Monday, January 26, 2009

You should definitely try this

If you have cats, that is. In the spirit of my abiding love for animals (especially my pets, see below) I want to share with you a few little secrets: 1. CATS ARE CARNIVORES. You know....meat eaters? NOT OMNIVORES. Veggie and meat eaters. 2. Most, basically all, commercially available (dry and wet) cat foods have grains, veggies, fruit, sugars and other various fillers in them. It's true...read the ingredients. 3. Even the prescription diet foods that your vet sells contain these ingredients. 4. Most vets want to help but haven't received much training in animal nutrition. Believe it. And so rely on the pet food companies so called nutritionists to educate you...bah!

Let me tell you a little story. Chrissy (again see below) is fat....well was fat. She weighed about 17 lbs a year ago. That's, like, dog sized. She was unable to move much, she couldn't groom herself and I was starting to see signs of diabetes. I'd always been doing what I thought was the right thing by feeding her "high quality" (i.e. expensive) dry indoor formula cat food. So I couldn't figure it out. I started doing some research (Yeah, research, ever heard of it?) and using my brain, which, happens to be very full of animal facts. Hmm, I said to myself, what does a lion, tiger, leopard, bobcat, stray domestic cat, etc. eat? Meat. They eat Meat! HaHa...an epiphany. So I googled it and I got this amazing web site http://www.catnurition.org/.

On her website, Anne, advocates a raw, all meat diet for cats. I've been feeding Chrissy and Alex this homemade, organic, raw meat food now for a year or more. Chrissy has lost 4lbs (that's a lot when you're a cat) and now she can have fun, groom her own bottom and back, and she's no longer prediabetic. The proof is in the poodin'....as they say. Plus, you remember the contaminated pet food scare a couple of years back? Well I do, and let me tell ya there is no danger of my cats ingesting plastic poison from China anymore!

I know what your thinking...that's gross, I don't have time, what about salmonella, it's too expensive. First, there is little danger to you or your animals if you handle the food properly, just like you would for yourself. I'm not gonna lie though...there is a little gross out factor (but you get used to it), it takes a little more time (but it's easy and with practice, takes less and less time) and it's initially more expensive than commercial food (You have to buy the equipment and vitamins but it ends up costing about 20 bucks to make a two week supply of actual food, that's about what it costs to buy "good quality" dry). But....you love your pets right? So it's pretty much worth it.

Thankfully, for you busy and easily grossed out people...more and more retailers are carrying prepackaged frozen raw meat diets. Hey, there are even some dry foods that have no grains or veggies on the market now. And I've noticed (by reading the ingredients) that some, but not all, Fancy Feast canned recipes have little or no carbs. So there's something out there for everyone. These options are better than most other cat foods, but I still recommend homemade.

Here are some pictures of the process from http://www.catnutrition.org/. I was going to take pictures of me doing it but, really, it looks just like this soooo...why?




Go to the website. Educate yourself. And Happy Feeding!!!

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