Feeding Your Cat

Proper Feeding

Cats require protein to survive

Diet is the brick and mortar of health. Cats have a better chance at optimal health if they are fed canned food (or a balanced homemade diet) instead of dry kibble.

Putting a little thought into what you feed your cat(s) can pay big dividends over their lifetime and very possibly help them avoid serious, painful, and costly illnesses. An increasing number of nutrition-savvy veterinarians, including board-certified veterinary internists, are now strongly recommending the feeding of canned food instead of dry kibble.

The three key negative issues associated with dry food are:
1) water content is too low
2) carbohydrate load is too high
3) type of protein – too high in plant-based versus animal-based proteins

In addition, dry food is very heavily processed which includes being subjected to high temperatures for a long time resulting in alteration and destruction of nutrients.

Adult Woman Feeding Her Siberian Cat With a Spoon

Wet Food and Dry Food

Shop the Perimeter

Most people who are concerned about their own nutrition have heard nutritionists say “shop the perimeter of the grocery store.” This statement refers to the push to get humans to focus on fresh food – not overly processed food found in boxes and cans.

Where do you think kibble would reside in this scenario? Definitely not in the “perimeter”! There is nothing fresh about this source of food and it certainly does not come close to resembling a bird or a mouse.

Also keep in mind that dry foods are not refrigerated and they sit in warm warehouses, on pet store shelves, and in your cupboards for weeks or months before your pets consume them. Fats can easily become rancid, and bacteria will proliferate, in this type of environment.

There is no doubt that dry food is responsible for far more intestinal problems, and other diseases, than most veterinarians and cat owners realize.

But my cat is fine on dry food?

Every living creature is “fine” until outward signs of a disease process are exhibited. That may sound like a very obvious and basic statement but if you think about it……

Every cat with a blocked urinary tract was “fine” until they started to strain to urinate and either died from a ruptured bladder or had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency catheterization.

Every cat on the Feline Diabetes Message Board was “fine” until their owners started to recognize the signs of diabetes.

Every cat with an inflamed bladder (cystitis) was “fine” until they ended up in severe pain, started passing blood in their urine, and began to refuse to use their litter box because they associated it with their pain.

Every cat was “fine” until the feeding of species-inappropriate, hyperallergenic ingredients caught up with him and he started to show signs of food intolerance/IBD (inflammatory bowel disease).

The point is that diseases ‘brew’ long before being noticed by the living being.

1) All urinary tract systems are much healthier with an appropriate amount of water flowing through them.

2) Carbohydrates can wreak havoc on cats’ blood sugar/insulin balance.

3) Cats inherently have a low thirst drive and need to consume water *with* their food. (A cat’s normal prey is ~70 – 75% water – not the very low 5-10% found in dry food.)

4) Cats are strict carnivores which means they are designed to get their protein from meat/organs – not plants.

Cats Need Animal-Based Protein

Cats are obligate (strict) carnivores and are very different from dogs in their nutritional needs. What does it mean to be an ‘obligate carnivore’? It means that your cat was built by Mother Nature to get her nutritional needs met by the consumption of a large amount of animal-based proteins (meat/organs) and derives much less nutritional support from plant-based proteins (grains/vegetables). It means that cats lack specific metabolic (enzymatic) pathways and cannot utilize plant proteins as efficiently as animal proteins.

It is very important to remember that not all proteins are created equal.

Proteins derived from animal tissues have a complete amino acid profile. (Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Think of them as pieces of a puzzle.) Plant-based proteins do not contain the full complement (puzzle pieces) of the critical amino acids required by an obligate carnivore. The quality and composition of a protein (are all of the puzzle pieces present?) is also referred to as its biological value.

Humans and dogs can take the pieces of the puzzle in the plant protein and, from those, make the missing pieces. Cats cannot do this. This is why humans and dogs can live on a vegetarian diet but cats cannot. (Note that I do not recommend vegetarian diets for dogs.)

Taurine is one of the most important nutrients present in meat but it is missing from plants. Taurine deficiency will cause blindness and heart problems in cats.

The protein in dry food, which is often heavily plant-based, is not equal in quality to the protein in canned food, which is meat-based. The protein in dry food, therefore, earns a lower biological value score.

Because plant proteins are cheaper than meat proteins, pet food companies will have a higher profit margin when using corn, wheat, soy, rice, etc.

Not all Proteins are Created Equal

Proteins derived from animal tissues have a complete amino acid profile. Plant-based proteins do not contain the full complement (puzzle pieces) of the critical amino acids required by an obligate carnivore. The quality and composition of a protein is also referred to as its biological value.

Humans and dogs can take the pieces of the puzzle in the plant protein and, from those, make the missing pieces. Cats cannot do this. This is why humans and dogs can live on a vegetarian diet but cats cannot.

Taurine is one of the most important nutrients present in meat but it is missing from plants. Taurine deficiency will cause blindness and heart problems in cats.

The protein in dry food, which is often heavily plant-based, is not equal in quality to the protein in canned food, which is meat-based. The protein in dry food, therefore, earns a lower biological value score.

Because plant proteins are cheaper than meat proteins, pet food companies will have a higher profit margin when using corn, wheat, soy, rice, etc.

Avoiding the Marketing Hype

Veterinary nutritionists and pet food company representatives will argue that they are smart enough to know *exactly* what is missing from a plant in terms of nutrient forms and amounts – nutrients that would otherwise be in a meat-based diet. They will then claim that these missing elements are added to their diets to make it complete and balanced to sustain life in an obligate carnivore.

This has led to fatal errors in the past. Not all that long ago (1980s) cats were going blind and dying from heart problems due to this arrogance. It was discovered in the late 1980s that cats are exquisitely sensitive to taurine deficiency and our cats were paying dearly for humans straying so far from nature in order to increase the profit margin of the pet food manufacturers.

There are several situations that can lead to a diet being deficient in taurine but one of them is using a diet that relies heavily on plants (grains, etc.) as its source of protein. Instead of lowering their profit margin and going back to nature by adding more meat to the diets, the pet food companies simple started supplementing their diets with synthetic taurine.

This may be all well and good for this particular problem, but how do we know that we are not blindly going along unaware of other critical nutrients that are missing from a plant-based diet?

Do we think that we can safely stray so far from what a cat is designed by nature to eat?

Also note that synthetic taurine is manufactured from a chemical reaction and all taurine (at least that I know of) comes out of China. Given that country’s horrible track record with regard to food safety, I certainly would not want to depend on taurine from China’s chemical synthesis to meet my cats’ taurine needs.

With regard to the overall protein amounts contained in dry versus canned food, do not be confused by the listing of the protein percentages on the packaging. At first glance, it might appear that the dry food has a higher amount of protein than the canned food—but this is not true on a dry matter basis which considers the food minus the water. Most canned foods, when figured on a dry matter basis, have more protein than dry food. And remember, even if this was not the case, the percentage numbers do not tell the whole story. It is the protein’s biological value that is critical.

Let’s ask ourselves the following question: How many cats become ill or die from these species-inappropriate diets yet the patient’s diet is never even questioned as a possible cause of the illness or death? We cannot answer that question definitively but I have no doubt that the answer would be “many”.

Do cats survive on these heavily (synthetically) supplemented plant-based diets? Yes, many of them do.

Do cats thrive on these diets? No, they do not.

Please pay special attention to the words *survive* versus *thrive* as there is a very big difference between the two states of health.

Read the full article here.

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