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As a newcomer to cat breeding, I decided to research which foods would be best for my queens and their kittens, and made some fairly shocking discoveries. (The following information pertains to cat food, but I’m sure much is the same for dogs. If you own one you might want to research for yourself.)
- Many cat foods (particularly the dried varieties) contain wheat, which is not a dietary requirement but a filler,used to bulk out the product, cheaply. Common sense tells us that wild cats wouldn’t usually eat much wheat(if any!) when living in the wild – so why do they need it when living as domestic pets? The answer is, they don’t and, in fact, it can cause them all sorts of problems including a full blown wheat allergy, causing considerable pain and, eventually, death from malnutrition. Please check your cat food to see if it contains wheat or other cereals – rice is safe but there’s no real need for it.
- Almost all pet foods contain “meat-meal”;mechanically removed meat from parts of animals not eaten by humans and not fit for human consumption. Manufacturers are not under any obligation to tell you they use meat-meal in the product. Consequently, they usually don’t. The only way around this problem is to find a brand which clearly states it doesn’t use it.
- Pet food manufacturers do not have to disclose any additives or preservatives added to any of the ingredients used in the product if they didn’t add them themselves (so if the ingredients they use in the product contain chemicals, they can still label as”chemical-free”, as long as they didn’t add them). This means your “additive &preservative-free” food could be full of all sorts of nasties!
- Many pet foods contain meats that can cause allergies,such as beef and tuna. While most animals don’t have a problem with these meats, they can cause flakey skin, poor coat, digestive disorders, etc. Most pet foods contain COOKED meat, as apposed to raw meat, which – forgive me for sounding surprised – is NOT what a wild cat would eat! (Can you imagine them building afire with which to roast their prey upon before dining?) In fact, all cats require high levels of taurine, which is largely destroyed by the cooking process. You should feed your cat raw meat daily. This is especially true for Bengals, which are often less than ten generations from a wild cat.
- Some pet foods have been found to contain meat taken from euthanised animals, collected from vets and zoos local to the manufacturer. This is not known to have occurred in the UK so if that’s where you live, please don’t panic – you didn’t feed your late pet cat to your current pet dog! Isn’t that a disgusting thought?
- The vast majority of pet food has a product known as”digest” added, to improve flavour; without this addition, your pet probably wouldn’t even consider eating the stuff! It’s a similar idea to adding mono-sodium glutamate to products like crisps: making something bland and unhealthy taste delicious…
- Most wet-food is made from a protein product and contains only around 5% meat.This is NOT what your cat was designed to eat! These products are covered in a rich gravy made using the fore-mentioned digest.
- While biscuits can be helpful with dental care and reducing odours from litter-trays, they are not the best type of food for your cats and it’s been suggeted they can reduce the life span of your pet by years. You should choose a cereal-free, meat-meal free, wet, raw-meat product, with added vitamins and minerals. If you keep your pet indoors you should also provide a tray of grass for them to eat from – as they would be able to in the wild. You can also make your own cat food from fresh meat and fish. Chicken is the safest meat, along with duck and venison. They should eat liver reasonably regularly and also oily fish, such as mackerel. Turkey should not be fed in large quantities, and pork is the least safe meat for cats.
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You can supplement with salmon oil, seaweed, and various vitamin and mineral pastes if you feel you cat requires it.
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User Comments
Sarah Sullins
On August 24, 2009 at 1:54 am
Wow. I can’t believe that we feed our cats this stuff. I also read in a book that tuna can be bad for some cats, so I make sure the food we get doesn’t have tuna in it. I used to “treat” my cats to a can every now and then, but our black cat started to lose her fur and here skin was flaking like she was getting over a sunburn. It was awful, and we didn’t know what was going on until I read a book on cats. A few weeks after I stopped giving them tuna, her fur grew back and there was no more flaking.
CaSundara
On August 24, 2009 at 11:22 am
I know, it’s shocking, isn’t it? I’d never heard about the tuna but I’ll remember that for future reference.
One of my cats had flakey skin when we got her and her fur wasn’t soft, either (she was two when we got her and had been back with her breeder for six months after the new owner had lost her home). She’d been feeding them cheap dry food and it was obvious my cat had been pushed out of the way by bigger cats because she was underweight, too. Luckily she’s put on weight and her coat looks far better – and it only took a couple of weeks for the difference to show!
John Csakany
On August 25, 2009 at 3:29 am
I did a lot of research on cat food and the solution I came up with is that I mix several brands together for a custom blend that I store in empty, cleaned kitty litter buckets. I gave a few buckets to my ex whose cat had dry skin. It cleared up and in about six weeks her cat had a shiny black coat. The recipe:
1) Orijen Cat (15.4 lbs.)
2) Wellness Core Cat and Kitten (12 lbs.)
3) Innova EVO Cat and Kitten (15.4 lbs.)
4) Eagle Pack Cat Holistic Select Anchovy, Sardine and Salmon Meal Formula (2 – 6.6 lbs = 13.2 lbs total)
A word of advice: you can protect your pets against the next product recall by keeping at least three months of food on hand since it takes about that long for a product recall to happen. Just tape the receipt to the bags and store them in a cool, dry place until needed (pay attention to the expiration dates, of course!). After you mix the blend, hang on to the empty bags just in case.
Although mixing several brands together increases the odds that one bag would be contaminated/recalled, the effects of any one contaminated bag are minimized. In other words, your cat would get a little sick (time enough to get to the vet) but not die. If you feed your cat only only one brand and that one brand is the one recalled, 100% of what they’ve eaten is poisonous, instead of only, say 25% of a blended mix. You follow?
I also offer a small can of food split three ways once daily. Feeding dry food exclusively is a bad idea since cats would normally get most of the water they need at the same time they eat from the mice they consume. Gobbling down dry food and then drinking a whole bunch of water separately isn’t all that great for digestion and elimination. Also, salts from dry food will crystallize in a male cat’s penis and can eventually stop urine flow, possibly requiring amputation!! Fresh water at all times is a MUST.
CaSundara mentions the importance of wheatgrass for indoor cats. That’s good advice. I use treats for training (well…”training” is broadly defined). I found some freeze-dried venison et. al. online: excellent quality, but pricey and again brings up the question of proper moisture.
/like this website.
CaSundara
On August 26, 2009 at 1:13 pm
@ John – thanks for adding all that extra info, it’s nice to see there are people out there doing their own research, rather than trusting blindly that these companies have the welfare of our animals as their paramount concern.
John Csakany
On August 30, 2009 at 11:51 pm
@CaSundara: Thank you for your kind words.
At first I was concerned of a certain immorality; after all, I’m essentially using other people’s pets to test the safety of my own cat’s food, right? But there is no moral quandary: this only works because most people WON’T do what I suggest.
I do my best to share this bit of advice (I even sign my real name on websites like this) and I mention it whenever I can in real life conversation. In the end, people will do as they will.
I guess it’s the perfect storm of adoring my cats and my old habit of thinking too much. Anyhow, thanks again for commenting.
Kinga
On September 21, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I wrote an article about this too! If you want to read it its here: http://therealowner.com/shopping/the-truth-behind-pet-food/
I am so glad that more people are aware of the pet food situation. Thanks for sharing!
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