Since the recent pet food recalls, I’ve been taking the time to research what ingredients go into pet foods, and have been both surprised and disgusted to learn what I’ve been feeding my good friends.
It was easy to switch my two little dogs over to homemade food. They took to it right away, and as a result their coats are shinier, teeth and breath much better and they are healthier. The cats are a different story.
I don’t have to worry about my one cat, Ringo. He hunts every day and eats what he catches. His diet is a perfect one for a cat. Cats are carnivores and as such they absolutely need animal protein and calcium from raw bone. The best diet for a cat is mice or small birds which they can hunt and eat. In these small creatures, there’s the exact balance of nutrients cats need. Unfortunately some kitties just won’t hunt. For these, the next best diet is the B.A.R.F. diet – bones and raw food.
I didn’t realize how much carbohydrates are in cat food – 35- 55%! Cats don’t need any carbs in their diets at all. Their bodies don’t know what to do with carbs, since they were designed to eat only meat. These unnecessary carbs go to fat and effect the poor cat’s health. The cat keeps eating because they aren’t getting the proper nutrients, and they get fat and develop other health problems such as diabetes.
Along with millions of other pet owners, I was brainwashed into believing that Science Diet is the very best thing I could give my pets. But S.D. puts corn meal into their cat food, something a cat simply can’t digest. They also use meat by-products, the unusable animal parts left over after butchering. (Check ingredient list on side of package.)
Our kitty Allie has been with us for 14 years now and is diabetic. Most of her life she’s eaten Science Diet, supposedly the best on the market. I discovered that most commercial pet foods are species inappropriate, and cat foods are the worst offenders. Often you will find high levels of carbs in the dry foods. Even worse, the oils they use have gone rancid, so they use hormones to get the cat to eat it. Some of the cheaper brands use both road kill and ground up deceased pets, making your friends cannibals – very unhealthy. I know what a big deal it is to change a cat’s preferences though. Allie is very addicted to her dry food, and I’m having a tough time convincing her otherwise. I offer wet cat food at the same time she ‘asks’ for dry.
Wet cat food has a much better balance of nutrients than dry – even the cheaper stuff. Also, wet cat food has a high water content. That’s good because cats are supposed to get most of their water requirements from their food, in the form of blood. Fortunately Allie likes wet food, so now she’s getting more of it. On top of the wet food, I’ve been giving her some good raw food. I chop up some raw chicken with the bone along with raw chicken heart and spoon a little of this mixture on top. So far she’s eating it with reservations. She does eat some, but tends to leave some also. It is good food, but doesn’t have that hormone fix she’s used to receiving.
I really need to get her off the dry food as soon as possible because of her diabetes and the fact that she currently isn’t stable. Her blood sugars are much higher than they should be, so I’ve had to increase her insulin. I’m hoping that the levels will decrease as she is fed more wet food with raw, or better still – has mostly or totally a raw diet. We bought a grinder to grind up the raw bone we will be feeding. I plan to make up a bunch of little containers for the freezer with the right mixture of raw foods. I think the pet industry wants us to go through animals faster because they end up making more money from us. I think the average veterinarian isn’t consciously part of this conspiracy, but most will admit they don’t know much about feline nutrition.
As well, society’s general attitude seems to be more lax when it comes to cats over dogs. When I adopted my two doggies, I had a long form to fill out, and an interview to go through before I was accepted. While I have no objection to that and would support that, I was surprised when my daughter adopted a cat from the same agency and they never asked her a single question, never mind put her through an interview. Is a cat’s life less valuable? Generally people believe dogs live longer. Not true. A cat can live 20 years, but the average dog lives 12 -15. Cats are believed to be more independent. While that is true on some level, they can’t survive without us, contrary to what some would have you believe. Even Ringo who feeds himself, relies on us for shelter and love. We have given him kibbles, without knowing any better and he eats them. Even kitties like their junk food I suppose. Still, he’s the healthiest of all.
