Cat Food Uncovered

I found this while googling pet food additives!!!

Haven't read the entire thing properly, but it does give you an idea of what we are feeding our munchkins!

Interesting article, I wonder whether it is entirely objective?

"Feeding nothing but bones and raw meat is dangerously unbalanced and irresponsible. Misguided owners may think that it is a natural, and therefore healthy, diet. It is not. Cats have evolved to eat small prey in its entirety - skin ("animal roughage"), bones (calcium), internal organs (vitamins, minerals) and stomach contents (roughage, possibly vitamins and minerals from partly digested food). The bones of their natural prey are tiny, flexible and fragile enough to be broken by the cat's teeth. The sort of bones fed to cats by humans come from much larger prey and may splinter when crunched, causing damage to the mouth, throat, stomach or intestine (the latter often being fatal). The sort of meat fed with those bones is muscle meat with some sinew and is not nutritionally balanced. Some such diets require expensive vitamin and mineral supplements to be sprinkled on the raw meat."

And:

"I am often asked if I advocate a fresh meat or home prepared diet for cats. My own cats are fed on a mix of wet and dry commercially prepared cat foods. Modern regulations, in Britain at least, make this the most efficient method of feeding. The manufacturers have far more experience in getting the nutritional balance right than I have."

I'm not sure if it is objective but in a way it's the responsible tack in a general article, especially one on the web. I do think an owner needs to have a good knowledge to feed raw and if someone suddenly decided to do so without proper research it wouldn't be good for the cat. You'd need an article at least that length devoted to raw feeding to responsibly promote it.

I do actually agree with one of her misgiving about raw feeding - i.e. the choice of bones and meats and to some extent offal. I personally think that people all too often forget what types of prey cats would eat (or what we think or know that they would commonly eat) and instead make their choice on the easy availability and cost of certain bones, which often verge on the inappropriate imo.

Perhaps relatedly, all too often I also think that cats are mistaken to be small dogs. For example, cats would apparently eat a whole prey most of the time, not just parts of it, which is why the argument often made in raw dog feeding that ingredients can be fed over a week or two etc doesn't wash for cats in my book.

Then there is the added problem when relying on the frankenprey (ie. cobbled together) approach that you are constrained by the availability of say offal when recreating your prey. Yet, we find it hard to find bits of brain, thyroid, pancreas, spleen, lung, intestines, eyes and all of the other bits that make up a prey and instead frequently rely on the more easily available heart, liver and kidney, thus perhaps failing to feed an organ with one particular forte. The frankenprey approach also fails to take into account the blood that cats would consume when eating prey and the fur or feathers.

And Havoc is spot on in their post.

With you on this one Hobbs particularly where you point out dogs and cats are 'different' and same model doesn't work. All to often now I am seeing raw food suppliers who cater for dogs tagging cats into their 'formula' and this needs to be approached with caution. I believe if you set out to cater for dogs, remain faithful to this, equally if you set out to cater for cats, remain faithful to this as both have different nutritional requirements and needs, to tar with the same brush is simply not respecting this. Recently I came across a home made treats for dogs and asks if there was anything suitable for cats, the response was along the lines of, 'because our studies have revolved around dogs and their nutritional requirements, we would not be in a position to recommend our products for cats'

I had great admiration for their honesty to me and integrity for cats as they were being true to their vision for the product they had created.