SHOULD YOUR CAT BE AN "AT-CAT"?

Karen · **Posted:** Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:27 pm

SHOULD YOUR CAT BE AN "AT-CAT"??
04-01-2001

This is Zeus. Over the two+ years I worked in the local Animal Shelter as Program Director for the Humane Society, he was the first and only inmate for whom I developed what is usually referred to as "love at first sight". (I loved them all, of course, that's why I was there .... but I loved none so fiercely and instantly as he.) He has ruled our home with a kind of regal majesty ever since.

This winter I thought he started having some trouble with hairballs, and as it turns out, he did have hairballs.

He also had ASTHMA.

Asthma?? A cat, c-a-t, with asthma!! For crying out loud, something had to be done!

"Well, yes" said my veterinarian. "Duh. Something definitely needs to be done. For one thing, he's obese. He weighs seventeen and a half pounds! He needs to go on a diet - a strict diet. Science Diet makes a reduced calorie food..." her words ran all together after that and eventually droned off into non-existence, at least for me. I wasn't about to put my baby on any low fat starvation diet invented by a species who didn't even remember how THEY were supposed to eat! I'd been thinking about the damage I could inadvertently be doing to my pets with commercial pet food for a while, ever since reading Neanderthin by Ray Audette a couple years ago. He talks in that book about how wild animals don't get cancer. Well, HELLO. Wild animals don't get cancer? A whole heck of a lot of domesticated pets get cancer, I lost a beloved dog that way and it was so painful that I know it's the only reason I don't have one at my feet right this moment ...

It was time to get serious and apply the principles I know so well. There is no controversy about this Way of Eating when it comes to animals, or at least there shouldn't be. They are pure carnivores. They are supposed to be eating raw bloody meat 99.8% of the time, and eating then puking back up some assorted grasses the rest of the time. So, it isn't convenient for me. So, it isn't the cheapest. So, it's actually a pain in the butt. So what! Face it, I told myself. You can no longer live with yourself if you don't start doing the right thing here...

This is Storm.

Storm, contrary to appearances, is NOT doing the Cat Chow dance in this photo, but rather the Raw Meat Mash! Storm has been eating my carefully concocted best efforts at feline nutrition since we were originally blessed with her presence, at a mere eight weeks of age. Six weeks later, she's tripled in size and is obviously thriving.

Now, please hear this: I am not a vet. I am also not a mathematician. I did not carefully analyze the percentage of each nutrient required per body pound for cats and thus come up with some magic formula that is guaranteed to perfectly meet the metabolic needs of every feline. What I did do was a couple weeks of research on the internet, while Zeus convalesced with the temporary aid of cortisone and antibiotics, followed by lots of experimentation in my own kitchen and on my own animals, with my vet and I observing the results closely.

So far, so good, but this is an evolving effort, kind of like my own Way of Eating - it may require future tweaking. Please be warned that results may vary and the recipe I share here may very well not be the "right one" for your pet.

Dogs have different dietary requirements and limitations and I encourage the dog lovers among you to start doing your own research and thinking about the ills of commercial pet foods and what you might be willing to do for the sake of your companions.

I started my own research with an article I recalled reading online called "The Raw Meat Diet for Cats." Then I did a whole bunch of web searches. I read dozens of opinions and recipes, many of them conflicting, save for the universal condemnation of commercial foods. I will spare you the gory definition of by-products, here, I think we should all know by now that most commercial pet food, whether in a bag or can, is crap. I feel no need to wage this particular argument to confirmed low carbers. In a nutshell - "Ew!" sums it up for me.

So, I bought lots of strange ingredients (and paid far too much for some of them). I rejoiced in the fact that I did at least already own a Kitchen Aid mixer with a food grinder. And then I jumped in with both feet.

Every time I vary the recipe that I use, at all, I have to deal with spit-up the whole first day of the new batch, so my first piece of advice is, find something that appears to work, and barring a bad reaction, stick with it.

Second, figure out how you want to store this in the freezer. If you have just one cat and they are petite and don't eat a ton of food, maybe you would do well to do as I started out and pack the prepared food into ice cube trays till frozen, then pop the cubes out into a large plastic bag, making it easy to thaw out a couple cubes at a time. I found this method to be a pain in the you know what, though! Once the full trays fell over into the ice reservoir, contaminating all our ice cubes with raw meat germs. Ooops. I had to freeze one week's worth of food in several different batches, too. What I ended up doing is using sandwich size plastic bags, a wide-mouth pint jar, and a wide-mouth funnel. I stand the bag up in the jar, stick the funnel in the top, and then fill the bag 2/3 full of prepared food. The funnel keeps the top of the bag clean, and I just seal the bag, (removing the excess air) and then store all the bags in the freezer. All done, all at once, with much less muss and fuss than using the ice trays. Each day I remove a new bag from the freezer to the fridge to thaw for the next day, grab the thawed one already in the fridge, and snip off the corner to dispense it into the dish throughout the day. Easy!

I bought bone meal and brewer's yeast with garlic in tablet form and at first I was grinding a certain number of tablets in my coffee grinder each time I made a batch of food..... eventually I ground the whole jar's worth of tablets and then returned the powder to the jar for easy mixing during each batch. Ah, much easier...

I never did manage to get any freeze dried glands for my recipe but I still think it's a good idea and I am looking again. You need to mimic the natural complete diet of a predator, and that means RAW meat at least most of the time, because raw meats has enzymes and nutrients that are not found in cooked meat. You need to add bone meal to make up for the bones and marrow that any natural predator ingests. You need to add something to help kitty with digestion, unless you are more patient about cleaning up spit-up than I am, and unless your cat has an iron constitution and transitions perfectly to a raw meat diet. Even then, it's not a bad idea for your cat's general health that you provide a digestive aid. Make sure there is enough fat in your mixture, predators eat it ALL but most of the meat we tend to grind is lean.... I started out adding flax oil and fish oil from capsules that I had to cut open each time.... can you say PAIN??? I ended up adding a product called Shed Stop instead, which is a blend of Omega 3 oils... MUCH easier - also cheaper, gotta love that!

I read lots of sites that said blue green algae is good,,, just as many that said blue green algae is bad for animals.... and so on...... I decided to just try to mimic a cat's natural diet as well as I could and not go overboard with other crap. So I planted grass seed, catnip, and catgrass along with my other herbs and I keep some of the grasses available to the cats so they can help themselves from the live pots. So far, they haven't made a mess with the dirt, or anything.... and they love to eat the "catgrass". (The fresh catnip is too small to give to them yet, so I give them dried at last once a week. I bought my seeds at http://www.Burpee.com.) This is what I mix up, and as I said before - it may not be adequate, long-term. I am keeping my eyes open for flaking skin, excessive shedding, or other signs of malnourishment. I still plan to add the glands when I can get them!

I always beat up the powders with the egg yolks, vinegar, and oils, then stir that into the ground mixed meats, to try to insure that everything gets mixed evenly. If it seems dry, I add a little water, but usually it's fine....

If you decide to go this route, please do your own research.

So far, Zeus has lost about a pound, but more importantly - NO MORE ASTHMA! None!

Yippee!

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