Caturday ~ Feline Nutrition Q&A 1

Hi Friends,

Happy Caturday!

A little Q & A time for Feline Nutrition.

What do you mean by Raw feeding?

Feeding raw food for the feline consist of feeding a species appropriate diet of raw meat, organs and bones. There are many different ways to achieve this natural diet. The raw feeding spectrum goes from feeding ground meats, bones and organs, to feeding bone in pieces of chicken, to feeding whole prey, such as a mouse or chick. As a raw feeder it is up to you to choose which type of raw food you will be offering your cat.

I personally feed our 14 cats a diet that contains ground whole chicken with bones, hearts, livers, and gizzards. I also buy pre-ground whole rabbit for variety. Due to the sheer number of cats we are feeding, we have to be a bit more economical in what meats we feed so chicken is the base of their diet; however for variety we also offer duck, turkey and mouse occasionally. Someday, when we are not caring for so many, we will be able to offer a much larger variety more often.

There are a huge variety of resources out there to help you decide what is right for you and your cat. Some good places to start your research into raw feeding are at the following links.

http://www.catinfo.org/

http://www.catnutrition.org/

http://www.rawfedcats.org/

http://www.felinespride.com/

http://www.tcfeline.com/

http://www.felineinstincts.com/

http://www.raisingcatsnaturally.com/

http://www.blakkatz.com/index.html

http://www.holisticat.com/

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Why do you feed Raw food and not feed cooked foods? 

Is it true that the best nutrients in cat food are cooked out of them?

It is a scientifically proven fact that has been known for decades that cooking foods depletes them of the nutrients. Cats fed raw diets often thrive, while cats fed cooked meat diets or manufactured cat foods will suffer a number of ailments.

A very useful and important study was published by Dr. Frances Pottenger in 1945 about feline nutrition.

http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/ppnf/Articles/PottsCats.htm

While studying the effects of cooked foods for humans using lab cats, Dr. Pottenger stumbled into the first published feline nutrition study about raw food verses cooked diets. It was the first scientific study that proved how important a raw diet is to a cat.

Over 9 years 900 cats were studied and fed either a diet of raw foods or a diet of cooked foods both including milk, cod liver oil, meat and bones.

Today it is certainly not the surprise it was back then that the Raw fed cats were healthy throughout the study. However, the cooked food cats suffered from a terrible array of diseases, parasites, bone infections, skin lesions and allergies. The third generation of cats fed a cooked diet were so sickly that they could not even reproduce and the strain died out. All the while the raw fed cats thrived.

While the Pottenger cat study may be a little time worn on the edges, the information that Dr. Pottenger provided to us through his study confirms that cooked foods are not an appropriate source of nutrition for felines.

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What would a cats diet in the wild be?

Cats are obligate carnivores, which means that they are strict meat eaters. Therefore they are hunters and their diet is fairly simple. Meat! Meat! Meat!

A small wild cats diet consist of mice, rats, rabbits and birds. Bugs are also on the menu and one of my cats favorites! Any animal they can catch and eat is on the menu.

Almost as important as what cats do eat is what they do NOT eat in the wild. They do not eat grains or fruits or vegetables as these food sources are not appropriate nutrition for an obligate carnivore.

As confirmed in “The Carnivore connection to nutrition in cats”, by Dr. Zoran, found at http://www.catinfo.org/zorans_article.pdf , cats can not derive the proper nutrition from plant matter, either grain or vegetable. Their bodies are created to absorb nutrients from meat, not rice and peas. Cats even lack the digestive enzyme to digest plant matter. I think that alone proves the importance of meat in your cat’s diet.

Furthermore, cats have absolutely no use for the carbohydrates that grains provide and they end up suffering from obesity, diabetes and other diseases because they can not utilize the sugars these foods load them down with.

While you sit here and absorb all this information please keep in mind that all dry foods are laden with excessive amounts of carbohydrates for a cat and inappropriate for a cat’s diet. Cats should always be fed a wet diet consisting of raw meat, bones and organs or a high quality canned.

A list of good canned foods can be found here: http://www.catinfo.org/?link=cannedfoods#Commercial_Foods

You can further your search for the proper diet of your cat at www.catinfo.org or www.catnutrition.org.

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Until next week…

Carmen and the Primcats