how to get cat to eat healthy supplements?

[ldg]

...which brings us back around to what supplements are you talking about? :dk: How to get a cat to eat pumpkin is entirely different from how to get a cat to eat olive leaf. Some products are very bitter, so you simply have to pill your cat with them. You can use pill pockets to hide some supplements and medications, depending upon your cat. You can coat some pills with butter to entice a cat to eat something they don't want to. For something like pumpkin, you may have to use a syringe to get it in your cat if they won't eat it mixed into food....

:dk:

 

[peaches08]

I'm not sure what supplements you're talking about. Pumpkin can be a wonderful addition for some cats that need stool bulking, but a healthy cat doesn't need stool bulking so pumpkin would not "optimize" their diet. I've never heard of feeding mushrooms to a cat, but if specific enzymes are needed those can usually be obtained without feeding the mushroom.

Would you mind clarifying your thoughts with the resources you've been speaking of?

 

[ilikecats2013]

i'm going to make a point here.  i don't see how folks can be so adamant on a position as it seemed  none who have argued against plant supplement on top of meat diet have anything like bio-science or vet background.

how can people be so sure plant supplement in any quantity is negative?  anyone here have a PhD in biology related field.  goholistic sounded like he/she might be a PhD in training.

let me question this philosophical foundation.  how do you have your view on what's good and what's not for your cat? if your are not like a scientist, then you must've acquired the information from some source and chose to beleive that.

just because you never heard of something doesn't make it false or wrong.  i'm thinking how much people have never heard that is actually true and real. 

i'm challenging people to be more open-minded about the world around them. you can still hold your preferred view and such.  but how can you say people who hold different views are wrong unless you can proof so? do you have irrefutable evidence that your view is the only correct way?

in this case, can you absolutely prove cat cannot benefit from plant chemicals ?

let just take antioxidant in plants, it been reported that plants have 64x more than meat sources.

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/antioxidant-power-of-plant-foods-versus-animal-foods/

and i haven't even talked about anti-cancer and anti-microbial chemicals yet.

in general, plant eating animals live longer.  are you saying we shouldn't try to up the longevity of our pets?  the longest lived cat according to guinness was like 38.

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-1000/oldest-cat-ever/

"Vegetables and fruits may be listed among the ingredients -- cats usually enjoy foods like carrots, sweet potatoes, blueberries, cranberries and even kelp. The healthy nutrients and disease-fighting antioxidants in these foods benefit your cat. Other foods many cats enjoy: apricots, spinach, broccolli and pumpkin."-  http://www.sheknows.com/pets-and-animals/articles/959459/how-to-choose-cat-food

 

[Willowy]

It's possible that cats may benefit from plant extracts and other ingredients refined from plants, as the active ingredient has already been isolated from the plant. As for getting those benefits from whole plant sources, they probably can't process the plants effectively enough to get those benefits.

For instance---cats cannot make vitamin A out of beta carotene. At all. They need to get their vitamin A from animal sources like liver. So if you fed your cats carrots and sweet potatoes every day, but no animal (or refined supplemental) source of vitamin A, he/she would become deficient in vitamin A. There are other examples like this. Such as. . .

In order to process starches effectively, an enzyme called amylase is necessary. Cats produce very little amylase in the pancreas, and none at all in the saliva (to start breaking down starches before they get farther down the digestive system)---this is a known scientific fact. Which means they can eat starchy foods all the time and not be able to process them effectively enough to absorb all the nutrients in that food. Plus, most plant foods need to be chewed well in order to digest properly, and cats don't have the ability to chew like that. Their teeth are designed for ripping and crunching, not masticating. They can't move their jaw sideways like omnivores and herbivores can.

So if you wanted to supplement your cat with plant ingredients, they would have to be processed into a usable form for a cat. Eating a mushroom (for instance) whole would give very few benefits for them, as their bodies would not be able to break it down into usable components.

Have you seen this website yet? It's written by a vet (I don't know if she has a PhD :tongue2 and explains a lot of things better than I can : http://catinfo.org/

 

[tammyp]

Hi Ilikecats2013,

I don't think anyone responding to you is closed minded and anti-plants at all - they have given very considered responses based on what is known about feline nutrition and physiology.  

I'm sure they would be helped to understand what you are wanting to do though, if you could explain what the things are that you want to give your cats, AND, if possible, a link to the research that made up your opinion?  So far, I haven't seen these details, or links to anything specific to fellines - they have very different bodies to humans or even other animals.  Everyone (including me!) will be interested if you have new knowledge on something that could benefit our cats...

 

[peaches08]

Human nutrition links do not translate to a cat's dietary needs, just as it doesn't translate to a python's or a cow's needs. And as far as the link for the oldest cat to ever live, there's no diet mentioned. And your "she knows" link, although information poor, stated clearly "The food should be protein rich..." and that it MAY contain some fruit and vegetables. Not MUST contain fruits and vegetables.

 

[ldg]

let me question this philosophical foundation.  how do you have your view on what's good and what's not for your cat? if your are not like a scientist, then you must've acquired the information from some source and chose to beleive that.

Anyone can read the existing peer-reviewed research on the physiology and biology of cats: there's quite a bit. You don't seem have read any of the links I've already provided.

just because you never heard of something doesn't make it false or wrong.  i'm thinking how much people have never heard that is actually true and real. 

All of us are familiar with plant-based additions to our cats' diets and various supplements. Many of us have used plant-based sources of nutrition or supplementation. So until you can tell us WHICH supplements you're interested in, we can provide no opinion on them, nor can we help with your original question about how to get your cat to eat them. :dk: I've already supplied a list of suggestions based on different types of diet additions or supplements.

i'm challenging people to be more open-minded about the world around them. you can still hold your preferred view and such.  but how can you say people who hold different views are wrong unless you can proof so? do you have irrefutable evidence that your view is the only correct way?

in this case, can you absolutely prove cat cannot benefit from plant chemicals ?

There isn't a single one of us that is saying cats cannot benefit from plants or plant chemicals. You seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing rather than trying to get at your stated goal: if you tell us which supplements you're interested in, we may have suggestions on how to help you get your cats to take them.

:scratch:

let just take antioxidant in plants, it been reported that plants have 64x more than meat sources.

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/antioxidant-power-of-plant-foods-versus-animal-foods/

and i haven't even talked about anti-cancer and anti-microbial chemicals yet.

Again, NO ONE is arguing this. The ONLY point we've made is that cats are obligate carnivores, and while they may benefit from plant-based supplements, you have to weigh risks vs benefits.

For instance, many people feed cranberries, in some form, to their cats, whether it's an extract, in the food, or some kind of treat. It is meant to help lower urine pH. Yet cranberries contain benzoic acid and salicylic acid, both of which are toxic to cats. Obviously in the amounts being fed to cats, the doses aren't toxic. Yet if fed consistently over a long period of time, we have no idea what it does to their kidneys, as there is no research. MOST people assume they're just fine for cats, because after all, it's so prevalent in cat food and there are treats and supplements made FOR CATS with cranberry. Same holds true for "shampoo" for cats - many contain tea tree oil. Yet there ARE studies that indicate it is toxic to cats and dogs at certain levels, and some are more sensitive, and there are several TCS members that have had cats die from using a shampoo containing tea tree oil just ONCE.

in general, plant eating animals live longer.  are you saying we shouldn't try to up the longevity of our pets?  the longest lived cat according to guinness was like 38.

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-1000/oldest-cat-ever/

What's your point? The blurb mentions nothing about what the cat ate.

So following your theory here, we should feed our cats a vegan diet. Yet it has already been pointed out why your cat would die on a vegan diet.

"Vegetables and fruits may be listed among the ingredients -- cats usually enjoy foods like carrots, sweet potatoes, blueberries, cranberries and even kelp. The healthy nutrients and disease-fighting antioxidants in these foods benefit your cat. Other foods many cats enjoy: apricots, spinach, broccolli and pumpkin."-  http://www.sheknows.com/pets-and-animals/articles/959459/how-to-choose-cat-food

And who is Vicki Clinebell? I don't see any D.V.M. or PhD after her name.

All that any of us are saying is that we are mindful that our cats are obligate carnivores. You're creating an issue when there isn't one. Of course cats can benefit from some plant-based items. Again, none of us is arguing this particular point.

We are suggesting you do your research - and not from blogs, but from vets, nutritionists, or those that have published research on cat physiology. And if you want to give your cat a plant-based supplement, it's always a good idea to see if safety studies have been conducted in cats.

For instance, from the ASPCA:

"This list contains plants that have been reported as having systemic effects on animals and/or intense effects on the gastrointestinal tract. Please note that the information contained in our plant lists is not meant to be all-inclusive, but rather a compilation of the most frequently encountered plants."

Here is the list they've compiled of plants toxic to cats: http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/toxic-and-non-toxic-plants?field_toxicity_value[]=02

It contains 399 plants.


If you want to learn more about cat physiology, I suggest the Nutrition Research Council's Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats (2006) Subcommittee on Dog and Cat Nutrition, Committee on Animal Nutrition, National Research Council. Every single statement is backed up by published peer-review research.

 

[ilikecats2013]

alright then, this discussion is getting more constructive.  ok back up for a moment, i never said "MUST" contain plant.  from the onset, the tone felt like to be "cat shouldn't eat plant at all" until i presented authoritative  sources suggesting otherwise.

yea i know some plants are poisonous: coffee, chocolate, grapes, garlic and so on. i beleive i already cited that.  i was merely exploring flavor enhancer for cats if the title wasn't obvious enough from the get-go.

i already did some research and i was here seeking more information or leads, not to have people ask me to go and do more research... 

seems this topic going in circles...    tones seem to keep changing ... 

just curious, what age group are you guys? 

 

[ldg]

It's going in circles because you are not telling us WHICH supplements you want to use.

I've already posted suggestions on how to get cats to eat various forms of diet additions and supplements.

 

[ldg]

My post #21:

...which brings us back around to what supplements are you talking about? :dk: How to get a cat to eat pumpkin is entirely different from how to get a cat to eat olive leaf. Some products are very bitter, so you simply have to pill your cat with them. You can use pill pockets to hide some supplements and medications, depending upon your cat. You can coat some pills with butter to entice a cat to eat something they don't want to. For something like pumpkin, you may have to use a syringe to get it in your cat if they won't eat it mixed into food....

:dk:

 

[ldg]

Maybe it would help you if I gave you examples.

One of my cats had chronic diarrhea when we first rescued him. To initially help soothe his GI system, I used George's aloe vera juice (distilled from the gel only, none of the toxic latex in the leaf and no preservatives) mixed with slippery elm bark powder and an acidophilus+bifidus probiotic. I mixed this into meat juice, and the cat that needed it at the time just ate it.

For another cat that had a hairball problem, I tried using the same mixture. He hated it. I tried mixing it with canned food he loves. He still wouldn't eat it. I had to use a syringe to get it into him.

One of my cats developed cancer, a mass in his stomach. So with that, he had bleeding ulcers. I used Yunnan Baiyao (among other things) to stop the bleeding and help build his red blood cell count. I couldn't hide it in food or a pill pocket, so I had to simply pill him with the capsule.

The cat that had chronic diarrhea when rescued was diagnosed by our holistic vet as having an "extreme spleen Qi deficiency" and an "extreme Yin deficiency." Part of his therapy was a Chinese herbal remedy called Prosperous Farmer. It is a large pill - but it is not bitter. He wouldn't eat food with the pill crushed and mixed in, but if I cut the pill in half and put it in a pill pocket, he ate the two pieces of pill fed separately.

Some people are able to hide pills in butter or cheese. Sometimes sprinkling parmesan cheese on top of whatever it you've mixed into the food will help.

Other people find their cats LOVE freeze dried liver. It is VERY strong smelling, and so is often used to hide supplements that have been mixed into food.

But for anything that is BITTER, most cats will not eat it at all, and if they do, they foam at the mouth for a while, run around flinging drool and spit everywhere. It's distressing for everyone. Olive Leaf would be such a supplement. For things like this, the only option is to pill them with it. And if it is in a tablet that they may taste when it's going down, it is best to buy empty gel caps, and put the pill inside the gel cap, so they don't need to taste the pill on it's way down.

 

[peaches08]

What authoritative sources???

 

[ldg]

alright then, this discussion is getting more constructive.  ok back up for a moment, i never said "MUST" contain plant.  from the onset, the tone felt like to be "cat shouldn't eat plant at all" until i presented authoritative  sources suggesting otherwise.

No, we were asking which authoritative resources ( "Phd"s) you were referring to while trying to determine which supplements you want to use. And you still haven't provided that information.

i already did some research and i was here seeking more information or leads, not to have people ask me to go and do more research... 

Yes, because especially in this forum of TheCatSite, we prefer to rely on science - not just "stuff" we read on the internet. The active members (new or long time) help others balance a raw (or cooked) diet, and we don't want to be responsible for making any cats unhealthy or malnourished. To you, we're just "people on the internet." You have no idea of our backgrounds, knowledge base, &etc. It is ALWAYS best to do your own research, unless you know the people helping you. :dk:

I personally don't consider just any old blog to be "research." Any link I've provided to you is either published in a peer-review journal, is by a definitive source (such as the Nutrition Research Council), or is a piece written by a specialist, vet, or some form of animal-health related PhD and is cited and provides references to the peer-review journals where the information came from.

 

[ilikecats2013]

Again, NO ONE is arguing this. The ONLY point we've made is that cats are obligate carnivores, and while they may benefit from plant-based supplements, you have to weigh risks vs benefits.

For instance, many people feed cranberries, in some form, to their cats, whether it's an extract, in the food, or some kind of treat. It is meant to help lower urine pH. Yet cranberries contain benzoic acid and salicylic acid, both of which are toxic to cats. Obviously in the amounts being fed to cats, the doses aren't toxic. Yet if fed consistently over a long period of time, we have no idea what it does to their kidneys, as there is no research. MOST people assume they're just fine for cats, because after all, it's so prevalent in cat food and there are treats and supplements made FOR CATS with cranberry. Same holds true for "shampoo" for cats - many contain tea tree oil. Yet there ARE studies that indicate it is toxic to cats and dogs at certain levels, and some are more sensitive, and there are several TCS members that have had cats die from using a shampoo containing tea tree oil just ONCE.
What's your point? The blurb mentions nothing about what the cat ate.

So following your theory here, we should feed our cats a vegan diet. Yet it has already been pointed out why your cat would die on a vegan diet.
And who is Vicki Clinebell? I don't see any D.V.M. or PhD after her name.

why keep twisting my words? i never said entirely plant diet but only small quantities.  commerical dry kibble quite a bit of plants in the formula as labeled,  do you have a report saying that it significantly impact cats' health on a large scale?

you consistently taken a hard stance against having any plants in the diet formula.  do you have any science/news source absolutely condemning any quantity?

 

[ilikecats2013]

you are messing around with me right, with http://www.sheknows.com/pets-and-animals/articles/959459/how-to-choose-cat-food. telling me to buy books instead of linking to actual article i can conveniently read?

http://www.sheknows.com/pets-and-animals/articles/959459/how-to-choose-cat-food, at least this is a source you can read directly.

ok back it up here. show me a science source that specifically say plant in any quantity is harmful and can't help and i'll take it into consideration.

i mentioned mushroom and pumpkin. people can start with those if they like.  oh wait, almost everyone was negative with that from the start eh?  i just feel people who were against plants can't really help with those. am i wrong?

i already provide one lead. and so the mood is some narrow-minded here, i feel even if i provide a vet source, people are going to find some fault with that without a science source to counter that .so what's the point?

show me a source that say plant is bad in any amount is bad and we start talking, otherwise it is going in circles.  

"Health benefits of mushrooms for your pets include:

• Help support liver, kidney function,
• Improve nutrition in weak and deficient animals
• Help support weight loss and fatty liver diseases
• Prevent viral infections

Eastern Europeans developed interest in the culinary and medicinal varieties in the last 200 years. Much of the recent and past Russian research on mushrooms is left untranslated.

The most knowledgeable mushroom “cults” were located in the regions of Siberia, Tropical India, Southeast Asia, China, Central and South Americas, and Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia).

Uses included:

• Nutritional: foods such as soups, sauces and gravies or as a meat substitute (Europe)
• Ritual: fertility, spiritual (transformational journey, psychic healing [Siberia, India, Mayan])
• Medicinal: nephritis, hepatitis, tonic, adaptogens (Russia, Asia)"

-http://www.drbasko.com/site/pets-mushrooms-health-benefits/

his credential:

http://www.drbasko.com/site/about/

(unless you doubt his credential and think hes one of those unorthodox unreliable doctor.)

why do i have the feeling its all about saving face on this thread now, which is not why i was here in the first place?

 

[stealthkitty]

Why are you asking us about how to give your cats mushrooms when the article that you link to explains exactly how to do so?

 

[Willowy]

Nobody has said that all plants are harmful in any quantity? So I don't think anybody is going to try to prove that one. Even if a cat can't process a plant ingredient, that doesn't make it harmful. Also, the mushroom article says what's already been mentioned---that a powder or extract would be more effective than fresh mushrooms.

So, it really is the same as what was mentioned in the beginning---a mushroom extract may be useful for certain conditions, as long as you know it's a variety that's safe for cats (this is what the article you linked to says also). And pumpkin is a good source of fiber, but healthy cats need very little fiber so that may not be necessary. Cats can't make vitamin A out of the beta carotene in the pumpkin, so it doesn't do any good in that way.

As for blogs like sheknows, I can find any number of blog posts that say some very strange things. Or just something random they copy/pasted from some other site, without actually looking into the matter. So those are really not good sources for information unless they can back up their statements. If they explained in a well-reasoned manner why they think such things are beneficial in pet food, I would take it more seriously. But that is a very "fluff" kind of article, and that particular statement appears to be copy/pasted from a pet food manufacturer's website; of course they'll brag up their pet food any way they can. And it's VERY hard to take an article that recommends Meow Mix seriously!

I'm wondering if there may be a language barrier here because it seems there are some things not being understood :dk:

 

[ilikecats2013]

 
Why are you asking us about how to give your cats mushrooms when the article that you link to explains exactly how to do so?

because the articles suggest positive plants, but doesn't tell you what to do if cat don't like it.  my cat have been a picky eater  so i'm here to seek experiences from others and advice.

 

[Willowy]

Have you tried the mushroom beef broth recipe they recommend in the article? That looks like something most cats would enjoy. Actually it looks more like something I would enjoy. . .:lol3:.

 

[stealthkitty]

It says to use a syringe, which is one way to feed cats when they won't eat something otherwise. It also says to try mixing it with food and see if the cat will eat it that way, once the flavor is disguised.