Food question and med question....

My vet has told me to look for foods that do NOT have any cereal products listed in the first three ingrediants. He also mentioned that I guess there are some studies being done on canned cat food versus using the dry because of the cereal ingrediants and because cats ARE carniverous by nature and it may be more healthy for them. Obviously I am not a fan of anything that says CHICKEN BYPRODUCTS since we don't know exactly what it is..but I am wondering if you guys have heard anything on this.

Also.....he gave Ashley a bottle of Cosequin since she was having problems jumping on the bed, her chair, etc like she used to and we just couldn't figure out what was going on. Apprently Cosequin is sort of like a supplement and not really a medication. It is supposed to help with snynovial fluids and jazz like that. She seems to be doing better now, but I am wondering if anyone else has had experience with Cosequin and what you think about it.

Carrie --

I try to avoid cat foods with high cereal (carbohydrate) content also. We really have been happy with the Innova dry cat food:
http://www.naturapet.com/display.php...d%3D%272%27%5D


Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul is another popular one:
http://www.chickensoupforthepetlover...ew.html#Kitten

Cosequin is a glucosamine/chondroitin supplement that is typically given for one of two reasons:
1. Arthritis/joint pain (the most common usage), or
2. Healing from urinary tract problems/infections (recent studies have shown it can help rebuild damage to the walls of the bladder).
It is an excellent supplement for what you are using it for. Sometimes it can take up to a couple of weeks to notice a good change in behavior, but many clients at the clinic I work at will tell you it is a lifesaver, and well worth how expensive it is! I hope you have good results from it too!

Aqua

I love both foods Aquarius mentioned...my cat have done very well on both of these. Canned food has more moisture and much less carbs than dry food both of which make it more similar to the cat's natural diet. I feed mine both canned and dry.

My toy poodle is on Cosequin because he has luxating patella in his back leg. It really seems to be helping alot.

I also recently was told to wa tch out for corn. A friend of mine has horses who were being fed something with genetically modified corn which was causing allergy problems. I think it will show GMO on the ingredient list.

In the U.S., GMOs are not required to be labelled as such. In fact, many supermarket products are GMO (spaghetti sauce made with GMO tomatos, for example). I try to buy organically grown and nonGMO foods for myself.

I disagree that cats' ancestry makes them unable to eat a healthy plant-based diet, but I do agree that moisture content is good. Cats fed dry food often have insufficient water intake. I'd also agree that sawdust and peanut shells are NOT healthy plant "foods" for cats to be eating If you're going to be feeding meat-based products and are only concerned about the cat's health, try to select super-premium brands or make food yourself (ie BARF); there should be no byproducts or meal used, and avoid anything slaughtered/processed in the US and go for organic and free range meat to avoid disease, hormones, and antibiotics.

Glucosamine and chondroitin have been used by veterinarians for a long time (for horses, dogs, etc); more recently, it was proven to be beneficial for human joints (most of the studies were done in Europe). These can come from cattle, shellfish, etc but I take glucosamine made from corn (DEVA brand). Glucosamine and chondroitin are dietary suplements and not drugs. In the human studies, they took more time to be effective (pain-wise) than NSAIDs, but had none of the harmful side effects and were far more effective in the long run. Such supplements made for human consumption sometimes use sources other than cattle, because of mad cow (and btw, it has been proven that cats can get their version of CJD).

BTW, if you really want to know more about "byproducts," see http://www.api4animals.org/79.htm (API report) and http://www.homevet.com/petcare/foodbook.html (excerpt from "Food Pets Die For").

Can't address the food question, but my Macumba took Cosequin for several years, and it made a huge difference for her. It took a few weeks on it to make a difference, but she went from spending most of her time on the floor, to jumping into windowsills and up on bookcases again, and even chasing her tail.

If arthritis is a problem, you might also want to consider veterinary acupuncture - it's expensive, but whenever she had a treatment (the vet used electroacupuncture - no needles!) she really seemed to feel a lot better.

Cats are carnivores and their food should me based on meat, not meat meals, by-products or vegetables.

Cats have no practical use of carbohydrates, some fibres are good for the digestive system, but other than that cats "live on" animal fat and animal protein.

If you choose to feed your cat dry food make sure the first ingredient is some sort of meat (poultry, lamb, beef). Grains are mostly bad but brown rice is OK.

Cats evolved as carnivores, but many have been vegan since the 80's and are quite happy and healthy, tyvm. But that's off-topic.

Dry in general is just a bad idea due to the low water content.

BTW, has it occured to one else that it sounds rather ridiculous to say "cats are beef-eaters"? It just strikes me as funny

Originally Posted by Weatherlight

Cats evolved as carnivores, but many have been vegan since the 80's and are quite happy and healthy, tyvm. But that's off-topic.

Dry in general is just a bad idea due to the low water content.

BTW, has it occured to one else that it sounds rather ridiculous to say "cats are beef-eaters"? It just strikes me as funny

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Well, beef is more suitable food for a cat than beans... Cats did not only evolve as carnivores, they still are. We (humans) haven't been able to change their physiology, only their anatomy meaning that cats are, still today, built for eating a meat based diet. For an example, taurine cannot be found in veggies, yes we can make synthetic taurine but the fact that taurin, naturally, only can be found in animal protein is evidence enough. And there are several vitamines that cats can't "use" if it's from a vegetable source, the same goes for Omega3, cats can't use vegetable Omega3.

Theoretically you can serve your cat a vegetarian diet that reach all the standards when it comes to nutrition, but practically the cat can't use all of the nutrition elements.

Why can't people accept the cats nature as a meat eater? Humans doesn't have to eat meat but we are omnivores, cats are carnivores. Cats aren't moral animals, the only animal that is moral is humans so why force our different ethic opinions on our pets?

//Matilda, vegetarian that study ethics on the university of Lund, Sweden

What is taurine evidence of, though? That cats need supplementation?

Felines have been on vegan diets since the mid-80's, and it does seem that they can absorb nutrients from non-animal sources quite well. The ones I'm living with are healthy, as are all the ones I've heard of (except for one cat that ate vegan DOG food).

Humans actually evolved as frugivores, but that's yet another issue...

Indeed cats are amoral, but when we take them into our homes and cause other animals to suffer and die to keep the animals we favor alive, we are being immoral--not the cats. I "force" many things on our two cats--going to the vet, having chin cleaned (acne is annoying), and so on--but I don't think this is a bad thing, as they aren't capable of making informed decisions and explicitly communicating them to me. So long as I'm "forcing" things that are the right things to do, anyway.

I would not want to force factory-farming and human-caused death on other beings who are just as sentient as the cats, nor would I want force cats to slowly go blind and then die of heart problems, so if it were true that cats need meat, two cats would probably have been put down. I'm glad that's not necessary, and the cats can live here with us, and the factory farms and slaughterhouses need not be supported. I just hope I never come across a snake that needs rescuing...I wouldn't know how to feed a snake a healthy vegan diet.

But...this is off topic...hehe. Hopefully carrie got the responses she wanted already.

I too agree with the general consesus that this topic have diverged from the original topic.

Especially regarding the vegetarian diet for cats ....

My only response to the argument being made for vege. cats...just because it's been done for many years, doesn't make it right, or healthy or anything else.

I would reccomend a quality meat based diet, properly supplemented of course to ensure the best nutrition possible. I'm not a fan of commercially available diets, but there are plenty of really good ones out there.

Spotz

Can we please get back to Carrie's question?

Every topic that has to do with cats' diets does NOT need to, nor should it, turn into a debate about feline vegan diets. People are not asking about the morality of feeding their cats meat, nor in most cases are they asking about whether or not they should feed vegan diets. Not every thread on pet food should end up in IMO, rehashing the same debate over and over again.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by valanhb

Can we please get back to Carrie's question?

Every topic that has to do with cats' diets does NOT need to, nor should it, turn into a debate about feline vegan diets. People are not asking about the morality of feeding their cats meat, nor in most cases are they asking about whether or not they should feed vegan diets. Not every thread on pet food should end up in IMO, rehashing the same debate over and over again.

Thank you.

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I agree. I don't really know what the deal has been lately with the Vegan Crusades.

Gus's Mom - I agree about the corn, but not just the GMO issue.
Corn in general is thought of as a cheap filler, so I would try to find foods that are corn free, or have as low corn as possible. I like that the Innova food doesn't have corn in it.

I don't really know what the deal has been with the Meat Crusades. *shrug*

And even corn is nothing compared to peanut shells. I don't know why people buy crap without looking at the ingredients lists. When vegan food was unavailable, I used AvoDerm for my dogs, the best available to me. I was still unhappy with the ingredients list.