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Old May 3rd, 2008, 05:42 PM
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sugarcatmom sugarcatmom is offline
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Calgary, AB
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Quote:
Originally Posted by leapnbunny View Post
I'm not comfortable with giving only Wellness, because there are preservatives as in any brand, and "carageenan and guar gum" -
Carrageenan (derived from red seaweed) and guar gum (comes from guar beans) are used as thickeners and emulsifiers/stabilizers. Guar gum I wouldn't worry about, but there is some controversy surrounding carrageenan/poligeenan as possibly having an inflammatory effect on intestinal cells. I personally don't get too uptight about it (there's plenty of other stuff to be paranoid over - gotta pick your battles).

I totally understand not wanting to feed only Wellness and I think it's a great idea to rotate brands/flavours. That's what I do, but it also depends on the cat's tolerance for lots of diet changes (some do better with more stability).


Quote:
Originally Posted by leapnbunny View Post
I'm wondering, is there any food that you trust? And I mean, any commercial and/or raw???
I don't completely trust any commercial product, but I do think some are better than others. I like Wellness because they were one of the first to create grain-free canned foods for cats, which shows they were thinking about the cats' best interest more than than just their own pocketbooks. They are also quite forthcoming about the nutritional analysis of their products, which can't be said for a great many other pet food companies. However, they were also involved in a bit of a scandal a few years ago when they "accidentally/on-purpose" put rice in some of these grain-free flavours without indicating it on the label (although in their defense, AAFCO does allow a 6 month grace period - something I think needs to change). There was a big uproar in the feline diabetes/IBD communities who relied on the fact that their product was SUPPOSED to be grain-free. I suspect the backlash from that taught Wellness a lesson (there were petitions and letter-writing campaigns and Wellness quickly went back to being truly grain-free).

As for other brands that I (currently) feel comfortable having in my rotation, I like Nature's Variety, By Nature Organics (except for the fact that it's canned by Evanger's, who are currently having issues with the FDA), Innova Evo 95% meat, Wysong Au Jus, Precise, and Nature's Logic. I used to like Newman's Own, but for some reason I can't get it in Calgary anymore, and I wish PetGuard was available in Canada.

I also feed a few different brands of pre-packaged frozen raw. Nature's Variety medallions are readily available in many cities and are complete and balanced. Then there are some more local companies that I like (Red Dog Deli, Arusha, Amore).

Quote:
Originally Posted by leapnbunny View Post
I was considering human raw meat as well!
Eeek! Had to laugh, as I pictured some nice juicy "people-steaks".

Kidding aside, a raw diet really is the ultimate. And if you make it yourself, you have total control over the quality of the ingredients (besides raising the livestock yourself).

Quote:
Originally Posted by leapnbunny View Post
How do you make sure your cats get all the nutrients and vitamins, minerals though? Do you buy supplements as well?
This can get a little complicated and does require some research. Here is a good introduction to making your own raw diet: http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.htm

The other option is a "whole prey model" that want4rain mentioned. Personally, there's no way my senior-citizen kitty would go for that, it was enough of a challenge just getting him off kibble. Younger cats tend to be more amenable to whole prey feeding.

I must also admit to some trepidation about the whole prey thing for cats (I think it works much better for dogs), based on the fact that typical feline prey is considerably smaller (mice, small birds) than what you can easily source at the store, which could potentially throw the proportions of some nutrients out of whack (for instance, an overly large, "artificially raised" store bought chicken is going to have a quite a different nutritional profile than a sparrow). Cat's have pretty specific dietary requirements that I'm personally not comfortable messing with too much.

Quote:
Originally Posted by leapnbunny View Post
And how do you know the meats aren't contaminated? That's the hardest part for me, I'd like to disinfect the meat somehow without cooking it. I was looking into using UV Light to kill bacteria/germs things like salmonella, e. coli and parasites.... I'd like to hear more about this kind of diet
As want4rain mentioned, cats' digestive systems are quite well suited to dealing with raw meat. It's a highly acidic environment, but cat's also have very short intestinal tracts so that pathogens don't have time to take hold before getting pooped out. Some (or more likely, most) vets will say otherwise, but they've unfortunately been indoctrinated by Big Pet Food, who have their own agendas (selling as much product as possible) at the forefront. Think about it, though: cats have evolved over a couple million years eating RAW MEAT! If this created big health problems for them, do you think they'd still be populating the planet? There are no Hibachis in nature.
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Last edited by sugarcatmom; May 3rd, 2008 at 06:08 PM. Reason: changed a word
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