For Gods sake when will the madness end????

I get so INCENSED AND OUTRAGED when I see these stories.....   People....how much more pain and suffering are we going to allow to be inflicted???    This is some of the most inhumane and cruel torture imagineable - and it is all needless.

WE KNOW KIBBLE IS BAD FOR CATS.   I am sick and tired of vets that come out as mouthpieces for the pet food conglomerates.   How much does Purina donate to the Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine????      It is no different than when the tabacco companies downplayed the health risks or the asbestos companies - remember them?!      Lives mean nothing to these heartless people who only know their selfish greed.    

God bless Dr Pierson and those that are standing up for what is right.   For they are the righteous ones.    We need more to join them.

I would hope that the owners of this site and others like it start to do whatever small steps they can to educate cat owners about the dangers of feeding kibble.    Folks there is no `premium` good kibble.   Even the most expensive brand is dangerous.  The problem is poor protein, lack of moisture, and high carb content.   

Lord please continue to enlighten us and show us the way.   

Anne is. She has featured a series of articles on feline nutrition. Refer to the stickied threads in the nutrition forum. :nod:

Not everyone can afford to feed wet - or only wet. But helping people make the best choices they can within their means and lifestyle is absolutely a goal.

LDG said:

Anne is. She has featured a series of articles on feline nutrition. Refer to the stickied threads in the nutrition forum.

Not everyone can afford to feed wet - or only wet. But helping people make the best choices they can within their means and lifestyle is absolutely a goal.

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Thanks.   The stickies are great.   I was thinking something more along a warning that pops up when someone joins this site.    Something akin to the warning that the Surgeon General has to put on packs of cigarettes by law.    

:lol3: The problem is there is nothing to be gained by making people feel guilty for the best they can do.

My rant is that I am sick to death of watching people go insane finding a food that will stop the diarrhea or vomiting their cat has suffered for months or years. Change the paradigm. Why would we think it is insane for a person to thrive and be healthy on dry cereal or canned stew, but that's exactly what we expect for our cats?

Diet is the foundation of health. Period.

LDG said:

The problem is there is nothing to be gained by making people feel guilty for the best they can do.
 

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But the question is ..... is this the best people can do?    OK, there is a monetary aspect which predisposes pet owners to choose cheaper food - mostly kibble.    But how many of those owners would avoid kibble if they were educated as to the pain and disease they will bring onto their beloved pets from feeding this poison.    OK, they would rather buy the kibble and spend the difference on a latte from Starbucks.   Suddenly, when the cat develops cancer, flutd, CKS, etc. down the road they can suddenly find $3K for the local vet  who will undoubtedly plunk down a bag of prescription kibble on the yet uneducated pet owner.

And OK, lets remove the monetary aspect.   You have a new kitty owner that is making a decent wage but works 5-6 days a week.    Which food is he going to get?   The one that you can conveniently throw in a bowl or better yet automatic feeder - that has no odor.   Or the one Fluffy has to wake you up for at 5AM to open the can.

I guess my point is we are allowing the pet food companies to defeat us by brainwashing us with clever marketing ploys.    Can we do better?   I believe we can.    I think we owe it to our best friends to get properly educated as to what is healthy and what isnt.    

zoneout said:

 
But the question is ..... is this the best people can do?    OK, there is a monetary aspect which predisposes pet owners to choose cheaper food - mostly kibble.    But how many of those owners would avoid kibble if they were educated as to the pain and disease they will bring onto their beloved pets from feeding this poison.    OK, they would rather buy the kibble and spend the difference on a latte from Starbucks.   Suddenly, when the cat develops cancer, flutd, CKS, etc. down the road they can suddenly find $3K for the local vet  who will undoubtedly plunk down a bag of prescription kibble on the yet uneducated pet owner.

And OK, lets remove the monetary aspect.   You have a new kitty owner that is making a decent wage but works 5-6 days a week.    Which food is he going to get?   The one that you can conveniently throw in a bowl or better yet automatic feeder - that has no odor.   Or the one Fluffy has to wake you up for at 5AM to open the can.

I guess my point is we are allowing the pet food companies to defeat us by brainwashing us with clever marketing ploys.    Can we do better?   I believe we can.    I think we owe it to our best friends to get properly educated as to what is healthy and what isnt.    

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I'm not a dry food advocate, but I wouldn't exactly call it "poison"....

As I see it, people start learning more about feline nutrition after repeated failure with prescription diets and medicines. Other people never educate themselves because the cats show no obvious symptoms of having the problem with the food - "it is normal for cats to throw up every week".

The bigger problem, in my opinion, are the vets. I honestly don't know how a doctor - even an animal doctor - is not up to date with the latest studies. I really don't think it is all about money and sponsoring, I think it is a sad routine and a blind trust in their teachers. I honestly have the greatest appreciation for my vet as a surgeon - but he has this 'too much protein is bad for cats' idea that puts me in severe depression an dissapointment.

A taxi driver once told me that he had a client - a vet - who intentionally prescribed wrong treatments and foods so that the owners of ill pets kept coming back to him for more treatment and, therefore, kept paying him. I honestly hope it was a lie.

 I'm not a dry food advocate, but I wouldn't exactly call it "poison"....

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Why not?   A poison is a substance that will lead eventually to ill-health.    We tend to think of poison like arsonic  for example - something that will bring on sickness in a short period of time....minutes or hours.   But what of nicotine?   Certainly this is a poison yet we do not see the effects for many years.    How many years did the tobacco companies purposely hide the effects of tar and nicotine from the public.

Lets take kibble.   We know there are poisons in it such as fungi, bacteria, and some are preserved with ethoxyquin which is a known poison.   Will the cat get sick in minutes or hours like the arsenic example - probably not.   But undoubtedly the make-up of extruded dry kibble will cause both acute disease (such as blockages) and chronic maladies too numerous to list here during later stages of the cats life - just as tar and nicotine will slowly kill a smoker.

zoneout said:

Why not?   A poison is a substance that will lead eventually to ill-health.    We tend to think of poison like arsonic  for example - something that will bring on sickness in a short period of time....minutes or hours.   But what of nicotine?   Certainly this is a poison yet we do not see the effects for many years.    How many years did the tobacco companies purposely hide the effects of tar and nicotine from the public.

Lets take kibble.   We know there are poisons in it such as fungi, bacteria, and some are preserved with ethoxyquin which is a known poison.   Will the cat get sick in minutes or hours like the arsenic example - probably not.   But undoubtedly the make-up of extruded dry kibble will cause both acute disease (such as blockages) and chronic maladies too numerous to list here during later stages of the cats life - just as tar and nicotine will slowly kill a smoker.

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I get your anger. I have had felines for yrs and until I joined this site I had no idea that my babies health issues were the result of bad nutrition.
My vet would have you fill out the normal paperwork which included what they ate. I would put down 90% friskies dry and 10% friskies can. Not once did my vet educate me. My felines had issues like obesity, diabetes, cystitis and blockages. I'm furious. When I changed their diet, thanks to the people on this site, I told my vet and why. Her response was that they ARE obligate carnivores. So, I thought, you did know what I was feeding was crap but YOU failed to educate me. Now my vet knows I will spend money on my babies. Last year 5000.00 on veterinary care. My husband and I feel they wanted us coming back so why educate us on something that improves their health and over all your profit!! I trust my vet with surgeries but I no longer take everything at face value!! I now also have a holistic vet and she's awesome. ( I also discovered holistic vets through this site). When my other vet tries to get me to buy their prescription, I just say, I have a holistic vet that I will contact for their needs. My vet even had the nerve to say," ya go contact your friend". How condescending. My holistic vet is NOT MY FRIEND!! She's a Dr just like you. Matter of fact she probably has more training!! I do get it!!!

There are conventional vets who do not tow the line for the large pet food companies. There are not a lot of them but they do exist.

I get the feeling that even vets are stuck in their old ways, just like how people are after owning cats for so many years and caring for them one way, assuming it's okay because it's always worked out before. When we brought Mo into a new vet a few months ago, it was specific to a digestive issue so the vet had to ask what kind of food he was receiving. She's a young vet and had graduated pretty recently, so she flat out told me the more wet food, the better. I have yet to see a vet that tried to sell me food.

Perhaps they get used to dealing with older pet owners too, who may be especially stubborn and not want to have the added cost of feeding anything but the dry that's readily available to them, or the dry they find so convenient. The vets that do know better learn to tread lightly when suggesting changes, even if it means the animal would be better off, because it makes for unhappy owners who will sing the praises of their grocery store kibble and take their business elsewhere - potentially to a vet who will agree with the owner that yeah, kibble is just great. Just while I was in the waiting room at said vet's, three people walked in and grabbed huge bags of Royal Canin dry to buy.

Ideas about an appropriate diet for cats have been around forever, and kibble has been the convenient go-to for pets since something like the 1800s. That's a long time for something to be considered good for a pet, and especially because it comes as conveniently as it does and it's been marketed so strongly over the years, people assume it's still the standard. The pet food companies don't help by continuing to make kibble, especially the lower quality ones because it makes them a TON of money. We can't expect everyone to know, understand, and embrace and for crappy kibble to just disappear over the course of a couple decades now that better information is becoming widespread to the masses. A lot of these masses don't want to admit they've potentially been wrong their (or their cats') entire lives! Not to mention there's still a lot of conflicting information published and online that confuses even those with the best of intentions for their pets.

If you compare it to other pet industries that are younger, like exotic pets, vets will never push something that's already been proven to be bad. The first thing an exotic vet will ask you, regardless of why you're visiting is what you feed your pet. I think in this case, exotic specialists are still learning so much on the go that they didn't know about the animals they treat as recently as ten years ago, they can't afford to be stubborn about replacing and replenishing their knowledge as they go. If they miss one conference and misdiagnose one patient, it doesn't take long for that owner to Google their way to their own answer and place blame for the vet not knowing better when the information can be found by them right on the internet.

There seems to be more blissful ignorance and the willingness to stick to the "tried and true" familiarities.

Yes, you make alot of good points.   The reasons why consumers continue to feed - and vets continue to sell kibble are varied.   The line from catinfo.org where a cat owner says `my kitty has been doing just fine on kibble for the 3 years I have used it - so there are no problems with it`.     Duh, Well yeah.... the cat seems fine now.    Most of the diseases from improper nutrition are insidiously slow to develop.   Lets see what happens in another 5 years when the cat`s kidneys shut down or tumors develop.

What is most alarming is that there seems to be an undercurrent coming from the mainstream veterinary community that middle-age cats - say over 10 - are just normally prone to all sorts of health problems like IBD, cancer, CKS, obeisity, and on and on.  We see so many sick cats that we have become desensitized to what is going on.    The vets will counter that cats are living longer and so we are seeing more diseases related to elderly animals.   Poppycock.    3 and 4 year old cats shouldnt be getting urinary blockages at anywhere near the rates we see.

My grandest hope is that the public gets educated similarly to how the use of cigarettes has declined over recent years.    Maybe we need to counter with public information ad campaigns showing diseased cats - the way they show ex-smokers with clogged arteries and enphysema.

Again... the nutrition stickies on this site are wonderful.    The problem is that cat owners tend to look at them AFTER they realize there is a problem with their cat.    We need a way to make the information available to the public the day they bring that new cat or kitten home.

For what it's worth on the subject of kibble.  The ONLY thing my Cindy will eat at the moment is a little  bit of kibble.  I would dearly love to see her dipping her paw in her wet food and flinging it all over the place again.  But she won't even consider it, so if kibble she will eat, kibble she will get. 

Misty8723 said:

For what it's worth on the subject of kibble.  The ONLY thing my Cindy will eat at the moment is a little  bit of kibble.  I would dearly love to see her dipping her paw in her wet food and flinging it all over the place again.  But she won't even consider it, so if kibble she will eat, kibble she will get. 

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Misty if kibble was all my babies would eat then you bet that is what I would feed them. The fact of starvation out ways the other risk. I truly understand people feeding kibble also when that's all they can afford also. We know our furbabies better then anyone. There's some who don't like canned. Mine won't touch raw.

zoneout said:

What is most alarming is that there seems to be an undercurrent coming from the mainstream veterinary community that middle-age cats - say over 10 - are just normally prone to all sorts of health problems like IBD, cancer, CKS, obeisity, and on and on.  We see so many sick cats that we have become desensitized to what is going on.    The vets will counter that cats are living longer and so we are seeing more diseases related to elderly animals.   Poppycock.    3 and 4 year old cats shouldnt be getting urinary blockages at anywhere near the rates we see.

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Equally alarming - l subscribe to a veterinary publication that is delivered to Canadian vets. ln it, time after time after time...(recurring) the articles say "may be caused by degydration", "exacerbated by dehydration", "brought on by dehydration", etc. Some articles even allude to the fact that feeding wet is better AFTER they've become ill. But never, NEVER do these articles say hey, why don't we get proactive and advise people not to feed kibble!

LDG said:

The problem is there is nothing to be gained by making people feel guilty for the best they can do.

My rant is that I am sick to death of watching people go insane finding a food that will stop the diarrhea or vomiting their cat has suffered for months or years. Change the paradigm. Why would we think it is insane for a person to thrive and be healthy on dry cereal or canned stew, but that's exactly what we expect for our cats?

Diet is the foundation of health. Period.

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as for the cost of feeding canned (possibly with a very small amount of dry) cat food vs feeding a home cooked or raw diet --

i'm considered low income. i'm currently feeding mostly canned with a tiny amount of dry cat food/mixed with protein treats for my snick. i have considered and would love to switch snick over to a home cooked diet, but she has serious medical issues (so i'm not wanting to stress her further) and is an extremely picky eater. i will be feeding all future cats of mine a home cooked diet. after having lost one of my furbabies to diabetes and with snick having CKD, IBD, idiopathic hypercalcemia, and currently being borderline diabetic i feel i owe it to my two to do something different, something better for my future cats.

i have looked into the cost of serving a home cooked diet vs canned or canned w/some dry cat food. i figured up the costs of both, and it'll actually cost me less for the food by serving home cooked. that's not even figuring in the savings from less waste in the litter box and (generally) lower vet bills (due to some of the medical conditions i've dealt with with my two, even though i understand that heredity does play a part).

This is why I only use holistic vets. I refuse to support any more vets who push annual over vaccination, Science Death kibble, and blatant over use of antibiotics and toxic chemical flea pesticides.

I was able to find a nearby holistic vet when I moved and it was so refreshing. She even told me about the pre made raw food she sells. The best part is that I have not been getting those obnoxious post cards telling me my dogs are going to die or I will catch some zoonotic disease if I don't bring them in every 6 months for a new batch of vaccines and chemicals.

The sad thing is, that a massive portion of veterinary income is based on pushing those unhealthy foods, un needed vaccines and chemicals, then treating the chronic dis-ease they cause down the road.

The best thing we can do is search out holistic vets and support them! Money talks.

Purrrdy said:

 
This is why I only use holistic vets. I refuse to support any more vets who push annual over vaccination, Science Death kibble, and blatant over use of antibiotics and toxic chemical flea pesticides.

I was able to find a nearby holistic vet when I moved and it was so refreshing. She even told me about the pre made raw food she sells. The best part is that I have not been getting those obnoxious post cards telling me my dogs are going to die or I will catch some zoonotic disease if I don't bring them in every 6 months for a new batch of vaccines and chemicals.

The sad thing is, that a massive portion of veterinary income is based on pushing those unhealthy foods, un needed vaccines and chemicals, then treating the chronic dis-ease they cause down the road.

The best thing we can do is search out holistic vets and support them! Money talks.

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That`s great advice.   I will be looking for a new vet once the adoption for my shelter kitty goes thru.   I was thinking of interviewing about 6 or 7 of the regular vets around here to see how they answer standard questions (like is throwing up hairballs weekly considered normal for cats, etc) but if I can find a holistic vet that would make it much easier.   It would be great if there were a central directory for them on the web.

It's also worth mentioning that some people have fed homemade diets and hurt their cats by not balancing them properly.  My own holistic vet was not informed on how to properly balance homemade food, yet he was glad that I fed raw.

mickNsnicks2mom said:

 

as for the cost of feeding canned (possibly with a very small amount of dry) cat food vs feeding a home cooked or raw diet --

i'm considered low income. i'm currently feeding mostly canned with a tiny amount of dry cat food/mixed with protein treats for my snick. i have considered and would love to switch snick over to a home cooked diet, but she has serious medical issues (so i'm not wanting to stress her further) and is an extremely picky eater. i will be feeding all future cats of mine a home cooked diet. after having lost one of my furbabies to diabetes and with snick having CKD, IBD, idiopathic hypercalcemia, and currently being borderline diabetic i feel i owe it to my two to do something different, something better for my future cats.

i have looked into the cost of serving a home cooked diet vs canned or canned w/some dry cat food. i figured up the costs of both, and it'll actually cost me less for the food by serving home cooked. that's not even figuring in the savings from less waste in the litter box and (generally) lower vet bills (due to some of the medical conditions i've dealt with with my two, even though i understand that heredity does play a part).

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I am sooo glad you brought this up because if we intelligently do the math as you obviously have, feeding the cheapest food on the store shelf does not yield the lowest cost of maintenance for our pets - all things considered.   There is much more that goes into the care of a pet than what food goes into the bowl.    And yes, if you delve into the discussions in the Raw food forums on this site the members have discussed some very inventive ways of feeding high quality food at actually equal or lower cost than commercial processed food.