craig Venter's work with synthetic genomics is so promising.

On the Penn and Teller takedown of organic food, nobody in their testing was even able to tell the difference between organic and conventional bananas.

It was a fun yet unscientific test, and I am sure it would be corroborated in any double blind, more rigorous studies, but there is absolutely no difference in nutrition between organic and conventional foods. Meanwhile, the 'boutique' organic food companies (often owned by large mega-corporations) are certainly charging a price-premium and for what, really?

I am in support of factory-farming reform, scientific practices applied to farming, better crop-yields than current conventional standards, GMO to say, infuse vitamin A in rice for countries which sorely need it, better and safer synthetic pesticides, better fertilizers, buying local and fresh, etc. I just don't buy the religion that the organic-food industry has become. I see it as a form of food elitism or 'green' movement ideology applied to food with a huge dollop of ignorance, fear-mongering of science and a misunderstanding of genetics.

We just need to remember one thing. ALL food is organic, or we couldn't eat it.

But, people need to be careful about paying more for food falsely-claimed to be 'better', when it isn't. Cruelty-free, free-range chicken? I'm all for it, thus my support for factory-farming reform.

That said, raw food is ideal for cats physiologically and psychologically (and on almost any metric). We just have to be careful not to conflate our concerns with factory-farming with the efficacy of a raw diet for obligate carnivores who evolved to eat exactly that. In the meantime, it's always good to know where our food is coming from, no matter who's eating it.

Ducman69 said:
I was not talking specifically about fish, but about raw food in general. Yes, cats are obligate carnivores, but as with the fish analogy this is inherently fresh meat eaten while the prey is still twitching more often than not. It is an obvious fallacy to believe that this is the same as industrialized farmed chicken that you find at your grocery store.

Take the "fresh" chicken you find at your Kroger's meat section. Starting from the egg, the hens are typically cramped in very tight cages in very close proximity to vast numbers of other chickens which introduces health concerns. The egg itself passes through the same passageway as feces down a constantly reused conveyor belt. After incubating and brought to the hatchery, they are crowded with other chicks, debeaked, and injected which may or may not kill all pathogens already in the animal at this point. The chicken is then fed massive amounts typically with little sunlight crammed together in large lots in a dust cloud of fecal particulates. When they reach market weight, they will be brought for slaughter which passes it through various machines that will prepare well over a hundred thousand other chickens that day alone before shut down and cleanup. The meat is then usually not frozen but transported fresh to the grocery store in trucks and then reach the shelves for consumers to purchase generally within approximately 24 hours. The meat then sits waiting until it is purchased, typically another day or two before the consumer transports it unrefrigerated for typically an hour before finally has it in their refrigerator many more hours before serving.

This is why the FDA so strongly urges the public to heat meats to various minimum temperatures before consumption, as this meat is not considered fresh or sanitary enough to be consumed raw, nor is this man-made meat processing of non-prey animals for cats somehow natural to their evolutionary diet.

So mainstream commercial meat is cooked, which costs more than NOT cooking the food, but provides a greater safety margin since it kills contaminants picked up during the life cycle and processing of the prey. However, the unfortunate side effect is that cooking and processing does destroy some of the nutrients originally in the meat. These can and are supplemented after the cooking though into the recipe per AAFCO minimum guidelines for a complete and balanced diet. It is more economically viable to obtain some of these lost nutrients from plant sources, say omega fatty acids from flaxseed meal, vitamin B2 from riboflavin, or carrageenan to improve the texture of the recipe to improve palatability.

This meets the naturally evolved nutrient needs of the cat, without subjecting it to the bacterial risks associated with industrial processing and long dead meat.

ducman69 · Dec 18, 2011

MaxKitteh said:
Cats as you know can handle the bacterial load of raw meat, and their carnivore digestive systems are much shorter than ours as humans, thus less time for bacteria to do its thing.

What do you think of places which sell hand-raised whole-prey or the commercial raw food?

I'll have to look for the thread, but I posted links to several commercial raw food manufacturers that were submitted to the AMVA for testing, and they found unsafe levels of pathogens in the food and nutritional deficiencies. My guess is that commercial raw food is using the same grade meat as for cheap human manufacture you'd find at Walmart, or potentially even worse, and at the time of the study at least these were not AAFCO certified to be complete (and for good reason, they were not). Another study I do have off-hand tested 25 commercial raw diets and detected salmonella in 20% and E-coli in 64% of the diets: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1140397/?tool=pmcentrez

The conclusion of the study is posted below:

There is currently inadequate information regarding the safety of raw diets in terms of both animal and human disease. However, considering the variety of infectious and potentially zoonotic pathogens identified here and in other studies, the potential risks must be taken seriously. Given these safety concerns, the absence of any scientific data indicating beneficial health effects of raw diets, and nutritional deficiencies that have been reported with such diets, it is difficult to recommend their use at this point.

Humans can handle very high bacterial loads as well, as long as they are used to it and they are healthy. On my trips to the poorer parts of Philippines for SCUBA diving trips for example, the locals can eat all day and night at the small food stalls where the plastic plates are not even washed they are just put into a large water drum which rinses them off before use by the next customer, and they have no problems with the water supply. Western visitors like myself however can become quite ill and require clean bottled water and more thoroughly cooked food with cleaner utensils, as our systems are not used to handling this amount of bacteria and the imuno compromised and elderly are also a concern for all, as they should for cats as well. All food has some level of bacteria, but we clearly know that high levels are harmful to cats, as we've seen death tolls from contaminated commercial food. Unfortunately, there is no regulatory commission or group that can account for how many cats are actually becoming sick from raw diets at this time.

The claim that carnivore digestive systems are shorter and thus handle higher bacterial loads is also one of those internet claims that has never actually been tested or verified by any field experts. You see it on raw advocacy sites, but when asked for a source to substantiate this claim... *crickets chirping* We certainly have many cases of infection in racing greyhounds, where raw feeding has the longest history to date, so much so that it has been given the name "Alabama rot".

Now would I feel the same about a neighbor farmer that I know is raising whole-prey for me and freezing it right after slaughter? Absolutely not, I would consider that entirely safe as long as I were educated on the right portioning of meat/bone/organ to provide a properly balanced diet. Pathogens are not an innate part of meat, eggs, and dairy after all, they are contaminants primarily caused by limitations of large scale industrial meat manufacture/processing. But those limitations are a fact of life, and thus represents a risk that I believe is unnecessary and find that cooking and supplementing lost nutrients from the high heat a safer long-term practice. Plus, its just downright convenient to pop open a reasonably priced can or bag of store-bought food.

auntie crazy · Dec 18, 2011

Generally speaking (and obviously not including whole prey), everything a cat eats - whether it's wrapped in clear plastic and picked up from the meat cooler of the local grocery store or pulled from among the many cans decorating the pet food aisle of that same store - comes from the exact same population of food animals.

The difference is, the meat intended for human consumption is the highest quality cuts from those sources, while the meat (such as there is) in the pet aisle cans and bags is the waste products of the agricultural process that produces those high quality cuts.

So, those cuts are in the freshest form available to us (outside of whole prey), with nutrients in their most complete, easily digested and natural combinations and forms.

Kibble and canned products are cooked down to the point of being nutritionally inert. Additives are mixed in to give the foods flavor, texture and form, and to prevent spoilage. Foods that have no business in an obligate carnivore's diet are added for a variety of reasons unrelated to the cat's health, including profit and marketing effect. A mix of vitamins and minerals is added to try to give the food some nutritional value - a mix that in inherently incomplete because science has not yet identified all the nutrients cats get from their prey, nor in what combinations those nutrients are used. Quality control is iffy and killer recalls happen every year.

Cat deaths are not related to recalls for bacterial poisonings (their natural defenses, far greater than our own, take care of that), but to recalls for chemical contaminants, poisonous additives, and unbalanced vitamin / mineral mixes (mixes which are different for every manufacturer).

Given the two options above, I'll feed my cats the meats intended for human consumption, thank you very much.

In fact, however, there is now a wider range of raw food options available, with more coming to market all the time. These products use a range of meat sources, including human grade, organic and free-range (no agricultural waste!). They come with the pet food industry's stamp of nutritional approval, if such is important to you, and some are even available with pathogen-free guarantees - something you won't see on a bag or a can. Their additives are minimal or completely absent, species-inappropriate ingredients are either missing altogether or kept to barely discernible levels, and vitamin / mineral supplementation is, for the most part, unnecessary or kept to bare bones basics.

With all the information and new products available today, there is a raw food diet suitable for any lifestyle or comfort level... no expertise needed.

AC

yosemite · Dec 18, 2011

It is important to realize that "all natural" can be very misleading. For example, here in Canada we have an ice cream brand claiming "all natural vanilla". They get away with that by using a vanilla bean for flavouring so yes, it is "all natural vanilla" but the rest of the ingredients are difficult to pronounce to say the least. Some of the 'ice creams" don't even pretend to be ice cream - they call them "frozen desserts".

Be informed for both human and pet food. Don't buy into all the advertising.

maxkitteh · Dec 18, 2011

Humans can handle very high bacterial loads as well, as long as they are used to it and they are healthy. On my trips to the poorer parts of Philippines for SCUBA diving trips for example, the locals can eat all day and night at the small food stalls where the plastic plates are not even washed they are just put into a large water drum which rinses them off before use by the next customer, and they have no problems with the water supply. Western visitors like myself however can become quite ill and require clean bottled water and more thoroughly cooked food with cleaner utensils, as our systems are not used to handling this amount of bacteria and the imuno compromised and elderly are also a concern for all, as they should for cats as well. All food has some level of bacteria, but we clearly know that high levels are harmful to cats, as we've seen death tolls from contaminated commercial food. Unfortunately, there is no regulatory commission or group that can account for how many cats are actually becoming sick from raw diets at this time.

The "Natural" Fallacy

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