Okay, the cats are starting to like the raw duck. Now that the first packet of it is finished and I have to go buy a new one or...(ugh!) go to the natural butcher nearby!
The "expert" opinions run the gamut. Some vegans say it's cruel to kill animals and feed them to cats. Some raw food experts say commercial cat food is dangerous and made of dead cats and dogs, road kill, plastic and other stuff. No doubt this one is true. I've pretty much written off commercial cat food with the possible exception of Royal Canin (the babycat kibbles they love) and maybe a few organic brands.
But here's my question. Is it really necessary for cats to eat only raw meat? And is it really harmful to give them grain? I've recently read on wikipedia that purely raw meat for cats has too much phosphorus and something else. (if you look under "vegan cats" on wiki you'll find it.)
My question comes from this. I can't see that there have been any studies done on cats eating exclusively raw meat, exclusively vegan food, or exclusively commercial food. There are studies of cats eating vegetarian, and cats eating commercial food. They test the blood of the vege cats but not the commercial ones! This is no study! If you don't compare apples to apples there can be no distinction. Otherwise "studies" I've seen are anecdotal from one person changing their cats' diets to raw meat and seeing the difference in them. A lot of other things can change at the same time. They could be putting more love in the food (seriously, this matters!), and overall the "raw food" diet cats could be healthier simply because the SOURCE was pure, regardless of whether it was meat or vegetable.
My personal suspicion is that if there WAS such a triple-blind, unbiased study, the commercial cat food group would fare the worst. It's all full of euthanasia drugs, plastic, hormones, GMOs, mold, ecoli and other crap. So forget about grain being the problem, maybe the real problem is the QUALITY of what goes into it?
So, my quandary here is, regardless of what "experts" on all sides say, (I don't consider scientists paid by pet food companies to be experts, they are simply profit henchmen) WHAT IS THE HEALTHIEST DIET FOR CATS?
In an earlier post I mentioned about seeing Fidget scarf down that piece of beef liver. Otherwise, she was fed the cheapest possible commercial cat food, in dry and canned form, milk, various bits of raw and cooked meat as available (even "splintery" bones), corn on the cob, an occasional bit of cereal or rice, and lots of fresh, pure well water. In her lifetime, hormones were not an issue in the meat (they had not been invented yet), GMOs were not an issue in the grains that were in the cheap cat food (they weren't invented yet either) and I'm guessing they didn't use dead cats and dogs yet in cat food. Maybe no stryrofoam either. And "by products" were probably not as goary--the meat industry had not degenerated so much by then. It has been 15 years.
If anyone wants to post comments, I welcome them. What do you think is the healthiest diet for cats? Why?
I'd like to see the raw-organic-free-range-meat enthusiasts and vegan-cat enthusiasts do a study together, test all the cats' blood for several years, answer the same questions, and be evaluated objectively by a 3rd party. In fact we should add the "commercial cat food" people into the study too, by brand! Every brand will yield some different results. Now wouldn't that be fun?
I would be in favor of seeing such a study. I think that feeding everyone, human and cat, food that is processed as minimally as possible is what is essential. I am naturally drawn to things that don't need lab-creation... so a raw diet makes a lot more sense in my world-view. I fed my cats a Primal Raw diet and my dog a home-prepared vegetarian diet of rice, legumes, vegetables and some nutritional supplements. Both worked well. My vet once suggested eggs and yoghurt for my dog, and when I asked him if a dog would naturally be drinking from a cow in nature he laughed. But there is some truth in co-evolution of digestive physiology. Domesticated animals have co-evolved to eat what their humans have been eating for thousands of years. I am never one to give definitive answers, because I think that people learning and doing research of a subject is great... but personally, no vegan cats for me. Primal Raw + Alkalizing Green Mush by HealthForce (+ probiotics + omega 3's if necessary...) is a wonderful combination!
ReplyDeleteI think it's true that domestic animals have co-evolved to eat what humans happen to be eating, and what humans give them. Cats, though, have more opportunity for hunting their own food, even in a domestic setting, and often have been kept to do just that--keep down the mice--so they have had less reason to follow a human diet as closely as, say, a dog. We give our cat Wellness canned food and nothing else. She loves the chicken flavor and doesn't mind the turkey and that's all she has. it has no by-products and is recommended by Dr. Michael W. Fox whose opinions I really respect. http://www.twobitdog.com/DrFox/index.aspx Even better, the food doesn't smell too much and the smell it has is not in the least unpleasant.
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