making a cat a vegan vs. processed food vs. raw

hi everyone,

i joined this site about a month ago but i never introduced myself.  i had a very specific problem and i fixed it so this is just op ed type stuff.

i'm 54, i taught middle school for 16 years (english) (so of course i'm too lazy to capitalize lol) i'm retired for chronic health problems of my own and i live in denver.  i have three cats.

i have been a vegetarian for 38 years and have had "bouts" of veganism on and off for the last five.  i know that a raw vegan diet is probably the best regarding health but at this point none of my health issues are related to diet and i'm not going to die if i eat ice cream or a smothered bean burrito once every three months.

i'm not vegetarian for aesthetic reasons so that probably has something to do with it.  i don't care if other people eat meat, because they're obviously going to.  my abstinence certainly didn't put the beef industry out of business.   i became vegetarian with no problems at all after my first visit to a slaughterhouse.  diet restrictions are really not a problem for me because i was raised in a kosher household.  when i was married i kept a kosher kitchen.  my husband was a meat eater and so were his children.  it was easy for me because i could just use the milchig (dairy) dishes.  i'm not even considered a fanatic because i live in denver and i have a lot of friends in boulder--where old hippies go to die.

anyway, not once in my life have i ever entertained making my cats into vegetarians or vegans.  it's hotly debated among medical practitioners whether vegetarian/vegan diets are good for people.  i've been told more than once that "i was going to die because of my (food) choices/if i didn't change my ways/blah blah blah.  i will say that anyone who adapts this diet must study nutrition closely because it's easy to damage yourself and become protein and/or vitamin deficient.

veganism for cats is another thing that is possible, but they don't thrive.  people might argue with me about that, but the biology of the situation is that cats are designed to eat meat and that's that.  cats don't have aesthetics and moral values, no matter how much we wish they did.  so it's possible to impose a vegan diet on a cat, but it's very easy to do damage with it also.  the facts are that if cats can survive what's in dry food (and some cats are fed dry food only their entire lives), they can most likely survive veganism.  is it the best possible thing for them?  no.  but neither is almost all commercially prepared canned cat food.  there is also the moisture consideration for them.  if i had my way, dry food production for cats would stop tomorrow.  but i'm used to not always getting my way so i'll find an alternative.

i have to liken the furor over raw/canned/home-made/purina dry/vegan diets for cats to those of humans.  are there many things humans shouldn't eat but do?  yes.  some people do it until they're 80, drink and smoke and never experience any discomfort at all living on cheetos, mountain dew and mcdonald's.  even with the documentary super-size me, where the man conducting the experiment suffered liver damage from eating mcdonald's for every single meal for a month, people still eat at mcdonald's and you don't see them drop dead at the counter.  some people don't eat fast food but they eat horrible things like hot pockets--someone on another thread made a fantastic list of awful food and i wish i could remember all of it.  just processed crap, basically, and some people love it.

heart attacks and strokes and obesity are huge in the u.s., but even if they affected 50% of the population, there would still be a percentage of people who eat fast food and processed food every day who aren't affected.  and there would be vegans who run every day and don't smoke or drink alcohol who die from a stroke or a heart attack.  my cholesterol is 156, and i didn't fast before the blood test.  i ate breakfast and lunch because the doctor didn't tell me it was a cholesterol/blood sugar/everything else test.  my glucose was 80, and that was also after eating twice.  ask me what i ate?  i can't remember LOL.  i'm sure yogurt played a part in it though.  so if i were retested properly, the numbers would be much lower.  but it might have absolutely nothing to do with my diet and the fact that i quit smoking in 1989.  i might just be lucky and have good cholesterol genes.

so i think the same thing is true for cats and dogs.  yes, they die of horrible diseases and we know that CRF is influenced by diet and bladder crystals can most likely be prevented by giving cats appropriate food, but there will be cats who eat crap (quite literally) their entire lives and die at 20 with no serious health problems.  i don't like the idea of feeding my cats a diet of canned food only, but primarily because i know that some of the higher priced cat foods aren't really much better than the awful ones everyone is so concerned about.  many cats are obese (and so are many humans) from eating the wrong thing (kibble) (entire grocery store aisles of processed food and fast food) and i dislike paying 1.50 a can and up if it's no better than fancy feast.  i'm not rich and i'm not poor, but i don't need to spend all my money on cat food. 

i was actually forced to examine diet because my oldest cat, who is 15, developed hyperthyroidism about 18-20 months ago.  well, since vomiting is one symptom, my vet wasn't too concerned that she lost an entire pound in one month, but when she didn't gain significantly after her thyroid level was regulated, i told him that if she ate more than a tbsp. at a time she would vomit.  i didn't realize it could be the food, i thought her stomach must have shrunk or something because if i only fed her a little and waited 30 minutes to an hour, she was fine.  but i was feeding her at least six times a day and spooning baby food in-between that.  i'm going on vacation in about a month, and i thought, omg, how am i ever going to find someone who will literally babysit this cat (the others are 2 and 5 and don't need a lot of attention, other than basics, for a week) even if i boarded her, i didn't think i could depend on someone else to feed her the way i was doing it.

my vet told me to read up on IBD and then decide what i want to do.  we could try different food, then go for a biopsy (not really a good option at her age) or an endoscopy.  in reading, i found that allergies were one of the main offenders, and since i had just started them all on a canned-only diet, i had a lot of grain-free food.  well, actually not, because she liked the grammy's pot pie by merrick's so i bought a case of it but she kept throwing it up.  the other two won't touch it.  another person talked me into buying wellness by the 13.3 oz. case, so i had two of those, and i noticed that if all she got was completely grain-free, she can eat as much as she needs to and never vomits.  never.  my vet was steering me toward science diet z/d, and i think he wanted me to hold off on the wellness but i spent about $300 on cat food in 6 weeks and i didn't feel like buying a lot more that my cats wouldn't eat.  plus i don't think sd is very good food.  so he probably wasn't happy i went with wellness first, but it worked so i'm glad i did.

i have been researching canned cat food for the last 6 weeks and have come to the conclusion that unless i can buy free-range organic poultry, rabbit or venison and grind it myself that there isn't a whole lot of food i think is worth buying.  a lot of them say human grade, and while it is true that the cow or whatever animal they used passed USDA requirements for human consumption, it isn't anything a person would eat.  it's still eyeballs, intestines, lungs, spleen, etc.  and once it's prepared in a pet food factory, it is no longer human-grade.  i have only found one facility that actually prepares human-grade food in a factory that also prepares human food (some humans might not be too happy to hear that and that is weruva.  the other one that i will feed is hound & gatos, but i may stop buying it simply because i have a feeling that some of the food isn't really what they say it is.  i asked if they grind up the entire animal (bones and all) into the food, and the rep. wrote back that rabbit was the only one with added liver.  well, i warm up food in the microwave sometimes and the chicken smells a lot like liver to me.  of course i can't prove this, and i think the food is clean from the other questions i asked--there are no preservatives, it's 98% meat, and there is no rendered material in it.  and since it's no longer legal to advertise "human grade" unless you truly are, they call it "restaurant grade."  um, taco bell could be considered a restaurant to some people and i would never eat there so i don't know how fantastic a term that is.  for the time being, they're good enough.  so is tikicat and fussie cat, but fussie cat is almost all tuna based.  i can't remember but i think it only comes in 3 oz. cans and that makes it hard to get a bargain.

i've decided the wellness isn't a bargain.  my cats (except for diotima, the IBD one) don't like it.  diotima eats everything though, bless her heart lol.  she's probably so glad to finally be able to just eat normally and not be bulimic.  the middle one usually won't dive right in, but he likes to eat so i catch him going back to the bowl later to wolf it down.  the two-year-old flat won't eat it.  he will go all day without eating it and start howling and running around having a hissy fit, but the minute i put down anything else--weruva paw-licking chicken, any kind of b.f.f., hound & gatos, even if he does the poop covering pantomime initially (which he does to everything except weruva middle east feast which is mostly tilapia) i came in here in the dark one night and he was guiltily eating lol.  (like, "damn!  i wanted you to think i don't like this so you won't buy it anymore.)

so i've written a magnum opus just to say that unless you feed home-made you'll be hard-pressed to find an uncompromised canned mass-produced cat food.   i even have my doubts about some of the pre-mixed raw that's sold, and it's awfully expensive.  and it might not even matter.  at least you know if you go with the better foods that (hopefully) they aren't being made into cannibals or eating road-kill, but look at all the cats who have eaten nothing but meow mix their entire lives.  i honestly think it's arbitrary, i'm just so picky about what i eat that i feel the same way about what i feed my cats. (i would give myself a c- for writing so damn much and not editing this but it's a message board so i hope i'm allowed to be informal.)

Cindyflower, your honesty has not been unnoticed. I am about your age & have come full circle & now try and take the path of least resistance. If feeding raw food is  what someone feels they must do to reach a personal nirvana so be it, likewise for the grocery store kibble fed cats who thrive on it. Good health for man or beast is priceless, some folks are so quick to to pass judgment on what they think is the correct way to good health that some very basic needs are kicked to the curb.Trust your instincts, stress is so counter productive. Striving for perfection can wear a soul out, I for one am amazed that I am now considered a old wise woman seems like just yesterday that I was at a Frampton concert. hth.

I totally understand where you are coming from. I've read up on the pet food industry, and I agree: aside from making your own homemade raw food, you have absolutely no control as to what goes into the food you feed your pets. It's disgusting to even think about the rendering process, let alone the fact that 4D animals are used in some of the lower quality pet food brands. I currently have my cats on NV commercial raw, and I'm hoping to switch over to either frankenprey or ground homemade raw in the near future. The only pet food brand I would say I actually trust would be Weruva. They seem to be the only reputable company that cares about the health of our pets.

It's true that some kibbles might as well be vegan (only meat ingredient is "meat and bone meal", and it's #8 on the ingredient list ), and cats don't die from it (most of the time). They usually look pretty ratty, though, from what I've seen. I suppose they're staying alive on the vitamin supplements. Probably the same for vegan diets.

It's pretty well proven that what you eat has an effect on your health. And that a change in diet can cure/mitigate many different health problems. There will always be debate about what diet is best for that, though.

It's funny that you all have mentioned Weruva as a brand that you all trust. For me, Weruva and Wysong as two brands I don't trust. Not for any particular reason, just a feeling. I have fed my cats Weruva (and BFF), my dogs have had Wysong products. I recommend Weruva (and BFF) to people at work all the time, there's just something about the companies that I don't like and can't put my finger on it. Perhaps because it's made in Thailand? It's all fine and dandy to say that you manufacture your pet food in a human food facility, but when that human food facility is in a different country that, admittedly, I know very little about, I question the quality. Especially when the country that it's made in is in the continent that has been responsible for quite a few human and pet recalls. For anyone in Canada, Shopper's Drug Mart's home brand, Amigo, is also made in Thailand in a human food facility. I can't remember if it's grain free or not, but I know it's byproduct free. It's 99 cents/3oz can and often goes on sale 3/$1.49.

For me, I would rather feed a food that's sourced and manufactured in the US or Canada and uses non GMO products, hormones or antibiotics. I love it if the food is made in their own facility. I feed (and work for) Nature's Variety. My cats get the wet, dry and raw, the dogs get the raw and dry, sometimes the wet. That being said, my cats also get Friskies. It's not a brand that I particularly like, however whenever I need to get powdered or wet medication into them, they have no problem eating it in the Friskies. Since all of my pets get a digestive enzyme and coconut oil in their food, the cats get a can of Friskies once a day (split between them). Is it the best of them? No. But it works for what I need it to do, so the small amount that they get I have come to accept.

With all of that being said, Mike and I are very particular about what we eat. We do not eat processed foods, we make everything from scratch. No GMOs, no antibiotics, no hormones, no soy, no corn. We also eat coconut oil daily, whether we fry something in it or use it instead of butter for something we make. We both feel healthier than we have ever felt and have a ton of energy. We both also smoke and drink. We will not eat at chain restaurants unless we're travelling, the restaurants we do eat serve fresh, local, seasonal products. We shop for groceries at the market and have a membership to the food coop store. About once a month, sometimes a bit more often, we do get Taco Bell, McDonald's or some other type of fast food, but it's not a significant part of our diet. I don't think Monsanto will go out of business because we refuse to eat their genetically modified soy or corn products, I don't think the factory farms are going to shut down because we don't buy their meats, but I can take comfort in the fact that, for the most part, we do not support them.

I also work at a pet store. The number of people that come in and want to feed their pets vegetarian or vegan because they are is astronomical. Considering that we are within a 10 minute drive of at least 5 other pet stores and sell about 10 28 lb bags of one of the vegetarian diets that we carry, that's a lot of people that have their pets on those diets. We do have a few customers that have their pets on it for legitimate reasons, severe allergies, etc, but the majority of them do it because they are imposing their beliefs on their carnivore pets. I do have a big problem with that. If they wanted a pet that only ate fruits and veggies, they should have purchased a rabbit, guinea pig, llama or horse. I suppose it's somewhat similar to me imposing my views of GMOs, etc on my pets, but they are still on a species appropriate diet. 

Now that I've rambled on and on, I don't really remember what the point I was trying to make was, so I'll just end it here

Well, as I always say, the best diet for a cat is one it will eat and that works for the lifestyle and budget of kitty's parent/owner/guardian (pick the word you prefer to use).

That said... I never thought about what it meant that cats are obligate carnivores. The concept of "species appropriate" wasn't something that crossed my mind, and when our boys blocked, I took the vet's advice and put them on prescription food.

And what's really backwards about this is that a) I conduct research for a living, and I research "everything," (obviously not LOL!) and b) I work with ferals. I found TCS when feral kittens turned up in our yard. Since then, I have devoted much of my free time to cat rescue and/or feral cat advocacy - I have two websites devoted to the subjects, and I write (and research) extensively on feral cat predation. I see feral cats hunt: I know they don't raid the corn field or the vegetable garden. So exactly why didn't my brain say "Hey, wait a minute? What the heck is THAT doing in this food?" :dk: Why it took me about 9 years to research cat nutrition, I don't know.

Really, I have Chumley to thank for the diet my cats eat. He is our latest rescue, and he's FIV+. The vets we work with weren't able to help resolve his diarrhea or his "allergies," so we sought alternative advice. (Were he not FIV+, we probably would have put him on pred and left it at that (if it fixed the allergy problem). But pred is contra-indicated in cats with suppressed immune systems). And the first thing our holistic vet did was give us a lecture on kibble. :lol3: Basically, if we wanted to continue to see her, we had to transition the cats to wet food. (OK, maybe I exaggerate a bit ). In fact, she encouraged us to go raw. At that time, I was so not ready for that. :lol3: But that's when I began visiting the Nutrition Forum.

I tend to be "proof" oriented, and as there are few studies related to raw, most of what I saw were the dangers of raw feeding. Researching raw, I didn't feel a pressing need to switch to raw, and argued against it here. It wasn't until I began researching commercial canned and kibble that I did the 180. That's when the notion of "species appropriate" didn't even matter - the guilt of what I was feeding them when providing canned cat food became overwhelming.

I argued that my cats were thriving on that prescription kibble. And they seemed to be. But the changes in their energy, coats, etc. were apparent when we switched to canned. I argued that my cats were thriving on "high quality" grain free canned food. And the changes in their behavior, energy, coats, etc. have been apparent (and quickly) in the switch to raw.

So now I'm almost obsessed with feline nutrition. And while I continue to believe that the best diet for a cat is the one it will eat, and that fits the lifestyle and budget of kitty's parents, I now work to help kitty parents understand that they are making a choice - and that the definition of "what your kitty will eat" is also up to each of us. You can't expect a cat that has been eating kibble for 10 years to look at a blob of canned food or a piece of raw chicken and go "oooo, yummy!" It's great when this happens - but if it doesn't, that doesn't mean you can't improve your kitty's diet.

I wish someone had challenged me 10 years ago to think about what "species appropriate" means, and to put a little work into understanding ... what I think is best to call ... the marketing and politics of pet food. It's possible Lazlo wouldn't have developed lymphoma last year had I made different choices. :dk: Clearly genetics plays a role: his three siblings that are also part of our indoor-only fur family haven't developed cancer. (Edited to add: knock wood! :cross: )

There is no "perfect" that fits everyone or every pet. But I do believe most people want to feed the most nutritious diet they can afford within their lifestyle. And it can be so very difficult to navigate just what that means.

:rub:

kittylover23 said:

I totally understand where you are coming from. I've read up on the pet food industry, and I agree: aside from making your own homemade raw food, you have absolutely no control as to what goes into the food you feed your pets. It's disgusting to even think about the rendering process, let alone the fact that 4D animals are used in some of the lower quality pet food brands. I currently have my cats on NV commercial raw, and I'm hoping to switch over to either frankenprey or ground homemade raw in the near future. The only pet food brand I would say I actually trust would be Weruva. They seem to be the only reputable company that cares about the health of our pets.

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for the time being, i trust them.  i won't trust any company forever lol--things change, people get greedy and want more money so they start cheaping out on production costs, etc.  but for now they have given me extremely good answers to detailed questions.  hopefully i'll be able to go to the denver urban homesteading place and find out where i can get free-range organic meat that won't force me to starve just to feed my cats. lol  right now i most definitely am spending more on their food than mine

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willowy  /img/forum/go_quote.gif
It's true that some kibbles might as well be vegan (only meat ingredient is "meat and bone meal", and it's #8 on the ingredient list

), and cats don't die from it (most of the time). They usually look pretty ratty, though, from what I've seen. I suppose they're staying alive on the vitamin supplements. Probably the same for vegan diets.
It's pretty well proven that what you eat has an effect on your health. And that a change in diet can cure/mitigate many different health problems. There will always be debate about what diet is best for that, though.

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of course diet plays a very important part in overall health.  no one could ever convince me otherwive BUT--there are people who want to eat what they want, smoke 3 packs a day and drink a six-pack every night before they fall asleep.  if someone won't listen to reason, there's nothing i can do and like i used to tell my students (and their parents): "if you don't care, i can't care."  i don't think it's right to impose my beliefs on an animal, so i don't, but there are people who are going to do that.  maybe they'll change their minds when they're old like me lol.  i think the food industry does to human beings what they have done to animals, just in a slightly different way.  inferior food + animal digest = tastes good to them so they eat it.  inferior food + high fructose corn syrup = tastes good so we eat even more of it.  high fructose corn syrup isn't the devil in and of itself, but it doesn't exist in nature and it truly is metabolized differently than sucrose.  there's a link between HFCS and diabetes, although it's not clear whether it's because of the difference in how it's metabolized, or the fact that people are eating way too much of it.  some people drink pepsi all day long, and other people never drink it but they don't think about the fact that it's in bread, catsup, breakfast cereal, practically every processed food you can buy.  you can go even farther and say that sucrose doesn't exist naturally either, and the bottom line is that even things like honey would not be readily accessible to human beings.  you could get about a fingerful swiped and then you'd be attacked by bees.  maple syrup, well i suppose you could eat as much of that as you want unless the tree is possessed.  that's what i use.  and trust me, you aren't tempted to put it in everything lol.

fair2middling said:

Cindyflower, your honesty has not been unnoticed. I am about your age & have come full circle & now try and take the path of least resistance. If feeding raw food is  what someone feels they must do to reach a personal nirvana so be it, likewise for the grocery store kibble fed cats who thrive on it. Good health for man or beast is priceless, some folks are so quick to to pass judgment on what they think is the correct way to good health that some very basic needs are kicked to the curb.Trust your instincts, stress is so counter productive. Striving for perfection can wear a soul out, I for one am amazed that I am now considered a old wise woman seems like just yesterday that I was at a Frampton concert. hth.

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that's how it is.  i don't know how wise i'm considered lol but i don't go to any concerts that have a mosh pit.  (the last one i went to was cake.)

Quote:

nerdrock said:

It's funny that you all have mentioned Weruva as a brand that you all trust. For me, Weruva and Wysong as two brands I don't trust. Not for any particular reason, just a feeling. I have fed my cats Weruva (and BFF), my dogs have had Wysong products. I recommend Weruva (and BFF) to people at work all the time, there's just something about the companies that I don't like and can't put my finger on it. Perhaps because it's made in Thailand? It's all fine and dandy to say that you manufacture your pet food in a human food facility, but when that human food facility is in a different country that, admittedly, I know very little about, I question the quality. Especially when the country that it's made in is in the continent that has been responsible for quite a few human and pet recalls. For anyone in Canada, Shopper's Drug Mart's home brand, Amigo, is also made in Thailand in a human food facility. I can't remember if it's grain free or not, but I know it's byproduct free. It's 99 cents/3oz can and often goes on sale 3/$1.49.

For me, I would rather feed a food that's sourced and manufactured in the US or Canada and uses non GMO products, hormones or antibiotics. I love it if the food is made in their own facility. I feed (and work for) Nature's Variety. My cats get the wet, dry and raw, the dogs get the raw and dry, sometimes the wet. That being said, my cats also get Friskies. It's not a brand that I particularly like, however whenever I need to get powdered or wet medication into them, they have no problem eating it in the Friskies. Since all of my pets get a digestive enzyme and coconut oil in their food, the cats get a can of Friskies once a day (split between them). Is it the best of them? No. But it works for what I need it to do, so the small amount that they get I have come to accept.

With all of that being said, Mike and I are very particular about what we eat. We do not eat processed foods, we make everything from scratch. No GMOs, no antibiotics, no hormones, no soy, no corn. We also eat coconut oil daily, whether we fry something in it or use it instead of butter for something we make. We both feel healthier than we have ever felt and have a ton of energy. We both also smoke and drink. We will not eat at chain restaurants unless we're travelling, the restaurants we do eat serve fresh, local, seasonal products. We shop for groceries at the market and have a membership to the food coop store. About once a month, sometimes a bit more often, we do get Taco Bell, McDonald's or some other type of fast food, but it's not a significant part of our diet. I don't think Monsanto will go out of business because we refuse to eat their genetically modified soy or corn products, I don't think the factory farms are going to shut down because we don't buy their meats, but I can take comfort in the fact that, for the most part, we do not support them.

I also work at a pet store. The number of people that come in and want to feed their pets vegetarian or vegan because they are is astronomical. Considering that we are within a 10 minute drive of at least 5 other pet stores and sell about 10 28 lb bags of one of the vegetarian diets that we carry, that's a lot of people that have their pets on those diets. We do have a few customers that have their pets on it for legitimate reasons, severe allergies, etc, but the majority of them do it because they are imposing their beliefs on their carnivore pets. I do have a big problem with that. If they wanted a pet that only ate fruits and veggies, they should have purchased a rabbit, guinea pig, llama or horse. I suppose it's somewhat similar to me imposing my views of GMOs, etc on my pets, but they are still on a species appropriate diet. 

Now that I've rambled on and on, I don't really remember what the point I was trying to make was, so I'll just end it here

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weruva being manufactured in thailand gave me pause at first, but i liked the way the food looked so i asked more questions.  apparently the family has been in tuna fishing for at least two generations and they have a strong connection with someone related to the factory.  it's not cheaper labor or cheaper ingredients.  (so they say, anyway.  anyone can lie, but not 100% of people you talk to so i'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.)  even though it's FDA inspected, i don't have all that much faith in the FDA for human food, so that doesn't mean a lot to me.  but thailand is not china, so as far as that goes, i won't mistrust them on that basis alone, considering how many good aspects there are to the food.  (i still reserve the right to change my mind later if i find out something different.)  but the fact that i can see strips of meat in the paw lickin' chicken tells me that it's true they don't use by-products.  food that's ground into a pate is what i'm not crazy about, i don't care how good something says it is.  i almost bought wysong geriatrix but i think it got lost in the shuffle and it's expensive, and hardly any pet food stores keep it in stock.  that generally tells me something about the quality of food.  if i know the owner of a pet store (or at least talk to them) and they heavily research food before they sell it, i feel more comfortable about it.  they also have good explanations about the size of the tuna they use in b.f.f. so that's okay until i have time to research whether it's true or not.  at some point i just have to do other things because i've been dreaming about cat food lol.

the food that i was really disappointed by is EVO.  natura pet products was bought by proctor & gamble about two years ago, and i don't want any part of the food that comes out of their factory.  i don't buy the excuse that different water in processing causes diarrhea in cats and dogs.  i don't buy it that it's the extra protein either.  as far as i'm concerned, there's something in that food there shouldn't be and i'm not going to buy it.  if someone else swears by it, fine.  they can buy it all they want and my share as well.  i won't buy science diet no matter how much my vets tells me it's good.  i believe him that he believes it's good food, or at the very least, works in some circumstances, but i'm not buying it regardless.  for some weird reason, i'm starting to doubt wellness.  it may very well be good food, but if my cats won't eat it, it doesn't matter.  i'm not going to force feed my cats.  it's pate and i'm not going to taste it.  my youngest cat is the most problematic with food:  something he eats one day is something he doesn't like the next.  part of me thinks he's just a brat.  for price consideration, my cats would never eat friskies.  i've bought it and wished i could get by with feeding cat food that was on sale, but i've been defied every time.  (plus i've always figured it probably wasn't that good so why try to make them.)  fancy feast isn't great food, it isn't horrible either.  i know they source some of their ingredients from china, but there are a few flavors in the line that have halfway decent ingredients.  i have considered augmenting some of the pricier foods with some FF, but i'm afraid if i do that, houdini will try to wait until i get out a can of it.  it's kind of like kids preferring m & m's and doritos to broccoli and plain oatmeal.  my basic reaction is that if they come to know there's not anything else, they'll eat it.  i don't even care if they don't eat it with gusto lol.

as far as making a cat eat a vegetarian/vegan diet, i'm completely against it and just like i couldn't put walmart out of business by not shopping there, nothing i do or say will convince people that it's a bad idea. i don't think people should let their 12 year-olds stay up all night and play x-box and then eat five pop tarts and come to school, but i can't save everyone lol.  there are more than just a few bad ideas running around loose out there.  to me, it's every bit as unnatural and unhealthy as forcing a cat to eat nothing but dry kibble.  a vet gave me cherry-flavored amoxicillin for my cat once and i thought i'd never seen anything more bizarre.  i've seen videos on youtube of cats getting their grub on with a huge piece of cantaloupe, but i've also seen videos of cats eating with a knife and fork lol so i don't think a cat's predilection for melon or fruit is very common.

when it comes to places like conagra and swift, it seems like the very best i can do is not support them as well.  i'm very attached to doing things on principle, like not patronizing businesses if i don't like their politics and the way they treat their employees, as well as unethical business practices.  unfortunately i can't boycott everything or i'd be living in a cave somewhere or beating my clothes on a rock by the river.  i might have to buy p & g household cleaning products sometimes because i think they're superior, but i don't have to buy any pet food they have anything to do with.  15 years ago, iams/eukanuba was one of the best foods you could buy.  they bought it and look at it now.  not just ingredient-wise, but i think animal testing is completely unnecessary for food.  why?  if it's chemicals, of course, but most chemicals don't belong in food.  preservatives have been around how long?  that's about the only one i can justify for canned food.  the rest are just marketing ploys to make more money, kind of like the urinary health dry food.  magnesium isn't the problem even though that's what the stones are composed of, it's lack of water.  so dry food is the antithesis of anything one should feed a cat with urinary problems, no matter how low in magnesium it is.  and purina just made all that up, and it sounds plausible so the general public believes it.

i think your point was that you don't really trust weruva or wysong, so if that's your gut reaction, don't buy it.  i haven't been to the factory, i haven't been to happy hour and dinner with the owner, they might be filthy, bloodless, money-grubbing freaks for all i know and lying through their teeth.  i'd really hate to tell someone, "oh no, buy it," and then have it turn out they're using human babies or something for the real meat lol.  but if your biggest reservation is over the fact that it's produced in thailand, you might reconsider.  a lot of the better foods like weruva, b.f.f., tiki cat and fussie cat are all produced there, and it's clean food as far as i can tell.  i think weruva might also make soulistic, but i'm not positive.  at any rate, i think you get what you pay for regarding most things, so if the same company produces it and it's cheaper, it most likely has less expensive ingredients.  not necessarily bad, just not cuts of muscle meat, maybe.

LDG said:

Well, as I always say, the best diet for a cat is one it will eat and that works for the lifestyle and budget of kitty's parent/owner/guardian (pick the word you prefer to use).
That said... I never thought about what it meant that cats are obligate carnivores. The concept of "species appropriate" wasn't something that crossed my mind, and when our boys blocked, I took the vet's advice and put them on prescription food.
And what's really backwards about this is that a) I conduct research for a living, and I research "everything," (obviously not LOL!) and b) I work with ferals. I found TCS when feral kittens turned up in our yard. Since then, I have devoted much of my free time to cat rescue and/or feral cat advocacy - I have two websites devoted to the subjects, and I write (and research) extensively on feral cat predation. I see feral cats hunt: I know they don't raid the corn field or the vegetable garden. So exactly why didn't my brain say "Hey, wait a minute? What the heck is THAT doing in this food?"

Why it took me about 9 years to research cat nutrition, I don't know.
Really, I have Chumley to thank for the diet my cats eat. He is our latest rescue, and he's FIV+. The vets we work with weren't able to help resolve his diarrhea or his "allergies," so we sought alternative advice. (Were he not FIV+, we probably would have put him on pred and left it at that (if it fixed the allergy problem). But pred is contra-indicated in cats with suppressed immune systems). And the first thing our holistic vet did was give us a lecture on kibble.

Basically, if we wanted to continue to see her, we had to transition the cats to wet food. (OK, maybe I exaggerate a bit

). In fact, she encouraged us to go raw. At that time, I was so not ready for that.

But that's when I began visiting the Nutrition Forum.
I tend to be "proof" oriented, and as there are few studies related to raw, most of what I saw were the dangers of raw feeding. Researching raw, I didn't feel a pressing need to switch to raw, and argued against it here. It wasn't until I began researching commercial canned and kibble that I did the 180. That's when the notion of "species appropriate" didn't even matter - the guilt of what I was feeding them when providing canned cat food became overwhelming.
I argued that my cats were thriving on that prescription kibble. And they seemed to be. But the changes in their energy, coats, etc. were apparent when we switched to canned. I argued that my cats were thriving on "high quality" grain free canned food. And the changes in their behavior, energy, coats, etc. have been apparent (and quickly) in the switch to raw.
So now I'm almost obsessed with feline nutrition. And while I continue to believe that the best diet for a cat is the one it will eat, and that fits the lifestyle and budget of kitty's parents, I now work to help kitty parents understand that they are making a choice - and that the definition of "what your kitty will eat" is also up to each of us. You can't expect a cat that has been eating kibble for 10 years to look at a blob of canned food or a piece of raw chicken and go "oooo, yummy!" It's great when this happens - but if it doesn't, that doesn't mean you can't improve your kitty's diet.
I wish someone had challenged me 10 years ago to think about what "species appropriate" means, and to put a little work into understanding ... what I think is best to call ... the marketing and politics of pet food. It's possible Lazlo wouldn't have developed lymphoma last year had I made different choices.

Clearly genetics plays a role: his three siblings that are also part of our indoor-only fur family haven't developed cancer. (Edited to add: knock wood!

)
There is no "perfect" that fits everyone or every pet. But I do believe most people want to feed the most nutritious diet they can afford within their lifestyle. And it can be so very difficult to navigate just what that means.

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i honestly believe that raw is probably best, however, i'm not in a rush to be up to my elbows in raw meat.  the thought of it kind of makes me gag lol.  plus, it's not exactly the same as a cat living in the wild would eat because what they are eating is a fresh kill.  i've long wondered why there is no cat food made of mice or little birds (sparrows and starlings maybe, they don't have to use canaries or cockatiels that people have for pets) because i'd buy it.  i don't know why i've fed mostly canned cat food to my cats.  it's probably because my mother had a pair of siamese that she bred and they never ate anything but canned food.  we didn't even have dry food in the house and i never thought anything about the nutrition end of it.  the first cat i got was a siamese who looked like he just got lost.  they trapped him under a dumpster in a fairly affluent neighborhood and he was filthy and weighed 6 lbs.  he was already declawed and neutered, obviously someone's pet but no one claimed him.  about a year later he started howling uncharacteristically (siamese yowl a lot but this was different) i looked all over his body and nothing seemed wrong so i took him to the vet and as soon as he opened his mouth, he said, "omg."  it was pretty disgusting.  he had severe gum disease, i mean the kind you see pictures of on periodontal sites, textbook awful, and i felt stupid because i hadn't even thought to look in his mouth.  then we tried knocking him out twice a year to clean them after pulling the worst of them, and after a couple of years my vet told me it would probably be best for the cat if we pulled all his teeth, because chronic infection like that affects the other body systems.  so i did, and after that, all he could eat was canned food.  he wanted to eat some dry, but if i put water on it, he wouldn't eat it, and if he ate it dry he just threw it up so i quit trying on that one.

i never believed the dry food myth about it cleaning their teeth and always fed more canned than dry.  i'd look at it and think, "*** is that?" LOL  and this is way before i even knew what was in it or how they make it.  it just looked weird to me.  there have been times i've been bedridden for up to six months at a time, and even if i have someone coming in to help me, they are not obligated to deal with pets.  so getting someone to clean the litterbox or open canned cat food is hit or miss, and for that reason i fed my cats dry food for a long time.  in my bed LOL. (on a pad)  well, i mean there wasn't really anything else i could do.  i also had to change to clumping litter in order to get anyone else to deal with it, and i always hated it.  but bottom line: my cats lived.  it might not have been ideal but i really had no choice.  you'd think the litterbox would be a bigger deal, but these people deal with bodily fluids all the time and have tons of latex gloves.  but open a can of cat food?  some of them outright refused.

and this strikes me as really weird: i bought a variety of dry food, i mean everything because a lot of times i had to depend on what someone else bought, and it was usually not what i wrote down.  beggars can't kvetch lol.  i tried to use blue buffalo freedom grain-free the most, but my IBD cat who is grain intolerant used to throw it up.  and once houdini started eating all canned, i still had some and if he was acting like he wouldn't eat, i'd give him some and he threw it up every single time.  after four times i decided it was the food (he's not a gobble eater) and threw it away.  none of them will touch the BB canned except for spa select and diotima used to throw that up (grain) so i'm not buying any more of that.  blue buffalo is supposed to be a good company, but the owner of pet's paradise told me some bad things about them and why he won't carry that line, so that plus the vomit makes me not buy it.  they might be perfectly good, they might not.

difficult to figure out the most nutritious (that is also within a budget) is an understatement.  it's like this hazy nebulous world of phrases of which no one really  knows the meaning, and lies, and half-truths, and who has time for that?  i worked at least 65 hours a week and i didn't have time to think about all this.  it's just my basic distrust of growth hormones, gmos, antibiotics, dirty handling practices, abject cruelty and questionable health of factory farmed animals that makes me think most canned food is probably less healthy than what i should be feeding my cats.  but unless i can find a way to get organic free-range meat at a price i can afford, i'm not feeding grocery store meat to my cats and pre-mixed raw is too expensive.  i think they would eat it because a girl who works at pet's paradise gave me frozen samples and they ate some of it, and i'm sure it would be better for them.

people keep talking about different energy levels, but i haven't noticed any.  my cats pretty much act the same except they usually line up in front of their plates when it's time to eat.  (before even.  and they just quietly sit there, it's funny).  their coats are much softer though. and their poo doesn't stink.  well, it doesn't smell good, but if it's in there overnight, i can hardly smell it.  as far as psycho energy, houdini is the only who runs around like a nut and he's always done that.  he howls if he doesn't get the kind of food he wants but i ignore it so he doesn't do it very long.  and baci just got fat lol.  he's always liked to eat but the other two don't always finish their food so i leave it until the next meal because it isn't raw and it's probably fine, but i think baci has just been cleaning up after everyone. so i'm giving him much less in his initial portion, figuring he'll get more later anyway.  i've been doing it for two months, so i'd think behavioral changes would be noticeable.

and yes, i feel guilty for feeding them what i've fed them in the past.  fortunately, only one has the treatable illness (hyperthyroid) and i hope i didn't cause her to have it with diet, but i don't think anyone will ever know.  i have felt guilty about coda for a long time because i took him to the vet repeatedly and they could never find anything wrong with him.  personally, i think it was hyperthyroidism because he ate and ate and just lost weight but the vet told his t-4 level was normal.  what i didn't know at the time was that unless you have a baseline going back to like when they're 8 or 10, they can have a "normal" level but it isn't normal for them.  he was 17 when he died, which is fairly old but i wanted to keep him around a few more years than that.  he had all kinds of tests except for exploratory surgery because of his age, so i feel like i probably did the best i could.  but now my cats definitely have that baseline done.  that's how i caught diotima's probably as soon as it started.

but unless i can find a way to get organic free-range meat at a price i can afford, i'm not feeding grocery store meat to my cats and pre-mixed raw is too expensive.

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See, I thought about that. . .but what do you think cat food is made of? Not organic free-range meat, that's for sure (well, some pre-made raw is). Better to feed it directly than have it go through the pet food process, even if it's not The Best. Like a lot of doctors say--it's healthier to eat your fruits and veggies even if you can't afford organic, rather than avoid eating non-organic fruits and veggies :tongue2:.

Plus, if you're feeding stuff like Weruva and Tiki Cat, I bet pre-made raw ISN'T more expensive. Take a look at LDG's spreadsheet some time.

You know, I don't really think it's just the fact that it's made in Thailand, it's just a feeling I get about it that I don't like, so I don't buy it. I don't disagree that it's a good quality food and I don't try to dissuade people from buying it if that's what they want, it's just not something that I would personally feed on a regular basis just because of my gut feeling about it. It would be nice to be able to go to see the plant for myself, or know someone that has been there that can give me an unbiased first hand account of the facility, but unfortunately a lot of places aren't like that. There are quite a few factories where you can go and have a tour, see how things are made, what's in them, etc, IMO it would be a good idea for some pet foods to open their doors to the public like that to ease some of the concerns people have, whether it be just for one day a year or something like that. A pet appreciation day, for example. I don't know how well that would work or if they would just "clean up" the plant for that particular visit/tour like a lot of companies do, but it's an idea. 

As for EVO and P&G, I know of quite a few people whose pets got sick after the take over. Some of it was just digestive troubles when they changed the formula and didn't tell anyone (as a side note, if you see that a company has changed their packaging, take a quick look at the ingredients and compare it to an old bag/can if you can. A lot of companies will hide a change in formula or ingredients with a packaging change). I also personally know a lady that's dog was constantly getting sick on Canidae when they first changed their formula, the company kept insisting that nothing changed, yet her dog was still getting sick even though it had been on that food since it was a puppy. She took a sample of the food into the vet and had it tested, it came back with high levels of metal in it. Once her dog was off the food, she got better, although she did have some kidney damage because of it. Canidae refused to admit that it was because of the food. 

My family used to feed our pets Iams back when it was a very good food, kept feeding it right up until the recall - we didn't know any better at the time and thought it was great when grocery stores started carrying it because it was easier for us, we no longer had to go to a specialty store to get it. Just before the recall was announced, my dog started getting sick. Soon after the recall he was diagnosed with kidney disease. He lived for another 6 years after that, but it was a nightmare and my family still blames themselves to this day about his kidney disease and how they could have possibly prevented it by feeding him a better food and making an effort to actually research the type of food they were feeding. However, that was all during a time when you didn't really research things like that. You believed your vet when they told you that Iams, Science Diet, Purina, etc were good foods. 

When we got Meowzers, she was being fed Royal Canin Kitten formula dry and wet food. I had some Friskies left over from when Stan was very sick before he died, it was one of the only things that I could get him to eat before I had to start force feeding him. One night we ran out of wet food for her (that's what I get for letting Mike feed the cats, he never tells me when we're getting low), so I gave her the Friskies. She loved it, of course. Both cats will eat other, better quality foods, but they absolutely will not eat them if we mix their coconut oil, digestive enzyme, lysine or para-free in them, so we've resigned ourselves to the fact that both cats will get a little bit of junk per day and take comfort in knowing that the majority of their diet is excellent quality. Every once in awhile we try to give them the supplements in a different type of food, it goes well maybe one day, then the next they look at us like we're nuts. There's someone on here that has said that any wet is better than no wet, so if it takes a bit of Friskies to get them what they need, then they'll get it. The only supplements they get daily are the coconut oil and digestive enzyme, the lysine and para-free are only given as needed. 

I have heard a lot of bad things about Blue Buffalo as well. It's something that I fed to my dog when Petsmart first started carrying it. I fed the one bag of it and then stopped, I can't really remember why. A few years after that I started hearing the bad things about them. I never really understood why they started with the lifesource bits, a lot of people have recently switched off of it because their pets will either only eat those or will only eat the regular part of the kibble. They have concerns as to whether the food is actually nutritionally complete without those bits, so they switch to something without them. I had a customer in just a few minutes ago that needed advice on cat food, she apparently used to feed Blue Buffalo all the time, but had to switch to a prescription diet for a few years when one of her cats got sick. When she was able to get them off the prescription diet, she tried BB again and it just made them sick, no matter which kind she fed (regular, basics or wilderness). 

The fact that Weruva and BFF are made in Thailand does unnerve me. I sent them an email about this a while ago, and they gave me a good response. I'll go search my inbox for it and post it here.

cinderflower said:

i honestly believe that raw is probably best, however, i'm not in a rush to be up to my elbows in raw meat.  the thought of it kind of makes me gag lol.

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Well, given you're a vegetarian, I can understand that. :lol3:

cinderflower said:

plus, it's not exactly the same as a cat living in the wild would eat because what they are eating is a fresh kill.

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And that was one of my arguments against feeding raw when I was arguing against it.

But, IMO, both of those things (not similar proteins, not fresh kill) are basically moot as re: relative nutrition for kitty. The nutrients, for the most part, are not degraded by freezing ( http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FactSheets/Focus_On_Freezing/index.asp ). As Willowy points out, those are the proteins we have, and if I buy them from the supermarket, butcher, or local farmer (http://www.eatwild.com), at least I KNOW it's fit for human consumption. :dk: I also know it's chicken breast (or whatever) - not chicken back with fat and potentially a very slight bit of meat leftovers - all of which are "chicken" thanks to the AAFCO.

The bottom line is that raw has to be the most nutritious diet for them - it's the only biologically appropriate diet. :dk:

As obligate carnivores, cats are designed to get the nutrition they need from raw meat. They aren't out there cooking, and cooking destroys many of the nutrients they need (which is why all the supplements. I just reviewed - again - the ingredients in most commercial raw foods, and there are very few vitamin supplements added to any of them: http://catcentric.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Commercial-Raw-Product-Overview-Initial.pdf).

What proteins cats eat in the wild vary considerably around the world, based on location. Most cats eat mostly small rodents. But cats on islands will eat mostly birds, and cats in the tropics will eat a lot of lizards. The one thing they have in common? It's raw meat. This is a very interesting review of feral cat diets by Plantinga et al. (and if you want the full study, just PM me your email address): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22005434

Their digestive systems are so specialized, they simply lack digestive enzymes necessary to utilize a number of plant-based sources of nutrition.

Cats can't convert beta carotene into Vitamin A. Cats must have it from animal tissue (I found exactly one commercial raw product that has a Vitamin A supplement in it). The one thing you will see in EVERY canned or kibble food is Vitamin A, because nothing in the food provides it to the cat via the food product: up to 50% of the vitamin A in the meat is destroyed because of the very high temperatures used in cat food processing (http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACK055.pdf).

Cats lack the digestive enzymes necessary to convert LA (linoleic acid, an omega 6 essential fatty acid) into AA (arachidonic acid, also an omega 6). http://www.blakkatz.com/fat.pdf "Because cats cannot synthesize AA, their daily requirement for AA is so high that it must be provided in the diet." http://www.chiro.org/nutrition/FULL/The_Essential_PUFA_Guide.shtml

Many cat foods tout their omega 3 content - and the omega 3 source is flax seed. Well, for the same reason cats can't convert LA into AA, cats can't utilize the omega 3 from flax seed. In fact, because of their lack of the enzyme delta-6 desaturase, cats can't utilize the Omega 3, ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), at all because they can't convert it into EPA and DHA. It's useless to them. They need the EPA and DHA directly from an animal source.

In the wild, their natural omega 6: omega 3 ratio is 2:1 (Plantinga 2011, referenced above). A typical canned/kibble diet has an O6:O3 ratio of 17:1 (it can be as high as 20:1). (Plantinga 2011, and http://www.pethealth101.com/arthritis_and_joint/fattyacid.shtml ).

So while raw chicken, turkey, lamb, pork, beef, etc., may not be "ideal" - the form in which it is served is what makes it biologically appropriate - or not. :dk:

cinderflower said:

i've long wondered why there is no cat food made of mice or little birds

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I actually bought ground mice (raw) to feed my cats. Two of the eight liked it. :lol3:

cinderflower said:

i never believed the dry food myth about it cleaning their teeth and always fed more canned than dry. 

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The kibble shatters if the cat even bites it (many don't chew), so it doesn't provide any dental benefit. There are 7 or 8 dry foods made for dental health, and in whatever trials they've been in they have shown to provide some benefit. But any old kibble not specifically meant to provide dental benefit - doesn't. :lol3:

Willowy said:

but unless i can find a way to get organic free-range meat at a price i can afford, i'm not feeding grocery store meat to my cats and pre-mixed raw is too expensive.

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See, I thought about that. . .but what do you think cat food is made of? Not organic free-range meat, that's for sure (well, some pre-made raw is). Better to feed it directly than have it go through the pet food process, even if it's not The Best. Like a lot of doctors say--it's healthier to eat your fruits and veggies even if you can't afford organic, rather than avoid eating non-organic fruits and veggies

.
Plus, if you're feeding stuff like Weruva and Tiki Cat, I bet pre-made raw ISN'T more expensive. Take a look at LDG's spreadsheet some time.

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damn, i have tried to answer you twice and it keeps blipping out!  i know, i know.  i mean, i kept thinking, am i a total fool for spending all this money on cat food?  i mean if it's the same thing basically as fancy feast, is it really worth twice as much?  i guess i meant if i'm going to go raw, that's the only way (or maybe not) (i'm really on the fence about this) i'd do it.  i mean, i don't even buy organic free-range carrots for myself   it's too expensive.  i know i'm eating pesticides and gmos and i wish could grow my own tomatoes but i can't so i just have to do the best i can.  the only thing i can say is that i hate to support factory-farmed animals.  i don't even like chickens but i hate the way they treat them in mass-production farms.  same thing for all the rest of the animals.  i eat in restaurants that serve meat sometimes, but i have always absolutely refused to eat in an italian restaurant if they serve veal.  i know that doesn't mean they'll start crying over me not eating there or close down, but at least i can say that i didn't support their ability to buy the veal by patronizing their business.

the last time i touched raw meat was over 20 years ago.  the last few people i dated had to go elsewhere for breakfast if they wanted bacon LOL.  i'm not kidding.  i just . . . can't somehow.  it makes me sick.  i can open a can of cat food and not throw up, and i was okay with the tiny little bitsy cup of rad cat they gave me, but on a daily basis, i don't know.  i'm not going to say never, because i learn more things all the time and change my mind if i have to.  being right for the sake of being right is not something that means anything to me--i'll readily admit if i'm being a fool.  it won't the be first time and certainly not the last.  i'm probably spending about $100 a month on cat food, and i question that to some extent.  depending on how much it costs per month and how repulsed it makes me, i'm considering raw, but only a little.  i'll look at the chart.  if i'm perfectly honest, no, i don't want to make cat food.  there is a long list of things i don't want to do in life, and that's pretty close to the top.

nerdrock said:

You know, I don't really think it's just the fact that it's made in Thailand, it's just a feeling I get about it that I don't like, so I don't buy it. I don't disagree that it's a good quality food and I don't try to dissuade people from buying it if that's what they want, it's just not something that I would personally feed on a regular basis just because of my gut feeling about it. It would be nice to be able to go to see the plant for myself, or know someone that has been there that can give me an unbiased first hand account of the facility, but unfortunately a lot of places aren't like that. There are quite a few factories where you can go and have a tour, see how things are made, what's in them, etc, IMO it would be a good idea for some pet foods to open their doors to the public like that to ease some of the concerns people have, whether it be just for one day a year or something like that. A pet appreciation day, for example. I don't know how well that would work or if they would just "clean up" the plant for that particular visit/tour like a lot of companies do, but it's an idea. 

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i do know someone who goes to thailand every few years but i'm not sure he'd be willing to tour the plant lol.  i could make a really bad joke here but i'm restraining myself.

don't get me wrong, i'm just as skeptical of anything i don't make with my own two hands, i just got enough answers to satisfy me.  i don't keep e-mails but i also started drafting written letters to companies because if i have it in a letter i can hold in my hand, with their letterhead on it, somehow it seems better than an e-mail (if you're really clever you can fake the "from" i.s.p.'s and alter e-mails) and i haven't even finished doing that.  i've only been doing this a couple of months, i figure my cats won't die in this amount of time. (at least i hope they won't)  worst case scenario is that they just won't eat it.  i have vowed never to serve them anything that makes them vomit any more, because that just isn't normal.

kittylover23 said:

The fact that Weruva and BFF are made in Thailand does unnerve me. I sent them an email about this a while ago, and they gave me a good response. I'll go search my inbox for it and post it here.

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i hope you find it.  they appear to be an extraordinarily ethical business.

cinderflower said:

hi everyone,

(snip)


so i've written a magnum opus just to say that unless you feed home-made you'll be hard-pressed to find an uncompromised canned mass-produced cat food.   i even have my doubts about some of the pre-mixed raw that's sold, and it's awfully expensive.  and it might not even matter.  at least you know if you go with the better foods that (hopefully) they aren't being made into cannibals or eating road-kill, but look at all the cats who have eaten nothing but meow mix their entire lives.  i honestly think it's arbitrary, i'm just so picky about what i eat that i feel the same way about what i feed my cats. (i would give myself a c- for writing so damn much and not editing this but it's a message board so i hope i'm allowed to be informal.)

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Long lived cats who have eaten meow mix all their lives are long lived by good genetics. Imagine a life time of stomach aches and feeling like crap, because all you ate was species inappropriate junk food day in and day out. That's what cats who eat meow mix feel like.

I'm not arguing with you though. I agree with you about the PFI, and it's why I feed as wide a varied canned diet as possible, and am always searching for other food choices for my cats. I do have one on partial commercial raw. And the improvement, for her, is remarkable. I don't feed the grocery store brands because I can't stand the idea of putting dye and artificial flavors, and sodium nitrite and sodium nitrates into my cats' little bodies.

Originally Posted by LDG  


Well, given you're a vegetarian, I can understand that.

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i know that feeding canned is a compromise, but if i feed the highest quality canned i can find, i sort of feel like i'm doing the best i can.  the same thing that keeps me from being a complete vegan (eating ben & jerry's or cream cheese, using bounce dryer sheets, applying burt's bees lip balm, etc.) is the same thing that will keep me from feeding raw: i'm just not that good of a human being.  truthfully, i might try rad cat just to see if they'll even eat it on a full-time basis, and if that ends up not being a huge price differential, i'd consider that.

i'll look at the spreadsheets but price alone isn't the only reason.  it's part aesthetics, part price, and i might even change my mind.  i just can't promise anything right now.

otto said:

Long lived cats who have eaten meow mix all their lives are long lived by good genetics. Imagine a life time of stomach aches and feeling like crap, because all you ate was species inappropriate junk food day in and day out. That's what cats who eat meow mix feel like.
I'm not arguing with you though. I agree with you about the PFI, and it's why I feed as wide a varied canned diet as possible, and am always searching for other food choices for my cats. I do have one on partial commercial raw. And the improvement, for her, is remarkable. I don't feed the grocery store brands because I can't stand the idea of putting dye and artificial flavors, and sodium nitrite and sodium nitrates into my cats' little bodies.

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exactly.  i'm not recommending it by any means, i'm just playing devil's advocate.  some food, even if it's real crummy food, is better than no food at all, right?  i mean, it's probably not fun to live in a shelter with 70 other cats but people who run no-kill shelters think it's better than the alternative.  i can't decide if life for life's sake is worth it if they never get adopted, or if they really don't care.  all i know is that a lot of them will never have homes but living in a group home is better than dying in an alley.  a lot of them eat cheap cat food because that's all there is.  i'm going to donate the 18 cans of grammy's pot pie to the cat society in lakewood.  the cats probably won't want it lol but i can't feed it to the one cat i have who will eat it, and doggiefood.com won't take back partial cases.  for people who tell me cheap cat food is the best (and i've been hearing this for years because i hardly used any dry food and when i did it was never from the grocery store) i always like to say, "then why do you have to clean up puke every day?" but i've given up arguing with them.  it doesn't do any good.  people who drink and smoke heavily like to say, "look at george burns, he smoked cigars and drank martinis and lived to be 80."  genetics is all it is.  plus the other argument i love:  "studies have shown that 69% of people who give up smoking live an average of ten years longer than smokers, but

100% of ex-smokers die." 

Didn't George Burns live to be 100? :tongue2:

I don't have any tolerance for meat either. I'm not vegetarian, because I eat meat at retaurants and at other people's houses (because I'm lazy ), but I never prepare meat for myself at home because the smell of cooking meat is disgusting to me, and because I hate to handle raw meat. But I do feed the pets some raw food, and it's not so bad, really. I'll never be able to cut up kidneys or livers or pig hearts or anything remotely disgusting, but most meat isn't so bad. The biggest problem I have is that when I cut the meat into chunks with scissors, I start to think about how my hand is made of the same stuff as that meat, and the scissors cut it so easily, and what if I cut into my hand. . .and totally freak myself out. But it's not bloody or smelly or anything like that so I can manage. And commercial raw is even less stinky and icky than canned food, so no troubles there.

LMAO he did, i'm an idiot.  i misspoke.  betty white drinks and she's 90, but i don't know about ernest borgnine or andy griffith's health habits.  95 & 96 is pretty old.  i know dick van dyke was an alcoholic but he quit drinking, and he's 87.

i really try not to think about it. (the scissors thing)  i have horrible movies in my head of cows and pigs and chickens because i've read too many books and been to slaughterhouses.  i saw a guy skin a rabbit once (and i've also read horrible stories about that.  even though they were fiction--maybe--they were still awful) and i've seen someone in the process of dressing a deer but i didn't stick around.  the biggest thing might not even be touching it, it's the smell that makes me sick.  if i go to the deli in king soopers, i have to go all the way around so i don't pass the meat section.  meat cooking usually doesn't bother me when my neighbors cook, especially if it's with onions.  if they're cooking tripe (menudo) though, it smells really bad.  i had a neighbor who cooked it a lot and burned it on several occasions and it smells like someone is burning vomit.

the purina plant isn't very far from me, it's off I-70 in commerce city, and omg.  it smells soooooo bad.  i've been tempted to go in it, or try to anyway, but i'm pretty sure i would throw up on the floor.  i don't know if they have their own rendering facility but it smells like they do.  if they were just mixing stuff up and putting it in cans i don't think you would be able to smell it from the highway.

with all the repulsive stories coming out about pet food, i wish people would read the jungle by upton sinclair or slaughterhouse by gail eisnitz.  they were written almost 100 years apart but they're so similar.  sinclair had a big effect on meat packing facilities but it slowly crept back up to the same deplorable conditions.  and i don't think anyone has given a second thought to pet food.  i know i didn't.  i've known it was legal to feed animals to other animals (cows are ground up into feed for cattle, horses, chickens the same, etc.) according to the AAFCO and that always made me glad i don't eat meat, but i never even thought about the implications that had for cat and dog food.

it paints such a bleak picture for inspection of human food that nothing that's done in pet food is surprising to me.  my answer isn't even to write letters to them, i just don't eat it.  and food, inc. is a good documentary. 

oh well.  i'm going to look into some radcat.  they're at radfood.com if anyone wants to look at it.  i thought there was a facility here but i guess it's in oregon?  looks decent anyway.  it costs twice as much as what i'm buying but can you feed a cat raw sometimes, like a few days a week?  i shouldn't ask that, i should just read the raw feeding forum.  i think i'll just buy a little container from pet's paradise and just see how they eat it (in very small amounts).  i've already given them some before because they gave me free samples, actually i don't have to buy any, i still have two of those in the freezer. 

cinderflower said:

i know that feeding canned is a compromise, but if i feed the highest quality canned i can find, i sort of feel like i'm doing the best i can. 

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And that's the truth! You are, and there's no reason to feel bad about that.

cinderflower said:

the same thing that keeps me from being a complete vegan (eating ben & jerry's or cream cheese, using bounce dryer sheets, applying burt's bees lip balm, etc.) is the same thing that will keep me from feeding raw: i'm just not that good of a human being.  truthfully, i might try rad cat just to see if they'll even eat it on a full-time basis, and if that ends up not being a huge price differential, i'd consider that.

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And no one is perfect, nothing is perfect, and WHAT a boring world this would be if it were perfect.

cinderflower said:

i'll look at the spreadsheets but price alone isn't the only reason.  it's part aesthetics, part price, and i might even change my mind. 

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:lol3: My husband has a LOT of phobias. I know the meat thing isn't exactly a phobia, and raw meat isn't one of his issues, but I'll say it again - the best diet for a cat is one the cat will eat, and that fits the budget and lifestyle of the kitty's family. :nod: But I change my mind about things all the time. :lol3:

Oh - here's the spreadsheet: http://catcentric.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Canned-Raw-Table-1.pdf

Bear in mind, the comparison is based on recommended feeding amounts. The raw is based on 2% of bodyweight, so depending on prices you'd pay for the food, it's probably accurate as re: amounts.

...and this is the article that went with it: http://catcentric.org/nutrition-and...y-cat-or-i-can-afford-to-feed-commercial-raw/

cinderflower said:

exactly.  i'm not recommending it by any means, i'm just playing devil's advocate.  some food, even if it's real crummy food, is better than no food at all, right? 

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Exactly, and I'm pretty sure otto agrees with that too. The issue is the difference in taking the time to learn, and making smart choices when and where possible. :nod: Feed Friskies pate instead of 9Lives; feed Purina Cat Chow naturals instead of Meow Mix, etc. Even when we're on a really tight budget, there are choices to be made.