hiitdogs
Cathlete
Hi Laura,
yes, there is lots of information on the Internet as to how to feed your cats/dogs on a natural diet. My pets are happy, healty, they have never been seriously ill and I keep getting asked what I do to achieve that phenomenal coat they have.
Before I go into the nittygritty though, let me put in a disclaimer, I am not a vet, I am not an animal nutritionist, I am not trying to slam any vets, I think most of them genuinely LOVE animals, they are doing a fine job and they bend over backwards for our pets, the last thing they want to do is hurting our furry friends. So please no throwing sticks and stones at me. My intention is not to attack a whole profession here.
What I am stating is soley based on my research about the subject and my personal experience. My college roommate is a naturopathic vet, she is a DVM who started out as a regular vet but expanded into holistic veterinary medicine several years ago. I double-check with her frequently to get her opinion (unfortunately she doesn't live in AZ) and expertise.
I started looking into the whole foods thing for pets when I learned that my then 4-year-old Labrador came from a long family history of cancer. I bought Dr. Pitcairn's book and was SHOCKED to learn about the ingredients in commercial pet foods.
Here are few links that I found to give a pretty good insight
http://www.newstarget.com/012647.html
http://www.preciouspets.org/report.htm
http://www.api4animals.org/facts.php?p=359&more=1
Here is a link to a book review of a book that I would highly recommend to read (aside from Dr. Pitcairn's book), just be prepared it will make you sick to your stomach. The book is called Foods Pets Die For by Anne Martin.
http://cats.about.com/library/reviews/aafprfoodpetsdiefor.htm
The whole notion of the pet food industry that a highly processed food like kibbles (aside from the more than questionable ingredients in many commercial pet foods, kibbles are processed at high heat, killing off any possible nutritional benefits ) is far superior to homemade pet food (and I am not talking table scraps here), kind of makes me giggle. Yes, the high heat for 30 to 60 min. kills of any bacteria, but it also destroys any nutrients, they can only compensate and call it balanced nutrition by adding vitamins because there sure is no nutritional value left. Dr. Pitcairn, in his book, calls it "Insta-Meal". If the human food industry came out and tried to sell us humans that the insta-system is a far superior way of nutrion and that we would have to eat this for the rest of our lives for longevity, we would find this revolting, wouldn't we? But it is widely acceptable for feeding our pets. I will admit that it is far more convenient to just open a bag and throw the kibbles in a bowl.
Laura, as to your cat with diabetes, it is very common for cats who are fed commercial cat food (particularly dry food) to develop diabetes. As a matter of fact, Hills Science Diet gets consistently bad reviews (which started after it was sold to Colgate Palmolive a few years ago), before that my understanding is, it was much better.
Like in humans diabetes in cats is a immune disorder in which the body attacks the pancreatic cells that produce insulin. The onset of diabetes is often caused by high levels of carbohydrates/sugars in a cat's diet. Cats in the wild are true carnivores (unlike humans or dogs who are omnivores), meaning, cats thrive almost exclusively on meat, in the wild they will eat "some" vegetable matter or grains by eating the stomach contents of their prey who eat grains and vegetables (birds, mice, etc.) but it is minimal.
You can't always trust the label, many labels will list as the first ingredient a protein source and then corn meal and corn gluten (or other split up grains for that matter), this is a practise known as "splitting", meaning they list the same ingredient, just split up (which I think is misleading) because otherwise the main ingredient would be corn (a starchy carbohydrate)or other carb, very questionable for an animal who is a carnivore and thrives on protein.
Most commercial diets for cats in all reality contain 50 % or more of carbohydrates, a lot of them contain sweeteners (sugar, cane sugar, cane molasses, etc.) to make the food more palatable. The fact that a lot of pet food manufacturers also spray fat (restaurant grease, etc.)on the kibble to make it more appealing for the pet makes the onset of diabetes even more likely.
A lot of times when you look at the label the presence of sugar will not be apparent, it will be hidden in innocent looking ingredients like beet pulp, corn meal, etc.
Another problem is that as consumers we are told to "look at the label" to identify the ingredients. Sounds great, but if you look at protein you will need to look at two important factors, the biological value and digestibility. The biological value depends on the protein's unique composition of amino acids. Eggs are given a value of 100 (the most useful form of protein), fish is ranked 92, beef and milk 78, soy 68 and wheat gluten 40. The digestability is the extent to which the gastrointenstinal tract can actually absorb it, i.e. one source of protein may be 70 % absorbable whearas another source may be 90 % absorbable.
Interestingly, most people don' realize that "meat-by-products" can mean poultry feather meal, gristle (connective tissue), leather meal, fecal waste and horse or cattle hair, etc. Meat-by-products are counted as a "protein source" but have a low digestabily number, they are cheap and pretty much useless. Additionally the high temperatures used for sterilizing the pet food can destroy much of the usefulness of proteins that start with a high biological value. Manufacturers are only required to list the amount of crude protein rather than the amount that can actually be digested by the animal, meaning that the actual carbohydrate content is proportionately even higher, sometimes even off the charts.
As to what I feed my cats (keep in mind none of my cats are diabetic), I use a product called Dr. Harvey's Feline Health as the source of carbs and vitamins (for ingredients go to www.drharveys.com) and mix it with frozen ground meat from Bravo (www.bravorawdiet.com), Primal (www.primalpetfoods.com), Nature's Logic (www.natureslogic.com) or Oma's Pride (wwww.omaspride.com), all of them offer a wide variety of frozen meats, most of them are antibiotic and hormone free, free range/grass fed, etc.
I do vary the meats day to day (but keep in mind, I have 4 dogs and 3 cats, so I go through even the big packs fairly quickly), I feed beef, lamb, chicken, turkey, rabbit, duck, venison, sardines, salmon, pheasant, quail, buffalo, ostrich, I do stay away from tuna because of the possible high mercury content. They do offer 1, 2, 5 and 10 lbs packages. Whereas I do like Oma's Pride, their shipping cost has become outrageous and my supplier discontinued it because of the high shipping cost, so I am mostly feeding Bravo and Primal now, with good experience. Check out their websites for suppliers in your area.
A typical meal for my cats will look like this:
3/4 oz of Dr. Harvey's Feline Health (grains and veggies)
2 1/4 oz of water (for cooking the above , takes about 5 to 8 min)
3 oz. meat (I will thaw the frozen stuff in my fridge and will mix it in half frozen)
1 tsp of mixed oils (I use Halo Dream Coat, Noah's Ark Royal Coat, Udo's Choice Pet Oils or Bravo Salmon Oil)
With the fact that your cat is diabetic, I would stick with mostly proteins and only add the small amounts of Feline Health (about 1 tsp of it at the most), you may want to consider small amounts (like 1 tbsp) cooked millet, brown rice or oats instead, or depending of the severity of the diabetes, leave out the grains and only add a little bit of blanched, grated green beans, winter squash, dandelions, shredded alfalfa, parsley (Bravo has some mixed frozen shredded veggies, so does Oma's Pride-they are chopped and you will need to grind them), stay away from peas or carrots with a diabetic cats though .
Make sure you feed organ meats once or twice a week (you can buy them ground through Bravo or Oma's Pride). Try and get some digestive enzymes and probiotics added every other day. I also feed small amounts (a couple of tsp) of yogurt(Strauss Family Whole Milk or Fage Greek Yogurt), kefir (Lifeway or Helios) and raws, scrambled or soft boiled eggs once or twice a week.
I personally do feed raw giblets, chicken livers, chicken wings, etc. to my cats, but this is a little controversial, I have had great experience with it and will continue to do so. However, be aware, there are some risks, but as far as I am concerned there are pets that have choked on their kibble and nothing is without risk. For me the benefits by far outweigh the risks, it is a personal choice though and I wouldn't recommend doing it without doing extensive research on it, you need to feel comfortable with whatever you are doing! Do never, ever, however, feed cooked bones to your pets!
After 6 - 12 months or after your cat getting tested by the vet again and given the green light, you probably can gradually add small amounts of carbs into your cat's diet again.
If this is too time consuming for you, Bravo, Oma's Pride and Nature's Variety offer some nicely formulated frozen foods with good reviews, they are grain free, just meat and some veggies and vitamins. I personally am a control freak and like to exactly know what's in the food that I feed my pets.
Dr. Pitcairn also recommends what he calls a "Healthy Powder" to be added to the food which consists of( add about 2 to 3 pinches to every meal)
2 cups nutritional yest / brewer's yeast
1 cup lecithin granules
1/4 cup kelp powder (I use Norwegian Kelp of Florida available through www.kvvet.com - great prices)
4 tbsp bone meal (I use Solgar or Solid Gold)
1,000 mg vitamin C (I use Halo Pets X-tra C)
Instead of the Healthy Powder you could use Anitra's Vita Mix, distributed through www.halopets.com.
The other option is the "Missing Link Feline" supplement (the cheapest that I have found is through www.kvvet.com).
Vetri-Science also offers a good multi vitamin (recommended by Dr. Pitcairn) called Nu-Cat, again cheapest source that I have found is www.kvvet.com
I don't use ALL of the supplements/vitamins all the time, I do vary and alternate for optimum nutrition. I know most pet food manufacturers warn that you should stick with ONE particular food, I have not found this to be a concern with my pets in 7 years, I switch around daily, none of them shows any signs of upset stomach or any sign of disease, by varying the food sources, including proteins, they all are doing exceptionally well. All of my pets are getting yearly checkups with the vet, including blood work.
To compare it to humans again, what would you think, if someone told you that from now on you could only eat Honey Nut Cheerios, day in and day out. I personally try to eat "clean" but a variety of foods, my kids eat that way, it is widely recommended with humand, why would it be any different with our pets???? In the wild they wouldn't eat the same thing every day.
If you do want to stick with canned or dry food, I heard Wysong (a veterinarian) offers some good alternatives, I occasionally use his canned 95 % meat diet, called "au jus", a variety of meats like beef, chicken, turkey, duck, venison, rabbit, his dry food also gets good reviews (I don't feed it, so I have no first-hand knowledge). Also Nature's Variety get consistently good reviews, they have frozen/raw food, freeze dried food (convenient for traveling), dry food and canned food, they also have a grain free kibble for cats called Raw Instinct.
Also, keep in mind that according to Dr. Pitcairn yearly vaccinations can worsen a diabetic condition of cats. But do your research on it and talk to your vet.
There are also some homeopathic and naturopathic remedies for diabetic pets, but going into this would go way beyond the scope of this forum. Ahem, everyone is already sick and tired of me, rambling on and on about pet nutrition }(
To go back to my initial statement about how I got started with the whole pet nutrition thing, my Labrador, Jake, whose brother died of cancer when Jake was 4-years old. His brother lived with a friend of ours and it broke my heart to find out that all of Jake's family had died before the age of 7, Jake eventually sucumbed to cancer when he was almost 11 years old last Thanksgiving, I believe that, whereas genetics couldn't be totally neutralized, at least he had 3 to 6 years more of quality live than the rest of his family and I think it had to do with nutrition.
Well, sorry this was VERY long-winded, I am getting of my soap box now, it is 2:15 am and I am going to bed. My name is Carola, I am a Cathe Forum addict and I am a nutcase about nutrition. Laura, if you need any more info or if you want any recipes from Dr. Pitcairn's book that I am using, please email me directly at [email protected].
Have a great day everyone!
Carola
yes, there is lots of information on the Internet as to how to feed your cats/dogs on a natural diet. My pets are happy, healty, they have never been seriously ill and I keep getting asked what I do to achieve that phenomenal coat they have.
Before I go into the nittygritty though, let me put in a disclaimer, I am not a vet, I am not an animal nutritionist, I am not trying to slam any vets, I think most of them genuinely LOVE animals, they are doing a fine job and they bend over backwards for our pets, the last thing they want to do is hurting our furry friends. So please no throwing sticks and stones at me. My intention is not to attack a whole profession here.
What I am stating is soley based on my research about the subject and my personal experience. My college roommate is a naturopathic vet, she is a DVM who started out as a regular vet but expanded into holistic veterinary medicine several years ago. I double-check with her frequently to get her opinion (unfortunately she doesn't live in AZ) and expertise.
I started looking into the whole foods thing for pets when I learned that my then 4-year-old Labrador came from a long family history of cancer. I bought Dr. Pitcairn's book and was SHOCKED to learn about the ingredients in commercial pet foods.
Here are few links that I found to give a pretty good insight
http://www.newstarget.com/012647.html
http://www.preciouspets.org/report.htm
http://www.api4animals.org/facts.php?p=359&more=1
Here is a link to a book review of a book that I would highly recommend to read (aside from Dr. Pitcairn's book), just be prepared it will make you sick to your stomach. The book is called Foods Pets Die For by Anne Martin.
http://cats.about.com/library/reviews/aafprfoodpetsdiefor.htm
The whole notion of the pet food industry that a highly processed food like kibbles (aside from the more than questionable ingredients in many commercial pet foods, kibbles are processed at high heat, killing off any possible nutritional benefits ) is far superior to homemade pet food (and I am not talking table scraps here), kind of makes me giggle. Yes, the high heat for 30 to 60 min. kills of any bacteria, but it also destroys any nutrients, they can only compensate and call it balanced nutrition by adding vitamins because there sure is no nutritional value left. Dr. Pitcairn, in his book, calls it "Insta-Meal". If the human food industry came out and tried to sell us humans that the insta-system is a far superior way of nutrion and that we would have to eat this for the rest of our lives for longevity, we would find this revolting, wouldn't we? But it is widely acceptable for feeding our pets. I will admit that it is far more convenient to just open a bag and throw the kibbles in a bowl.
Laura, as to your cat with diabetes, it is very common for cats who are fed commercial cat food (particularly dry food) to develop diabetes. As a matter of fact, Hills Science Diet gets consistently bad reviews (which started after it was sold to Colgate Palmolive a few years ago), before that my understanding is, it was much better.
Like in humans diabetes in cats is a immune disorder in which the body attacks the pancreatic cells that produce insulin. The onset of diabetes is often caused by high levels of carbohydrates/sugars in a cat's diet. Cats in the wild are true carnivores (unlike humans or dogs who are omnivores), meaning, cats thrive almost exclusively on meat, in the wild they will eat "some" vegetable matter or grains by eating the stomach contents of their prey who eat grains and vegetables (birds, mice, etc.) but it is minimal.
You can't always trust the label, many labels will list as the first ingredient a protein source and then corn meal and corn gluten (or other split up grains for that matter), this is a practise known as "splitting", meaning they list the same ingredient, just split up (which I think is misleading) because otherwise the main ingredient would be corn (a starchy carbohydrate)or other carb, very questionable for an animal who is a carnivore and thrives on protein.
Most commercial diets for cats in all reality contain 50 % or more of carbohydrates, a lot of them contain sweeteners (sugar, cane sugar, cane molasses, etc.) to make the food more palatable. The fact that a lot of pet food manufacturers also spray fat (restaurant grease, etc.)on the kibble to make it more appealing for the pet makes the onset of diabetes even more likely.
A lot of times when you look at the label the presence of sugar will not be apparent, it will be hidden in innocent looking ingredients like beet pulp, corn meal, etc.
Another problem is that as consumers we are told to "look at the label" to identify the ingredients. Sounds great, but if you look at protein you will need to look at two important factors, the biological value and digestibility. The biological value depends on the protein's unique composition of amino acids. Eggs are given a value of 100 (the most useful form of protein), fish is ranked 92, beef and milk 78, soy 68 and wheat gluten 40. The digestability is the extent to which the gastrointenstinal tract can actually absorb it, i.e. one source of protein may be 70 % absorbable whearas another source may be 90 % absorbable.
Interestingly, most people don' realize that "meat-by-products" can mean poultry feather meal, gristle (connective tissue), leather meal, fecal waste and horse or cattle hair, etc. Meat-by-products are counted as a "protein source" but have a low digestabily number, they are cheap and pretty much useless. Additionally the high temperatures used for sterilizing the pet food can destroy much of the usefulness of proteins that start with a high biological value. Manufacturers are only required to list the amount of crude protein rather than the amount that can actually be digested by the animal, meaning that the actual carbohydrate content is proportionately even higher, sometimes even off the charts.
As to what I feed my cats (keep in mind none of my cats are diabetic), I use a product called Dr. Harvey's Feline Health as the source of carbs and vitamins (for ingredients go to www.drharveys.com) and mix it with frozen ground meat from Bravo (www.bravorawdiet.com), Primal (www.primalpetfoods.com), Nature's Logic (www.natureslogic.com) or Oma's Pride (wwww.omaspride.com), all of them offer a wide variety of frozen meats, most of them are antibiotic and hormone free, free range/grass fed, etc.
I do vary the meats day to day (but keep in mind, I have 4 dogs and 3 cats, so I go through even the big packs fairly quickly), I feed beef, lamb, chicken, turkey, rabbit, duck, venison, sardines, salmon, pheasant, quail, buffalo, ostrich, I do stay away from tuna because of the possible high mercury content. They do offer 1, 2, 5 and 10 lbs packages. Whereas I do like Oma's Pride, their shipping cost has become outrageous and my supplier discontinued it because of the high shipping cost, so I am mostly feeding Bravo and Primal now, with good experience. Check out their websites for suppliers in your area.
A typical meal for my cats will look like this:
3/4 oz of Dr. Harvey's Feline Health (grains and veggies)
2 1/4 oz of water (for cooking the above , takes about 5 to 8 min)
3 oz. meat (I will thaw the frozen stuff in my fridge and will mix it in half frozen)
1 tsp of mixed oils (I use Halo Dream Coat, Noah's Ark Royal Coat, Udo's Choice Pet Oils or Bravo Salmon Oil)
With the fact that your cat is diabetic, I would stick with mostly proteins and only add the small amounts of Feline Health (about 1 tsp of it at the most), you may want to consider small amounts (like 1 tbsp) cooked millet, brown rice or oats instead, or depending of the severity of the diabetes, leave out the grains and only add a little bit of blanched, grated green beans, winter squash, dandelions, shredded alfalfa, parsley (Bravo has some mixed frozen shredded veggies, so does Oma's Pride-they are chopped and you will need to grind them), stay away from peas or carrots with a diabetic cats though .
Make sure you feed organ meats once or twice a week (you can buy them ground through Bravo or Oma's Pride). Try and get some digestive enzymes and probiotics added every other day. I also feed small amounts (a couple of tsp) of yogurt(Strauss Family Whole Milk or Fage Greek Yogurt), kefir (Lifeway or Helios) and raws, scrambled or soft boiled eggs once or twice a week.
I personally do feed raw giblets, chicken livers, chicken wings, etc. to my cats, but this is a little controversial, I have had great experience with it and will continue to do so. However, be aware, there are some risks, but as far as I am concerned there are pets that have choked on their kibble and nothing is without risk. For me the benefits by far outweigh the risks, it is a personal choice though and I wouldn't recommend doing it without doing extensive research on it, you need to feel comfortable with whatever you are doing! Do never, ever, however, feed cooked bones to your pets!
After 6 - 12 months or after your cat getting tested by the vet again and given the green light, you probably can gradually add small amounts of carbs into your cat's diet again.
If this is too time consuming for you, Bravo, Oma's Pride and Nature's Variety offer some nicely formulated frozen foods with good reviews, they are grain free, just meat and some veggies and vitamins. I personally am a control freak and like to exactly know what's in the food that I feed my pets.
Dr. Pitcairn also recommends what he calls a "Healthy Powder" to be added to the food which consists of( add about 2 to 3 pinches to every meal)
2 cups nutritional yest / brewer's yeast
1 cup lecithin granules
1/4 cup kelp powder (I use Norwegian Kelp of Florida available through www.kvvet.com - great prices)
4 tbsp bone meal (I use Solgar or Solid Gold)
1,000 mg vitamin C (I use Halo Pets X-tra C)
Instead of the Healthy Powder you could use Anitra's Vita Mix, distributed through www.halopets.com.
The other option is the "Missing Link Feline" supplement (the cheapest that I have found is through www.kvvet.com).
Vetri-Science also offers a good multi vitamin (recommended by Dr. Pitcairn) called Nu-Cat, again cheapest source that I have found is www.kvvet.com
I don't use ALL of the supplements/vitamins all the time, I do vary and alternate for optimum nutrition. I know most pet food manufacturers warn that you should stick with ONE particular food, I have not found this to be a concern with my pets in 7 years, I switch around daily, none of them shows any signs of upset stomach or any sign of disease, by varying the food sources, including proteins, they all are doing exceptionally well. All of my pets are getting yearly checkups with the vet, including blood work.
To compare it to humans again, what would you think, if someone told you that from now on you could only eat Honey Nut Cheerios, day in and day out. I personally try to eat "clean" but a variety of foods, my kids eat that way, it is widely recommended with humand, why would it be any different with our pets???? In the wild they wouldn't eat the same thing every day.
If you do want to stick with canned or dry food, I heard Wysong (a veterinarian) offers some good alternatives, I occasionally use his canned 95 % meat diet, called "au jus", a variety of meats like beef, chicken, turkey, duck, venison, rabbit, his dry food also gets good reviews (I don't feed it, so I have no first-hand knowledge). Also Nature's Variety get consistently good reviews, they have frozen/raw food, freeze dried food (convenient for traveling), dry food and canned food, they also have a grain free kibble for cats called Raw Instinct.
Also, keep in mind that according to Dr. Pitcairn yearly vaccinations can worsen a diabetic condition of cats. But do your research on it and talk to your vet.
There are also some homeopathic and naturopathic remedies for diabetic pets, but going into this would go way beyond the scope of this forum. Ahem, everyone is already sick and tired of me, rambling on and on about pet nutrition }(
To go back to my initial statement about how I got started with the whole pet nutrition thing, my Labrador, Jake, whose brother died of cancer when Jake was 4-years old. His brother lived with a friend of ours and it broke my heart to find out that all of Jake's family had died before the age of 7, Jake eventually sucumbed to cancer when he was almost 11 years old last Thanksgiving, I believe that, whereas genetics couldn't be totally neutralized, at least he had 3 to 6 years more of quality live than the rest of his family and I think it had to do with nutrition.
Well, sorry this was VERY long-winded, I am getting of my soap box now, it is 2:15 am and I am going to bed. My name is Carola, I am a Cathe Forum addict and I am a nutcase about nutrition. Laura, if you need any more info or if you want any recipes from Dr. Pitcairn's book that I am using, please email me directly at [email protected].
Have a great day everyone!
Carola
