Monday, December 28, 2009

Most Cat Ailments Are Caused By a Toxic Overload

Cat ailments are on the increase. Why should this be the case? After all many cat people do what they consider to be all the right things to do. They vaccinate their cat every year. They feed their cat the most expensive brand of processed cat food recommended by their vet. They use the recommended flea and worm control.

What more can they do?

Last week, a distressed family brought their rabbit to me. They had used the flea preparation Frontline. Frontline is not recommended for use on rabbits and the rabbit was now having seizures.

I did a quick search on the internet to see what ingredients Frontline had. I was shocked, but not surprised, to see that cyanide was one. And yet Frontline is considered to be low in toxicity. Even WHO approves it.

This begs a very big question to me. Can you trust others with the health of your cat? If you use Frontline, is it acceptable to you to be putting cyanide into her system?

So next, I searched for the ingredients of Advantage, another popular cat flea control preparation. Advantage contains imidacloprid, which is a neuro active insecticide. That means it affects the neurological system. The nerves. So seizures would not be an impossible side effect for this one, either.

Imidacloprid causes thyroid problems in rats. It’s not a million mile jump to conclude it could also cause thyroid problems in those animals who are treated with it.

And yet, it’s the easiest thing in the world to control fleas naturally. The reason for fleas is because of the pH of your cat’s skin. A processed diet is not healthy, is not in line with their evolutionary history. It alters the chemistry of your cat’s body. Fleas love the skin of a cat fed processed food.

A raw meat and bones diet, on the other hand, keeps the cat’s pH in perfect balance. Fleas are no longer attracted to the skin. And resolves a host of other cat ailments.

If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself. You’ll need to try for about a month, perhaps two depending on the age and health of your cat.

Isn’t it better to find the cause of the problem and deal with that, rather than treating the effect?

Sadly the rabbit didn’t survive. But the family had a huge learning experience.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Diabetic Cat Food Firstly Needs to Be Nutritious

If you want to find a good diabetic cat food, then I ask you to pause for a moment. Think. Why has your cat got diabetes in the first place? Cats never used to get this disease. It’s something that had happened in the last decade or so.

And wild cats don’t get it.

So it’s something that humans do to cats.

One of the most unnatural things many cats are subjected to is a nutrient poor diet.

Cats have evolved on eating freshly killed small animals. They usually eat the whole carcass. So they are getting very fresh meat, mostly muscle meat, some organ meat, lots of raw, crunchy bones and the skin.

Now lets look at typical commercial pet food. It contains predominantly meat that is not wanted in the human market. Foods such as fat, heads, hooves, intestines. And some manufacturers add road kill and euthanised pets and zoo animals.

Can you see the difference in the quality of the food?

And bear in mind that commercial pet food with contain preservatives, despite what it says on the label.

Are preservatives a health enhancer?

So, by switching to a healthy, human grade raw meat and bones diet, I suggest that you will most likely be able to cure your cat’s diabetes. In the unlikely event that this change won’t cure it, then I guarantee it will improve your cat’s health in some way, in the long term.

Think about it. A good diabetic cat food, should be a healthy cat food.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Six Reasons Your Cat Vomits and What You Can Do

When a cat vomits, it may be normal, or it may indicate a problem. How can you tell which it is?

Let’s explore the reason a cat vomits in the first place.


  1. Cats groom themselves regularly, ingesting fur as they do. The normal way they get rid of this is by vomiting up fur balls. This is normal and natural. And the vomit looks like a small, moist parcel the colour of their fur.
  2. A cat often vomits after they have eaten grass. They will throw up saliva (or food if they ate immediately after eating the grass). This is a natural cleansing way your cat has, is perfectly normal and nothing to worry about, if it occurs occasionally. The vomit will just be saliva with blades of grass.
  3. Vomiting in food poisoning is the normal way to rid the system of something unwanted in the stomach. In an acute situation, this is normally over in a matter of hours or days, if the cat was successful at dealing with the problem. The vomit will be the food they recently ingested.
  4. Vomiting, along with diarrhoea and skin eruptions, is the best way the body has to rid itself of toxins. The toxic preservatives in commercial pet food will make your cat very toxic. Constant vomiting is helping your cat dump some of the overload.
  5. Vomiting can also mean that your cat may have a health problem and the last thing he needs is the burden of digestion. Digestion takes a lot of energy and if your cat is dealing with a health issue, digestion would direct too much energy away from the task in hand. So they dump the food, to allow all their spare energy to focus on the problem.
  6. When a cat is switched from a commercial pet food to a quality raw one, vomiting is likely to occur for a short period initially. This is a normal cleansing and should be left.

A healthy cat will be able to deal with most situations, so careful monitoring is the best thing to do in the early stages, if nothing sinister, such as rat poisoning, is suspected.

If your cat’s immune system is very low, then it’s likely that they can’t deal with the problem, and so it lasts long enough to be concerned about the possibility of dehydration and the lack of eating.

Cats need good quality food. Sadly, most cats have to exist on the poor quality commercial cat food that comes in a packet or a can. This is the most likely reason your cat vomits.

If you change your cat’s food to a healthy raw meat and bones diet, it’s likely that the chronic vomiting will stop, allowing for the initial de-toxining period.

Being guided by what your cat vomits, you can reach the logical problem, and so solution.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The Best Moist Cat Food for a Diabetic Cat Doesn’t Come in a Packet

When you go searching for the best moist cat food for a diabetic cat, I suggest you pause for a moment. Think about why you cat is diabetic in the first place.

Holistic health professionals, both for human and for animal are well aware of some of the most common causes of diabetes. If you can address the cause, the problem disappears.

Diet is critical to health. Feed a bad diet and the heath of the recipient will be poor.

Processed and commercial cat food, whether it comes in a can, a packet or any other way, is nutrient poor.

No quality food goes into pet food. The quality food all goes to the more lucrative human market. The left overs, which are out of natural balance, goes into pet food.

Things like all the unwanted fat, hooves, intestines, heads. And that’s not all. Road kill, euthanised pets and zoo animals also go into the mix in many pet food manufacturers.

Then a cheap filler is added, such as sugar, melamine, crushed nutshells, sawdust or anything that is cheap on the world market.

Moist cat food is notorious for the toxic preservative it contains. Formalin. This is normally used to embalm dead people.

Does this list of ingredients sound health promoting to you?

Is it any wonder your cat has diabetes?

Why not change your cat’s diet to real food? Human grade raw meat and bones. That’s how they evolved.

There is no doubt that the best moist cat food for a diabetic cat is a raw meat and bones diet.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

The Best Cat Food is the One They Evolved On

The best cat food is fresh, quality, raw meat and bones.

Period.

Why?

Because that’s how cats evolved. They have been evolving for millennia so are super adapted to this diet.

On the other hand, cats have been fed processed food for a few decades.

Which do you think has more influence?

Cats kill their food. They don’t scavenge, as do dogs. That’s why cats are such fussy eaters. They heartily dislike the processed food they are given, but need to eat to survive.

So their food needs to be super fresh. Raw. And of good quality - this means human grade.

No cows hooves or other weird or strange ideas often spoken of on forums.

Don’t worry, feeding human grade raw meat and bones won’t cost you an arm and a leg. In fact, it’s likely to be a great deal cheaper than processed foods.

Human grade food is nutrient dense. Processed cat food is nutrient poor. So much less of the quality meat is needed.

Feeding the best cat food also means your cat is likely to be super healthy. Which, in turn, means fewer expensive trips to the veterinarian.

It becomes a win-win situation.

Admittedly, it is a tad more complicated to prepare than opening a can or packet. But no more than a few minutes, once you’ve got the hang of it. And that doesn’t take long.

Kittens and young cats adapt very easily to a raw diet. Older cats may take a bit of persuading. They get as stuck in their ways as humans do. But it’s worth persevering.

The best cat food makes for a happy and healthy cat - better for you and your cat.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

All Natural Cat Food - Seven Good Reasons Why Nature is Best!

Feeding your cat an all natural cat food diet will improve her health, boost her immune system and create a happy cat. If you knew what went into most, if not all, commercial pet food, you would never buy it again. Truly, it’s not for the faint hearted.

Most commercial pet food ingredients are cheap, as the better quality food goes for the higher priced human food market. Cheap food can mean anything from high fat content, meat by-products (hair, intestinal contents, chicken feet, rancid fat, dead or diseased animals), to low grade carbohydrates such as sugar, left over fast food or spoilt grain unfit for human consumption to the melamine used to bulk out American pet food imported from China.

None of this is normal or natural cat food and much of it is indigestible, so can you wonder that overall, cats health is on the decline?

What can you do about it?

The first and most important thing to do is change your cat’s diet to a homemade, raw, all natural cat food, for seven good reasons.

1 Cats evolved on raw food over millions of years. They are best able to use this diet over all others.

2 Raw food contains all the essential vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids and other nutrients, in the right amount, in a balanced form. Cooking destroys many essential nutrients.

3 Unlike processed cat food, natural cat food is easy to absorb and the cat utilises it efficiently.

4 An all natural cat food diet ensures your cat has healthy teeth and gums. Despite the claims, no processed cat food does this.

5 Parasites such as worms, fleas and ticks are minimal when you feed your cat this diet, as the environment of your cat’s body is not conducive to them. This is the opposite of processed food which makes your cat’s body a feeding ground for parasites.

6 All natural cat food keeps your cats immune system in good working order, so reducing or preventing many diseases, particularly the serious ones.

7 A hunting domestic cat is usually doing so to address an imbalance in their diet. A natural diet reduces a cat’s desire to hunt.

Whatever the health of your cat is like at the moment, changing her diet to all natural cat food will go a long way to the prognosis of her condition. However, it isn’t just a matter of substituting her processed food for raw meat. There are some important rules to follow and tips to consider.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Why Does Your Cat Vomit?

A cat vomits for a variety of reasons. Lets look at what vomiting achieves.

First of all, your cat will normally and naturally vomit up hair balls. This is a perfectly natural part of her life and you need to be more concerned if it doesn’t happen, particularly at seasonal changes when she malts. These times will vary, but are normally at the end of summer and winter.

Your cat will eat grass to help her vomit. Again, this is perfectly normal if it is occasional. If it is regular, there could be an underlining cause.

Digestion takes up an enormous amount of energy. If your cat has a health problem, she will not want to waste valuable energy on digesting. A well fed cat can fast for many days without coming to any harm.

That energy is needed elsewhere.

So the number one thing NOT to do is to try to force her to eat.

In many cases, a few days fast is all your cat needs to bring her health back into balance. Cats have remarkable self healing powers, if left alone to do so. It’s not unusual for cats to survive a poisonous snake bite, when they are left alone to deal with it themselves.

Another reason your cat vomits is that her liver is compromised. This is especially so if the vomit it yellow, but it doesn’t have to be.

Your cat is particularly susceptible to toxins in her diet and her environment. Whenever she ingests a toxin, it goes straight to her liver so it can be slowly and safely released into her system for excretion.

When her liver becomes overloaded, she’ll start to vomit regularly. This is a purging. She needs to cleanse her body. It may be accompanied by diarrhoea, too as this is also a sign of purging. It may also come out in a skin eruption. All of these can be a sign of purging due to a toxic overload.

So what are some common toxins she may be reacting to? In order of importance, these are probably the worst offenders:-

  • commercial pet food which contains preservatives (almost all do, despite the label)
  • medication, most of which suppresses her natural healing abilities
  • vaccinations, which contain a variety of toxins
  • proprietary flea and worm medication, most of which are highly toxic
  • household cleaning products
  • garden pesticides, fertilisers, fungicides, etc
  • atmospheric toxins released from furnishings

If you can eliminate some, or all of these from your cat’s life, you’ll find that not only does your cat vomiting stop, but she is also much healthier and can shake of health problems more easily.

Finding the cause and eliminating that is more likely to have a happy ending that simply suppressing the symptoms with medication.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Alternative Medicine for Cats

It’s a natural step, after you have discovered alternative health care for yourself to start looking at alternative medicine for cats. After all, if you prefer this approach, it’s likely your cat will benefit, too.

Alternative medicine for cats as well as for people is certainly on the increase. Why should this be? Well, some of the main benefits over mainstream health care are:

  • there are no side effects
  • it works with nature, rather than opposing it
  • it is less expensive
  • you can learn to use some at home, which empowers you
  • your cat will be more receptive to taking the medicine

One of the best alternative medicines for cats, as well as for everyone, in my opinion is homeopathy. Homeopathy is very gentle, but also very deep. You can learn to use many of the common remedies at home. This can not only save you a fortune in veterinarian fees, it is also tremendously enlivening.

I tell you, there is nothing more exciting than your first success. I well remember mine. I was a homeopathic student and had bought a few common remedies and a few books. One day one of my cats stopped eating. I left it a few days, but after the fourth day, I took her to the veterinarian.

She was diagnosed with kidney disease and given a few months, at most to live. I refused the offered medicine. Once home I dived into my books. After assessing all her symptoms that I could, I chose a remedy.

She was happy to take it. But imagine my state of mind when, within 10 MINUTES, she walked into the kitchen asking for food.

Euphoric is an understatement!

This was a common remedy, available to all home prescribers.

The book I used is a common homeopathic book for cats.

A few more doses and she was completely recovered. She lived another three healthy years.

Nothing can describe that feeling. Nothing.

I know of no other alternative medicine for cats that gives you the depth of healing and the scope for home prescribing. And you can get to this level of success very quickly.

Whilst homeopathy is a wonderful modality of medicine, you can’t go past environmental factors for a good all round balanced health care system for your cat. Factors such as:

  • diet
  • stress at home
  • lack of respect for her
  • chemicals in your home or garden
  • freedom to be where she wants to be

Alternative medicine therapists will take all these factors into consideration as they well know the value of each and every one of them. Mainstream veterinarians are not trained to look beyond the condition. They are trained to match a drug to the condition. This can be very limiting.

Open your mind to the fact that you may be causing your cats illness, by any of the above factors. But also by not taking care of yourself. Your illness may be causing your cats illness. Sort yourself out, preferably holistically, and you may be surprised to find your cat perks up, too.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

What’s the Truth Behind Nutricious Cat Food?

Have you noticed there are now hundreds of ‘experts’ on virtually everything these days? That’s mostly thanks to the internet, which really is a wonderful resource of amazing information.

Sadly, it’s also an amazing place for misinformation.

Take nutricious cat food. Depending on how much commission the author is likely to receive will depend on how much they promote a particular brand.

Do you think that’s a bit cynical?

Well, you need to be today, more than ever before.

In today’s world, the dollar is king, with truth and health coming in a very poor second and third place. I don’t count myself as an expert. I feel my ‘expertise’ lies in working out the truth about health, regardless of any income I may receive from publishing this.

So how can you be sure I really am interested in the truth?

Nature has been around for quite a long time! Over millions of years, animals have evolved and fine tuned their diet and their behaviour to their current highly efficient selves.

Commercial cat food, on the other hand, has only been about for a maximum of 100 years, and more intensely for about 40 years.

Humans may well have had an impact on the look of domestic cats, but look how well domestic cats fair when they go feral. As long as they have all their physical attributes in tack (claws, teeth, etc), they can adjust just fine to finding their own food.

Which means that humans have had little real effect on them, as far as their diet and health goes.

Add that fact to the lack of laws governing the quality of pet food in most countries, and you can soon see that commercial cat food is likely to be as far removed from the nutricious cat food wild cats eat, as it can be.

Many people are told that domestic cats have longer and healthier lives than wild cats do. This is difficult to prove as few wild cats ages are known. But what most natural veterinarians do know for a fact is that as soon as cats are put on a nutricious cat food which closely resembles a wild cats diet, health problems melt away. From allergies to leukaemia, from kidney problems to infertility.

So I ask myself who is trying to convince you how much healthier domestic cats are? Could it be those people who want to profit by selling you inferior cat food or questionable medication to address the ill health as a result of the bad diet?

It seems almost too simple, to address the cause to cure the problem.

I remember reading of a medical student who became so ill she was confined to her bed. She had ulcers down her throat. She had no energy.

She went from doctor to doctor, who prescribed antibiotics to antidepressants and everything in between. None of it helped, and much of it harmed.

Her point was that not one of them had asked what had changed in her life at the time her illness started.

Finally she worked it out for herself. She had changed from good home cooking to hot dogs on the run. She stopped the hot dogs and her illness disappeared.

Diet is immensely important. Don’t underestimate its effect on you or your cat. When you go looking for a nutricious cat food, check everything out that you can. Compare the food to a wild cats diet. If the food is canned, ask yourself, does a wild cat eat canned food?

If the packet of food has a long shelf life, how can this be possible? Are the preservatives used safe for cats, despite a lack of laws? Do wild cats eat preservatives?

If man disappeared tomorrow, cats would revert to a healthy wild life, eating freshly caught raw meat and bones. That’s the most nutricious cat food. How can you better it?

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Is Raw Cat Food Safe?

There is some concern about whether raw cat food is safe. Some feel that raw meat may contain salmonella, toxoplasmosis or another equally troublesome bacteria or parasite. And that the only way to be certain that your cat does not get these potentially fatal diseases is to cook the meat.

At first glance, this line of argument does appear to have some merit. But look a bit deeper.

Wild cats eat nothing else but raw meat and bones. Domestic cats, along with all other cats, have evolved on a diet of raw meat. Their digestive system only knows how to cope with this.

Cats, along with bears, are the only true carnivore. Their teeth show this very clearly. They are spiky for catching prey and powerful to crunch up bones. Their digestive track is short as raw meat is easy and quick to digest.

Humanity is generally under the illusion that they have improved on nature. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Holistic vets, as a body, can tell you that when you feed raw cat food, chronic degenerative disease melts away. Diseases like feline leukaemia, heart problems, sterility and tumours.

As Richard Kearns DVM puts it “I believe all cases of spinal myelopathy are caused by poor nutrition, sometimes going back to the mother’s nutrition during pregnancy”.

Richard Pitcairn DVM brings things into perspective. “Foods are so complex, we still don’t understand them. For example, researchers discovered that cats need taurine, an amino acid only found in animal tissue, which is lost through cooking. Now it is added to cat foods and supplements. Rather than wait for more such discoveries, it is better to provide animals with the diet that most closely resembles their evolutionary history”.

When you consider that cats have been evolving for hundreds of thousands of years, how could it be possible to have improved on their diet in the mere decades that commercial cat food has been available?

Lets look at salmonella. This is basically food poisoning by eating infected food. However, wild cats only eat the prey they have just killed. So the meat is super fresh, still warm in fact. Super fresh food does not carry infections. Infected food come from inadequate storage.

This is one reason why you will find cats are very fussy eaters. It’s because they know bad food when they see it. But because they still need to eat, domestic cats are left with little alternative but to eat the cat food they are given, if they are to survive.

The general guide here is to keep your cat’s raw meat super fresh. Don’t keep it in the refrigerator longer than between two to four days, depending on the temperature of the refrigerator, how many times it is opened, the ambient temperature, etc. Freeze the rest and thaw out each meal as necessary.

Toxoplasmosis is rarely a serious illness in healthy individuals. It can be a major cause of serious illness in those with a damaged immune system or those on medication which lessens the effectiveness of the immune system. This is true for both cats and humans.

Wild cats can only survive with a very strong immune system. So their diet of raw meat and bones seems to serve them well.

Nino Aloro DVM confirms this to be the case. “Diet seems to be at the base of about 90% of the cases of cystitis that I see. When my clients observe the proper diet after initial treatment, there are rarely any of the normal relapses. If they put the pet back on commercial pet food, then the cystitis comes back.”

Only buy the freshest meat and be as sensible about the handling and storage of your cat’s raw meat as you are about your own. If your cat doesn’t like the food, suspect a problem. This could be meat starting to decompose or a chlorine wash on the meat, a process some butchers use to extend the life of the meat.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Caring for a Sick Cat

Having your cat sick is as upsetting as having any other loved part of the family sick. You worry that she is not herself. You don’t like to see anyone down. You worry she may not make it through.

And that’s not all. It may also be time consuming. If you’re out at work all day, how do you cope with the caring for a sick cat? You may be worried that she may want to go out or come in, or may be too hot or too cold. Or that she wants some fresh food. And you’re not there to nurse her.

Worse still is the expense. Veterinarians bills don’t come cheap, neither does the medication they provide.

You may not even be able to afford the treatment, with other bills looming.

But you feel too guilty not to at least try.

If you just stop and think for a minute, you may discover things that happen to you are always for a reason. Your cat becoming sick may just be the incentive that you need to go searching for something that may well change your whole life.

So not having the time or the money that you need when caring for a sick cat, may be a blessing in disguise.

If you are feeding your cat a commercial cat food, this could be the cause of your cat becoming ill in the first place.

Depending on the brand, the country and the period, most commercial cat food ingredients go something like this:

  • low grade meat by-products normally from a rendering plant
  • a filler that may be wood chips, paper, sugar, nut shells, melamine
  • indigestible isolated and synthetic nutrients
  • toxic preservatives that are not allowed in human food

You may want to research each of these individually, but the overall food doesn’t look too healthy, does it? Just one ingredient doesn’t look healthy, but all four together...

If it is the food which is causing the illness, why don’t you change it and see what happens? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Consider the top priority in caring for a sick cat is to change the diet to one which closely resembles that of their wild cousins.

Typically some commercial pet foods create vomiting and diarrhoea, with or without blood. But it really doesn’t matter what the symptoms are, because once the diet is a healthy one, you cat’s immune system has a chance to improve. Which means that she is better able to deal with whatever the illness is.

When a sick cat is left at the veterinarian’s clinic, she is more likely to stress. However good the clinic or vet is, it’s no place for healing to occur. The noise, the other, usually frightened animals, the sense of abandonment, the strange people often doing painful procedures, the confinement, but overall the energy is not conducive to restore health.

Caring for a sick cat is best done at home. Home is normal. Just make sure there is little disturbance (from noisy or boisterous children or other animals, or less concerned partners).

And make sure she can go where she wants to. Freedom is important to cats.

Make sure the ambient temperature is to her liking. Make sure she has close access to clean water, preferably not tap water.

And don’t force her to eat. This is an often made mistake, when you’re worried.

Digestion takes a lot of energy. If that energy is needed to help cure the problem, by making your cat eat, you are hindering her progress. A well fed cat can easily go a few days without eating.

But by offering her some real food, she may well say a resounding yes and gobble it up, showing you very clearly that real food is the way to go.

To recap some important points when caring for a sick cat:

  • change her diet to real food immediately
  • keep her at home
  • don’t try to force feed her
  • try to imagine what you would like in her position - quiet, warmth, caring person to nurse you?

Caring for a sick cat is much easier than caring for a sick human. For one, they don’t make so many demands! But don’t force things on her either. Listen to her and try to work out what she seems to want.

And remember, the food may be the cause. Most holistic veterinarians are finding this is the case.

And if the worst happens and she doesn’t make it, what better place to go than from the arms of her beloved person?

Monday, July 13, 2009

What is the Most Nutritious Cat Food?

Not that long ago, everyone relied on an ‘expert’ for guidance. Teachers were thought to have the best interests of the future generation at heart. Doctors were considered the best people to entrust with your health. Likewise with veterinarians for animal health.

This may have been good for the time.

But it made some people very powerful. And, inevitably, this power corrupted.

So, in time, good welfare was the last thing on some of these professionals minds. Good income was, and is, more important.

The advent of the internet is slowly changing all that.

But it can still be a maze, working out what is the most nutritious cat food you can feed your cat to make sure she has a healthy, trouble free and long life.

Pretty packets and cans can (and do) easily influence many people.

Impressive words such as ‘balanced nutrition’, ‘fortified with x for a longer life’ can easily lure people in if you are still stuck in the idea that ‘experts’ know more than you do.

After all, they’ve got a degree to prove they know more, haven’t they?

Degree or no degree, you can slash your way through the maze more effectively if you consider just two points.

  1. Cats have been fed various forms of commercial cat food for a mere trifle compared with their evolution, perhaps 100 years. But in those years, cats have been more needed as mousers or ratters than pets. So it’s probably a lot less.
  2. A cat is a true carnivore, a true hunter. They will never be content without raw meat. Whatever you think of this idea, this is how cats evolved. This is their true nature.

It is essential that you take this concept into consideration in your ponderings of what is the most nutritious cat food.

You’ll be happy to know that to feed a cat according to his nature, it is not necessary to go out hunting mice and rats (although prey size is relevant).

Keeping this concept firmly in your mind, you can now see that you are easily able to cut through all the chanting salesmen, trying to gain access to your dollars.

Now you can avoid all the harmful fillers from China, all the toxic chemicals you’re afraid may be in a packet of ‘nutritious’ cat food. Now you don’t need to rely on anyone else. Or worry about how ethical a producer may be.

Whenever you want to reaffirm what is the most nutritious cat food, you just go back to this concept.

Cats need raw meat (and bones) to live a trouble free and long life. That’s how they evolved.

Cats need a diet of 95% raw meat and bones.

Not 30% low grade cooked meat by-products, 65% cheap filler and 5% toxic preservatives and synthetic ‘nutrients’ that can’t be digested.

So now, when someone asks you what is the most nutritious cat food, you can answer easily and with great confidence, whether or not you finished high school, let alone have a degree.

It’s common sense.

Monday, June 29, 2009

What’s the Truth Behind Nutricious Cat Food?

Have you noticed there are now hundreds of ‘experts’ on virtually everything these days? That’s mostly thanks to the internet, which really is a wonderful resource of amazing information.

Sadly, it’s also an amazing place for misinformation.

Take nutricious cat food. Depending on how much commission the author is likely to receive will depend on how much they promote a particular brand.

Do you think that’s a bit cynical?

Well, you need to be today, more than ever before.

In today’s world, the dollar is king, with truth and health coming in a very poor second and third place. I don’t count myself as an expert. I feel my ‘expertise’ lies in working out the truth about health, regardless of any income I may receive from publishing this.

So how can you be sure I really am interested in the truth?

Nature has been around for quite a long time! Over millions of years, animals have evolved and fine tuned their diet and their behaviour to their current highly efficient selves.

Commercial cat food, on the other hand, has only been about for a maximum of 100 years, and more intensely for about 40 years.

Humans may well have had an impact on the look of domestic cats, but look how well domestic cats fair when they go feral. As long as they have all their physical attributes in tack (claws, teeth, etc), they can adjust just fine to finding their own food.

Which means that humans have had little real effect on them, as far as their diet and health goes.

Add that fact to the lack of laws governing the quality of pet food in most countries, and you can soon see that commercial cat food is likely to be as far removed from the nutricious cat food wild cats eat, as it can be.

Many people are told that domestic cats have longer and healthier lives than wild cats do. This is difficult to prove as few wild cats ages are known. But what most natural veterinarians do know for a fact is that as soon as cats are put on a nutricious cat food which closely resembles a wild cats diet, health problems melt away. From allergies to leukaemia, from kidney problems to infertility.

So I ask myself who is trying to convince you how much healthier domestic cats are? Could it be those people who want to profit by selling you inferior cat food or questionable medication to address the ill health as a result of the bad diet?

It seems almost too simple, to address the cause to cure the problem.

I remember reading of a medical student who became so ill she was confined to her bed. She had ulcers down her throat. She had no energy.

She went from doctor to doctor, who prescribed antibiotics to antidepressants and everything in between. None of it helped, and much of it harmed.

Her point was that not one of them had asked what had changed in her life at the time her illness started.

Finally she worked it out for herself. She had changed from good home cooking to hot dogs on the run. She stopped the hot dogs and her illness disappeared.

Diet is immensely important. Don’t underestimate its effect on you or your cat. When you go looking for a nutricious cat food, check everything out that you can. Compare the food to a wild cats diet. If the food is canned, ask yourself, does a wild cat eat canned food?

If the packet of food has a long shelf life, how can this be possible? Are the preservatives used safe for cats, despite a lack of laws? Do wild cats eat preservatives?

If man disappeared tomorrow, cats would revert to a healthy wild life, eating freshly caught raw meat and bones. That’s the most nutricious cat food. How can you better it?

Monday, June 22, 2009

What is a Nutritious Cat Food?

When you walk down the isles of the cat food section in any supermarket, you could be forgiven for thinking that all the big brand names were offering you the most nutritious cat food for a healthy cat.

Can you believe the advertising, the pretty pictures and sage words by ‘veterinarians’?

Not on your life!

Turn the packet or tin over and you’ll see what constitutes ‘quality’ ingredients - meat by-products.

Meat by-products are the net result of a rendering plant. Rendering plants take the waste from slaughter houses - typically heads, hooves, intestines (including the contents...). Many also get their ‘raw material’ from veterinary clinics (euthanised dogs and cats), road kills, euthanised or dead zoo animals, horses and the like.

This not only means the quality of meat is very low, but that you are turning your cat into a cannibal.

The chemical that is used to euthanise animals cannot be broken down in the cooking process, which means your cat is living on a diet of a fatal chemical.

Most of the top brands of cat food then bulk out this ‘meat’ with a filler. This makes the end product much more profitable for them, but much less nutritious for your cat, if you thought it was in the first place.

Fillers tend to be whatever is currently cheap in the world market. Sugar can be used. So can melamine. I’m sure you’ve heard of all the deaths of cats from cat food manufacturers importing melamine from China.

Don’t imagine that it has gone away. It’s just been buried a bit deeper.

Because the manufacturers want to keep this ‘nutritious cat food’ on the shelf indefinitely (good for marketing), preservatives are then added. Two of the worst ones are ethoxyquin (which can give factory workers symptoms similar to agent orange poisoning) and formaldehyde (which is great for preserving or embalming dead bodies).

Animal fat is a bit of a problem, as humans tend not to eat much of it. So a lot goes into pet food. Look at what your butchers sells as pet food. One butcher told me that it’s a common practice to add beetroot juice to fat and sell it as pet food. If that’s done openly, imagine what goes on behind closed doors.

Don’t risk the health of your cat by believing those with a vested interest that their product is nutritious cat food.

There are undoubtedly some ethical and conscientious manufacturers of cat food, who really do make real, nutritious cat food, which is healthy. But these are often small and threaten the bigger companies who then buy them up, but retain the label.

For my money, the best way to ensure your cat is consistently getting a nutritious cat food is to do it yourself. Buy the raw ingredients and make up the meals yourself.

It really isn’t difficult. It just takes a bit of time while you get your head around the notion. Then it’s just a question of repeating the same thing every week.

It’s not even time consuming. Once you have learnt to do it once, you just keep repeating the same thing, while differing one or two ingredients to give your cat a variety.

The most nutritious cat food which will ensure your cat has the healthiest and longest life possible, is when you care enough to purchase each ingredient for its nutrient content and freshness.

After all, putting a packet of meat in your trolley is no more difficult than putting in a packet of commercial cat food.

Monday, June 8, 2009

All Natural Cat Food - Seven Good Reasons Why Nature is Best!

Feeding your cat an all natural cat food diet will improve her health, boost her immune system and create a happy cat. If you knew what went into most, if not all, commercial pet food, you would never buy it again. Truly, it’s not for the faint hearted.

Most commercial pet food ingredients are cheap, as the better quality food goes for the higher priced human food market. Cheap food can mean anything from high fat content, meat by-products (hair, intestinal contents, chicken feet, rancid fat, dead or diseased animals), to low grade carbohydrates such as sugar, left over fast food or spoilt grain unfit for human consumption to the melamine used to bulk out American pet food imported from China.

None of this is normal or natural cat food and much of it is indigestible, so can you wonder that overall, cats health is on the decline?

What can you do about it?

The first and most important thing to do is change your cat’s diet to a homemade, raw, all natural cat food, for seven good reasons.

  1. Cats evolved on raw food over millions of years. They are best able to use this diet over all others.
  2. Raw food contains all the essential vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids and other nutrients, in the right amount, in a balanced form. Cooking destroys many essential nutrients.
  3. Unlike processed cat food, natural cat food is easy to absorb and the cat utilises it efficiently.
  4. An all natural cat food diet ensures your cat has healthy teeth and gums. Despite the claims, no processed cat food does this.
  5. Parasites such as worms, fleas and ticks are minimal when you feed your cat this diet, as the environment of your cat’s body is not conducive to them. This is the opposite of processed food which makes your cat’s body a feeding ground for parasites.
  6. All natural cat food keeps your cats immune system in good working order, so reducing or preventing many diseases, particularly the serious ones.
  7. A hunting domestic cat is usually doing so to address an imbalance in their diet. A natural diet reduces a cat’s desire to hunt.

Whatever the health of your cat is like at the moment, changing her diet to all natural cat food will go a long way to the prognosis of her condition. However, it isn’t just a matter of substituting her processed food for raw meat. There are some important rules to follow and tips to consider.

Monday, June 1, 2009

The Best Cat Food for the Healthiest Cat

Most people think that the best cat food they can buy is the most expensive commercial cat food, often those sold at veterinarians, or in little individual packets.

Then they wonder why their cat seems to be hungry all the time.

In this article, I want to take you on a journey, perhaps a journey of discovery. It may not read as the most pleasant journey you have been on, but it may be the most informative one.

An abattoir is where animals are slaughtered, for food or leather or both. Most people are aware of this, but prefer not to think about it too much. The pretty packs of meat in the supermarket hide the real story behind meat production.

If you’re already cringing, and thinking of putting this article down, I promise to make it as informative as possible without making you too upset - just enough to take action, perhaps? After all, you do want to find the best cat food, or you wouldn’t be reading this.

If any animal comes in for slaughter who is suspected of Mad Cow Disease, because they can’t move when stimulated to, many countries in the world will not allow the meat from this animal to go into the human food chain.

Likewise for any animal who is showing certain signs of serious illness, such as cancers, abnormal body discharges, skin lesions, infested with maggots, respiratory problems, too thin, etc.

However, these same animals may be used in pet food. The animal may be euthanased with a lethal drug and then dyed and ‘denatured’ with carbolic acid or a strong disinfectant.

Then they are taken to a rendering plant, possibly some distance away. So they can be exposed to hot summer weather for hours, possibly days.

A rendering plant takes in anything from road kill to dead farm animals, to euthanised pets, horses or zoo animals.

And it’s from a rendering plant that many, if not most, pet food manufacturers buy their raw material. The ingredients may tell you. Typical ingredients from a rendering plant include meat by-products, animal fat, meat meal, bone meal.

Soap manufacturers also buy their raw material from rendering plants.

Many countries don’t insist on pet food listing all their ingredients. In this world, pet and animals have no rights and don’t matter. Why list something that will make people put your product back on the shelf, unless you have to by law?

Does your cat matter to you?

Would you willingly feed your cat rotten meat, diseased meat, meat containing acid, disinfectant, a lethal drug or a lot of fat?

Even if you tried, it’s likely your cat would refuse it.

So why doesn’t she refuse the commercial cat food, ostensibly the best cat food money can buy, which contains all this? Why are cats addicted to dried food?

I don’t know the reason for this for certain, but I can guess. Most cats adore tuna. Cats can become tuna junkies. I suspect that most commercial cat food contains tuna flavouring, either natural or more likely, synthetic.

If you’re looking for the best cat food to ensure your cat remains as healthy as possible, commercial pet food just doesn’t make sense.

I’m not suggesting that all commercial pet food is the same. But I think most are, especially the big names. Some smaller ones may be doing their bit to improve the image, but would you know if they sold to someone less ethical?

If you were fed low grade food, would you be hungry all the time? You bet! Why? Because low grade food has few nutrients. It is nutrient poor.

So your cat may be well fed on what you consider to be the best cat food you can buy, but if she’s hungry all the time, you can be sure she is lacking in something vital to her ongoing good health. Probably several somethings.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Best Cat Food - How to Make It Yourself

You’re searching around, looking for the best cat food perhaps because you have a new kitten and want to provide her with the best. Or perhaps it’s because you seem to have had a lot of illnesses with your past cats and are now wondering if the diet could be partly responsible.

Well, let me tell you that categorically, without a shadow of doubt, diet is all important to anyone’s health, including that of your cat.

Providing the best cat food will be the biggest step towards keeping your cat as healthy as possible.

But what is this?

Cats have spent a long time evolving to their present state. Many millions of years, in fact. Many tens of millions of years.

Over that time, they have perfectly adapted to the food that is available to them on a regular basis.

Whatever gives us the idea that we, as a species, can better that?

Whilst advertising, with it’s alluring pictures and fine words, may tell us ‘science’ has improved a cats diet, rest assured it hasn’t. The advertising remains just that - pretty pictures and fine words, aimed at improving the health of the manufacturers bank balance rather than the health of your cat.

So let’s go back to the earlier question - what is the best cat food?

There is not a shadow of doubt that the best cat food is that which is so close to a wild cat’s diet as to be almost identical.

OK, I’m not asking you to go out and catch mice - your cat can do a better job of that than you can.

Let’s look at a wild cat’s diet. Cats kill their prey and eat it all immediately. They aren’t opportunist eaters, like dogs, who are happy to eat carrion. So what does this tell us, about the qualities of the food?

  • it must be raw
  • it must be fresh
  • it must contain bones
  • it must include organ meat
  • it must be varied

That’s quite a daunting list for someone new to the idea of not opening a box or can for your cat’s dinner.

And there is a bit to learn to apply those principles.

But it is really easy, once you get to know the basics and how to apply them.

Your cat will think she’s died and gone to heaven...

Monday, May 18, 2009

What is the Best Kitten Care for Lasting Health?

Most people look to their vet for the best advice on kitten care, or any animal care come to that.

But can you be sure that they are giving you good, sound, unbiased advice based on solid research?

The early months of 2009 have seen media reports about Harvard (US) medical students protesting that their professors have strong and lucrative ties to pharmaceutical companies. This compromises the professors integrity and can’t exclude them from biased teaching.

If the most famous and most prestigious medical school in the largest democracy of the world has this problem, image what it must be like in less well known medical and veterinary schools.

Add into the mix the lucrative commercial pet food industry and you may want to consider if your vet, who may be the nicest person in the world, has had the best training. Or perhaps s/he has received very biased and limited training: limited to ensuring the burgeoning profits of already highly profitable companies.

You can’t blame the universities who are always short of money. You can’t blame the governments as they are always under pressure to deliver cheaper courses. It’s probably best not to blame anyone.

But it does pay you to know what is going on.

Perhaps now you can appreciate why so many vets strongly promote commercial pet food. Their reception rooms are packed solid from floor to ceiling.

But stop and ask yourself if this is really the way to optimum kitten care. Or is it more for optimum profits in the commercial pet food industry? Or optimum vet care, with all the ensuing unhealthy cats?

I want to introduce you to Dr Francis Pottenger. He was a research scientist and conducted nutritional tests on cats between 1932 and 1942. He discovered that cats who were fed only a cooked diet, even though ‘perfected balanced’, showed a marked reduction in their immune responses. This lowered immune response was passed on to the next generation.

Further feeding of cooked food, further lowered the immune response. And so the cycle went on.

By the third generation illnesses such as heart lesions, hepatitis, feline urological syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, leukaemia, tumours, arthritis and a host of other immune deficient maladies were occurring.

Dr Pottenger went on to discover that the immune response could be improved simply by giving them a raw food diet. But it took another three generations for the immune system to be back up to a really optimum level of efficiency, that you commonly find in wild cats.

If you are still confused, and I can’t blame you if you are, here’s a suggestion to use when you search for the best kitten care.

Fads come and go. What ‘science’ discovers this year, is out moded next year as fashion changes, as inaccuracies are discovered, as more information comes to light.

On the other hand, nature has perfected herself over millennia. Cats have evolved on their raw diet and thrived. Man and his puny ideas, have not, and will never, alter a cats digestive system. How can it when you look at all the time nature has had to fine tune it?

Translating good kitten care feeding into practice is not without its problems. There are some do’s and don’ts that you must adhere to. Such as:

  • what meat can be overfed with disastrous results
  • what ingredient, often left out, MUST be present is a healthy kitten’s diet
  • what additional supplements should you add to the diet

Once you get your head around the concept and get into the routine, natural kitten care comes easily. It will also deter most cats from hunting as an adult. Hunting domestic cats are normally trying to redress the lack of nutrients in their diet, rather than doing what comes naturally.

Feed your cat as nature intended, and the rewards will be endless.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Cat Care - The Best, The Easiest, The Most Natural

Caring for your cat is easy when you try to remember her origins. Being domesticated doesn’t mean you should abandon how she would live in the wild. Cats have evolved in the wild over millennia. They have been domesticated for a mere trifle in comparison.

This means that their nutritional and emotional needs remain identical to those of their forebears. In attempting to provide the best cat care means looking at these needs.

Lets look at their nutritional needs first.

Wild cats hunt on their own. They hunt small animals, sometimes up to about their own size, but mostly smaller than themselves. They rarely eat anything other than freshly killed meat.

Contrasting this with a typical domestic cat’s diet of dried pellets and you realise how off the mark commercial pet food is. Even if dried pellets were made with the best cuts of meat (which they aren’t), the meat is still not fresh or raw.

So, if you’re trying to provide the most complete cat care, what should you feed your cat?

In my opinion, the best cat food is raw meat and bones. You can’t completely duplicate a wild cat’s diet, but you can come so close as to not compromise her health. Cat care starts with food as this is consumed daily. Something done daily has much more impact on our health than say something that only happens once a year.

When a cat eats her prey, she will eat all the meat, including the bones. Bones are the best source of calcium for a cat. And meat can only be properly digested when it is consumed with bones. After all, all carnivores eat meat with bones.

Not only that, crunching up on bones is the best way of keeping her teeth and gums healthy, as long as they’re not too big. No dried pellets can do that as well, despite the promises on the label.

Some think that giving a cat raw meat will trigger their hunting instinct. In my experience, it does the exact opposite. Because raw meat is nutrient dense, your cat will be satisfied and won’t feel the need to supplement her diet as when fed a nutrient deficient diet.

Natural cat care also means providing your cat with her basic emotional and physical needs. Cats are intelligent and inquisitive. They need visual stimulation. This is best served by being outdoors, where nature provides an abundance of stimulation.

If it’s impossible or too dangerous to let your cat outside, do make sure she has access to safe stimulants, perhaps in the form of toys. Make sure you play with her to ensure she gets adequate exercise.

Sun is an important aspect of good cat care. Cats love the sun and it is essential to good health for all of us, not just your cat. Regular outdoor access will allow her to choose for herself. For confined cats, make sure there are times when you can open a window (safely) to allow the sun’s rays in, unhindered by glass or plastic.

Easy cat care really means allowing your cat the freedom she desires. Confining cats indoors is going against good animal husbandry,

I am also of the opinion that declawing cats is not only painfully inhumane, it deprives the cat of the natural joy of stretching. If you are considering declawing your cat, maybe you should also consider having a cat is not for you. Cats have already adapted a great deal to live with us. Putting them through an unnecessary, inhumane and painful operation is purely for your benefit, not your cats.

Cats provide us with an abundance affection, love and enjoyment. To provide even adequate cat care, we should at least do the same for them.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Cat Food - the Best, the Healthiest, the Most Nutritious

We humans have a capacity of extremes. There are those of us who are honest to the letter and there are those of us who are equally dishonest. Stress often plays an important part of being dishonest, especially for a struggling businessman desperately trying to provide for his family.

Then there are those who are just plain greedy and don’t care how they arrive at their fortune as long as they do.

Luckily, in most countries, there is now a system in place that ensures a basic (some might say very basic) standard that all manufacturers or suppliers of human food must meet.

Sadly this is either not the case for animal feed, or the standards are so low as to be useless.

So despite all the pretty advertising, all the logically convincing and reassuring words from your vet, chances are, if you’re feeding your cat a processed cat food, you’re directly contributing to her ill health.

The big brand names in cat food contribute financially to veterinary colleges, which explains why vets surgery reception areas are now piled high with these brands. But does it spell quality?

To find out we need to look at what’s in processed cat food. Most fresh meat goes for human consumption as more money can be made there. So pet food tends to get the dregs. Dregs can include meat meal or meat by-products (chicken feet, feathers, hair, skin, intestinal waste (poo to you and me), general slaughterhouse wastes), meat not considered safe (spoiled or toxic) or desirable for human consumption, fat, diseased carcasses (which may be far from fresh), including euthanised animals.

To bulk this out, low cost carbohydrates are used, which can include sugar, propylene glycol, leftover fast food, mouldy and rancid grain deemed unsuitable for human consumption, corn syrup, non-nutritive fillers such as sawdust or newspaper and so forth.

So the cat food starts out as low quality, too low in digestible protein essential to a cats well being, too high in fat, too high in carbohydrates and possibly poisonous - 100 Bald and Golden Eagles in North America have died recently from eating a euthanised animal.

Then the ‘food’ is cooked, usually at very high temperatures. Cooking destroys many nutrients which are essential for good health. Cats evolved by killing and eating their food instantly, showing that freshness is essential for a cats overall good health.

To address this, the cat food manufacturers add synthetic nutrients. Synthetic nutrients are isolated and not easily digested by anyone let alone your cat. So a label reassuringly boasting of a ‘nutritionally complete’ or ‘scientific’ diet are purposefully vague as neither are true. Unqualified claims are legally acceptable in most countries with their poor or non-existent pet food regulations.

As this resultant cat food doesn’t look very appealing, colour is added (Red 40, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Blue 2), obviously for your benefit as I doubt your cat cares much about the colour of cat food.

Now, most processed food is in a dry or semi dry form. This means that you have to preserve the food to keep it. If you purchase any meat product that keeps longer than a couple of days in the fridge, you know it has preservative in.

Some common preservatives include disodium guanylate, butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), menadione sodium bisulfite complex (a very controversial synthetic vitamin K.), mixed-tocopherols (synthetic form of Vitamin E) and others considered unfit for human consumption.

All processed food is ‘dead’ food, with no life. Dead food is that which has been cooked, particularly at high temperature and for long periods.

So you might think that buying cat food direct from a pet food supplier or butcher might be the answer. A quality butcher I buy from once told me that most pet mince sold at butchers is all the excess fat they can’t use, mixed with beetroot juice. On further inspection of the pet mince in discussion, I didn’t doubt him.

I read recently of someone buying from a pet shop. As she walked up to the shop from the car park, she noticed a pickup truck loaded down with large boxes marked poultry. On closer inspection she saw they contained pre-packaged chicken pieces. Fresh chicken sitting in boxes, in the hot summer sun, not on ice, not in a refrigerated truck, but in the back of an open pick up truck waiting to be carried into the store for sale to consumers.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Cat Food Recipes - Quick, Easy, Nutritious

For years, I thought that the best cat food was bought from the supermarket, in tins, packets and boxes. After all, the labels said things like “scientifically proven” and “recommended by vets” and “low ash”, things that seemed to indicate to me the manufacturers knew what they were talking about.

I don’t doubt, that you do or perhaps did, feel the same.

It’s easier to assume the best if you have high demands on your time. And who hasn’t these days?

It was only when I started looking at a more holistic way of treatment, that I began to run into the idea that perhaps commercial pet food wasn’t the best way.

After all, the makers of such food are normal people trying to make their business pay. It’s tempting to cut corners. And the more corners you cut, the easier it becomes.

Now, you’re probably as concerned as I am about the lack of quality in commercial pet food. From the low grade meat, to the meat-by-products, to the high fat, to the synthetic nutrients, to the chemical preservatives. Even the cans aren’t safe, with BPA in the lining leaking into the food.

Really, the only way to ensure your family or your pet is getting proper nutrition is to make it yourself, from scratch.

And, of course, just as you and your family want variety, so too does your cat.

So you’re looking for some inspiring cat food recipes?

Ones that are quick to deliver after a hard day’s work?

Ones that are nutritious and balanced to ensure your cat’s ongoing good health?

Ones that don’t cost an arm and a leg?

Well, you’ve come to the right place!

When I adopted the idea of homemade cat food, I struggled with providing my cats with food they would eat and which was healthy. It took a lot of trial and error, but I got there in the end.

Now I know what the most nutritious cat food is, I know what cats like and I can vary the meals so they get something different every day of the week.

I thought others might like to learn from my experiences, rather than make their own mistakes. Why reinvent the wheel? This other has gone before and ironed out the wrinkles for you!

Cat food recipes must contain the essential meat that cats need, but just by varying one ingredient, you can create a difference that will stimulate your cats appetite.

And it’s just so easy!

OK, I admit, it’s not quite as easy as opening a can or box. But then, I’m guessing you’re looking beyond that, for quality and health enhancing nutrition.

Good quality homemade cat food recipes are fun to make, easy to do and ensures your cat’s optimum health.

The emphasis is on good quality.

I’ve read many different cat food recipes which really aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. It’s obvious that the writer hasn’t done any research into the dietary requirements of cats.

My cat food recipes are based on what I have researched, but also what holistic veterinarians are saying, as a body. They’re saying what really works, what diseases, often serious, melt away with a proper diet, made from good quality homemade cat food recipes.

Enjoy!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Why are Cat Health Problems on the Increase?

I remember, when I was a child, that our cats lived long and healthy lives. Twenty was common and thirty not unusual.

I also remember that trips to the veterinarian were rare.

And that our cats were often fed table scraps and raw meat and bones.

Cat health problems didn’t seem to be an issue.

Nowadays, it seems that cats barely live beyond ten.

And vet clinics are kept very busy by worried pet people.

Could there be a connection? A connection between frequent visits to the vet and cats dying young?

In my opinion, there is.

Let me explain, before you get hot under the collar about how good your vet is. (And yes, I do concede that there are good vets about, but they are few and far between and usually holistic.)

Veterinary schools are now partially financed by the top (and wealthy) commercial pet food industry corporations. They ‘educate’ the students how wonderful and nutritious their food is. You only have to look at the reception area of most vets, to know what I’m talking about. Packs and tins are piled high to the ceiling.

But, if the students did a bit of digging, they’d find that almost all commercial pet food is very far from healthy. So unhealthy, in fact, that it is killing your cat.

Some students do go digging and so reject the commercial pet food. Others comply with the industry and advocate its use widely. After all, look at the profit they make. It’s a double scoop.

Once for the purchase of the food.

And again for the consultations and drugs when your cat inevitably falls sick.

So what can you do about cat health problems?

Diet is crucial to a healthy life. The daily intake of low quality food (if you can call it that), poisonous preservatives (too toxic to comply with human food laws) and artificial nutrients (which aren’t easily absorbed) create havoc to your cat’s health.

The pretty labelling and fashionable words (natural, science, etc) have no substance. There are few, if any, laws in most countries, for the pet food industry. And what there are, are easily manipulated or side stepped.

Cat health problems has reached an all time high, because you’re not being told the truth. Like many other areas in your life, you’re being manipulated for profit. You only have to listen to the good (almost always holistic) vets to know that this is true.

Almost as a body they are claiming that serious feline diseases can be cured by a switch to a natural meat and bones diet. Diseases like hypertension, the so-called inevitable age related diseases, cystitis, dead mothers and babies, heart disease, tumours and cancer, hip dysplasia, skin and hair problems, renal problems, spinal myelopathy, feline leukaemia, this list goes on.

I do believe that there are other contributory factors to cat health problems, apart from diet. But as diet is daily consumed, I feel it is the major contributor by far.

Cat health problems can be resolved, not just prevented, by a switch to a diet more in keeping with how cats evolved.

Once the diet is addressed to one more in keeping with how a cat evolved (you can’t beat nature, even though we keep trying), the cat’s immune system comes up and they are much better equipped to deal with other damaging causes.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Cat Health Problems - Seven Easy Steps to Banish Them

Health is directly related to nutrition. This is true for you and every animal under the sun. That old saying of garbage in, garbage out is so very true, that few people doubt it.

Lets have a look at a few reasons why cat health problems seem to abound:

  1. in the wild, cats live on freshly killed, raw prey, whereas in domesticity, cats who are fed commercial pet food have a diet of cooked food, often for long periods at high temperatures and pressures
  2. in the wild, cat‘s prey will be mostly quality muscle meat, little fat, a small amount of organ meat, little or no carbohydrates (stomach contents) and lots of bones to crunch up, whereas cats who are fed commercial pet food have a low quality meat meal or meat by-products, high fat content (its cheap), high levels of carbohydrates (to bulk it out) and no bones to crunch on
  3. a wild cats diet is always freshly killed, whereas a commercial brand of cat food is full of toxic preservatives, too toxic to be allowed into human food
  4. a wild cat’s diet is naturally high in nutritious content, whereas a commercial pet food has synthetic and isolated nutrients, of questionable absorbability, added
  5. a wild cat’s diet is pure, natural, organic, whereas many brands of pet food contain ‘meat’ from euthanased animals, including the chemical used to kill, and laboratory animals, including the tested drug which may have killed the animal
  6. in the wild a cat will only eat if the hunt was successful, which means they often go hungry, whereas a domestic cat often has food left out all the time. This can be the cause of digestive problems later in life, as it is not in keeping with how they evolved
  7. cat health problems are few and far between in the wild - we can see this as wild cats are highly successful at colonising a new area

I believe there are other reasons for cat health problems, but by far the major contributor is the diet. The food a cat eats every day means the potential for the toxins to build up gradually, giving the appearance that the diet is not to blame.

Most of us, cats included, can manage not to succumb to disease or health problems, even if we have an inadequate diet for a short time. If however, it continues, then chronic deficiencies start to appear.

It is a sad testament to our times that money talks. Many of the larger commercial brands of pet food now have a significant influence in most of the veterinary schools. So vets are taught that commercial brands of pet foods are the most healthy. Which explains why almost all veterinary clinics are now loaded with the top commercial brands of pet food.

I never ask people to believe me. I simply put what I consider to be valid arguments and leave you, fair reader, to make up your own mind.

Could your cat health problems be a result of the diet she is fed?

What feelings and thoughts do you have on this? Perhaps you need to do a little research yourself? Thorough and unbiased research will always lead you to the truth.

Once I opened up my mind to consider everything in my quest for the cause of cat health problems, the answers came flooding in. I was the barrier, with my pre-conceived ideas.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

What are Your Leading Cat Health Questions?

Cats don’t seem to be as healthy as I remember them to be when I was a child, many moons ago.

Now they seem to be prone to any and every disease under the sun, with exotic breeds succumbing the most.

Whether your cat health questions are infertility, upper respiratory issues, “inevitable” ageing diseases, renal problems, fleas, dead babies, or anything else it all comes down to the fact that domestic cats don’t have the healthy immune systems they once did.

You think you’re doing all the right things by taking her to the vet regularly and doing as they suggest, whether it’s vaccinating or feeding the cat food they supply.

But still your cat’s health is failing.

Why is this so?

I think there are several reasons for this, but there is one outstanding reason which you can address without much knowledge.

And that’s diet.

Food is consumed daily. Which makes it the number one area of importance.

If you are feeding your cat a commercial brand of cat food, her health will be deteriorating.

Why?

Cats evolved over many tens of thousands of years on a diet of fresh kills, which means fresh, raw meat. Their domesticity is comparatively recent, and commercial pet food only came into being about the middle of the 20th century.

So, think of your most pressing cat health questions and then look at the food you are feeding her? Is the food in accordance with how wild cats eat? If not, then maybe you need to think about a change.

I never expect people to believe me any more than I expect them to believe anyone. But I always try to put forward logical and reasonable arguments to support my way of thinking.

In the 1930’s Dr Pottenger carried out some experiments on cats. He discovered that the offspring of cats who were only fed cooked food were born with immune deficiencies.

He also discovered that within three generations, the immune system would be virtually useless unless some raw food had been eaten.

I suggest to you that no matter what your cat health questions are, the answer is always the same.

Raw meat and bones, just as wild cats eat.

Wild cats are very healthy (they have to be to survive), have few fleas and worms and don’t suffer the chronic, degenerative diseases that so afflict our domestic cats.

However, there is an enormous industry at the heart of cat health. Veterinarians and drug companies make enormous sums of money treating ailing cats. Many would go out of business if you decided to answer your own cat health questions by solid research.

But I’m encouraging you to do just that.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Cat Health Made Easy

It’s probably true to say that most people who enjoy the company of cats in their home are particularly conscious of providing good cat health care.

Optimising good cat heath care will not only provide your cat with the potential of a long life, but also of a healthy, carefree one, too. It’s very satisfying to see your cat happy, healthy and enjoying life.

What is the single most important thing you can do to ensure the your cat enjoys the best health?

Is it immunising your cat against all the common or known feline diseases?

Is it keeping your cat indoors, away from potential hazards such as fighting or car accidents?

Is it having them sterilised?

Perhaps it’s in keeping their sexuality entire?

Could it be ensuring their teeth are clean?

What about providing a loving, secure and safe home?

There are probably as many opinions about what’s important in cat health care as there are people!

Important though some of the above are, I don’t think any of them are as important to optimise good cat health as something that they do every day.

Eating!

Diet and nutrition are of top priority in maintaining the health of your cat. To my mind, this is the single most important aspect in maintaining anyone’s health., not just for your cat

You may be feeding your cat a top cat food, recommended by your veterinarian. You may feel that, with all the advertising, proprietary brands are the best cat food. But are they?

We all know that advertising makes hollow promises, as the advertiser is more concerned with making money than giving you the facts.

But surely you can trust your veterinarian. Can’t you?

Did you know that the top pet food manufacturers financially contribute to veterinary colleges? I may be old fashioned, but to me that means the colleges aren’t completely impartial. After all, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

I suspect, that since you have reached this article, you’re searching for another way to improve your cats’ health, other than that recommended by your veterinarian - which is invariably everyone’s first choice.

Contrary to popular belief, and to most vets who sell processed food, it is the processed food itself which wreaks such havoc with cat health. Cats evolved by hunting animals and consuming most of it immediately.

Their digestive system has evolved to cope with this. Cooked, processed, preservatives and the very low grade meat by-products which are the basis for the majority of proprietary cat food on the market, is the single, most damaging factor in the deteriorating health of your cat.

If your cat gets all his nutrition from raw food, you will see a remarkable transformation in a matter of days.

But you need to get the balance right. You need to get the quantity and variety right for a good, all round balanced diet. Otherwise you could run the very real risk of one or more deficiencies. A serious deficiency can be fatal.

And you need to know about the de-toxing effect a change to a good diet entails.

When I first started introducing raw food to my cats, it was fraught with difficulties. I made mistake after mistake. After studying and applying various other therapists ways, I finally worked out what worked and what didn’t. What they said was right and what just couldn’t work.

So I wrote a book about cat health, based on my own experiences. I wish I’d had it before I embarked on that particular adventure. It would have saved me so much anxt.

When you address this so very important aspect of cat health, the spin off is enormous - professional therapist fees are cut back drastically.

Is there anyone alive who doesn’t love a win-win situation?

Monday, March 23, 2009

Diabetic Cat Food - How You Can Reduce the Need for Insulin

It is now generally accepted that human diabetes is an immune disorder. There seems no reason to suppose that feline diabetes is any different. This particular immune disorder has the form of failure of the pancreas to produce insulin.

An immune system brakes down because of the burden put upon it, mostly a chemical burden. When you consider all the chemicals most pets are subject to, there is little wonder their immune systems go on strike. Drugs, vaccinations, pesticides in the garden, harsh cleaners in the house, but perhaps worse of all by virtue of it’s frequent ingestion, are the preservatives in their daily diet.

A typical cat food is processed and comes in a box, packet or can. The dried cat food must contain high levels of preservative to keep it at room temperature, indefinitely, despite what the packet may say. Believe me, there’s no other way to have such a long shelf life.

Cats are particularly sensitive to chemicals, so readily succumb to them. A stay in a cattery may well overload them, as most catteries fastidiously clean their pens with strong disinfectants or bleach, to ensure there’s no cross contamination.

There are several things you can do immediately, to help your cat overcome this serious disease, even if they have had it a while. You never know how much good you can do until you try.

  1. The first thing that’s really important to address is their diet. Start giving your cat a good quality, raw, diabetic cat food. Human grade raw meat, from a butcher, will generally not contain any preservatives or colour as most countries have laws against that.
  2. It’s better to feed a diabetic cat 3 or 4 small meals a day, rather than 1 or 2 larger meals.
  3. Diabetic cat food differs slightly from a normal healthy cat food by the fat content. The food must be low fat (but not no fat), as the pancreas is responsible for the production of enzymes which help break down fat.
  4. No healthy cat food should contain any sugar, in particular diabetic cat food. Many, perhaps most, commercial cat food manufacturers use sugar as a filler. It bulks out the meat and is cheap, with a world glut.
  5. No cat food should not contain large amounts of carbohydrates, which are a manistay part of almost all processed cat foods, including those for diabetic cats.
  6. The mineral chromium assists the body in utilising the insulin more efficiently, so the addition of half to one teaspoon of brewers yeast to the diabetic cat food will help your cat. Chromium is also in liver, beef and spirulina.
  7. Including vitamin E in the diabetic cat food reduces the amount of insulin required. Vitamin E occurs naturally in raw meat fat and spirulina. Vitamin E is also in eggs and wheat germ oil, but diabetic cat food should be low in oil and fat, so while these are recommended, they should be in small quantities. You can also supplement it in the d alpha tocopheral (the natural form). Try to avoid the synthetic form, which is more commonly used. Synthetic vitamins are not as well utilised by the cat. Dose 30 IU per day until you see improvement.
  8. And play with your cat, so she gets some exercise. Exercise tends to decrease the need for insulin.

A good diabetic cat food, like any good cat food, is as close to that of a wild cats food as possible. Cats have evolved to efficiently use raw food. They can’t use processed and cooked food in the same way, as they lack the nutrients destroyed by cooking.

Once you have your cat regularly eating good quality raw food, she may need less insulin. And if it isn’t too far advanced, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t recover completely. Recovery from serious disease is not uncommon when the cause is addressed. Ensuring your cat only eats a healthy, high quality, raw, diet, at the very least will reduce her need for insulin.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Should You Feed Organic Cat Food for Best Feline Health?

The health of domestic cats is on the decline. Their life span is much below that of their wild cousins and the cats of your parents era. I frequently hear people implying their cat is old by the time they have reached eight or nine years of age.

Not that long ago, it was common for cats to reach 18 or 19 years of age, with a few rare exceptions reaching nearly 30.

You may have your own reasons why this might be happening, and I’m probably going to voice most of them here!

By virtue of the regularity of eating, I consider the most important reason why cats aren’t as healthy as they once were is the diet they are fed.

As people are coming into this awareness, there is a mad scramble by the commercial cat food industry to attract you with pretty words and smiling actors on the labels. The pretty words include icons such as ‘scientifically proven’ or ‘recommended by top vets’, although that is now less alluring than ‘natural’ or ‘all natural’. (I’m not sure what a ‘top vet’ is either. Could it be one who does the most advertising for the industry?)

However, ‘nature’, ‘natural’ and ‘all natural’ are slipping into second place as ‘organic’ becomes the favourite word of the day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong contender for organic food, both for humans and for cats, but not all organic cat food really is organic.

For a start, the word ‘organic’ means nothing if it is not backed by a reputable certification. Everything that grows could be said to be organic. Many conventional producers have marked their produce as organic, when it had no certification.

Becoming a certified organic producer takes time - years. The soil is regularly checked. In that period, the producer can’t sell his produce as organic or use chemicals. It can be a tough time.

I have seen some dried organic cat food for sale. It was certified. But what’s the point in that? You’re feeding your cat organic cat food to avoid the chemicals that go into food production - the antibiotics in standard stock feed, the hormones given to stock to increase weight and production over a shorter period, the pesticides, herbicides, insecticides that are regularly used on the crops, the chemical fertilisers.

Stop and consider this. Can meat (in reality meat by-products as the good stuff goes for the higher priced human food) be kept indefinitely without the use of strong preservatives? How else can a packet of dried organic cat food have such a long shelf life?

Sure, the packet may not list preservatives in the list of ingredients. Why would they? You wouldn’t buy it.

The packet may even boast ‘no added preservative’. The wording needs to be clever to avoid litigation. ‘No added preservatives’ means they, the brand, didn’t add the preservatives. It doesn’t mean that preservatives weren’t added to the ‘meat’ before delivery.

So the million dollar question is, should you buy organic cat food? In my opinion, if it’s a commercial organic cat food, it is no better than non organic cat food.

All commercial cat food, whether organic or not, have one or more of the following preservatives in:

  • ethoxyquin (which causes diarrhoea, vision disorders, blindness, organ failure, cancers, leukaemia on just exposure to the human factory workers)
  • formalin is used to preserve dead bodies
  • sodium nitrite, which gives a nice rosy colour to food and can produce powerful carcinogenic substances known as nitrosamines
  • propyl gallate - is now suspected of causing liver damage
  • propylene glycol used to maintain the right texture and moisture content is used as coolant antifreeze in engines
  • up to 1000 times more salt than occurs naturally

Most of these are not allowed in human food, due to their high levels of toxicity. Do you think that could be why cats are not living as long as they once were Would you?

Monday, March 2, 2009

Can Healthy Cat Food Contain Preservatives?

In this day and age of the mighty dollar masquerading as king, it becomes more and more difficult to trust businesses who have a vested interest in gaining your sale. As cats can’t talk to us, or perhaps I should say, as we can’t hear what cats are telling us, we don’t have that all important input to know if we are providing our cats with a healthy cat food.

If you do a quick search on the internet, you’ll come across practically all pet food manufacturers proclaiming their brand is ‘all natural’, ‘healthy’, ‘holistic’, even ‘organic’, but in every single case they are selling dry food.

Just think about it for a minute. Dried food which contains any form of meat just won’t keep at room temperature. Try keeping your steak out of the refrigerator for a few days and see what happens.

So how do pet food manufacturers keep cat food indefinitely at room temperature?

The only possible way to do this is to add preservatives. Despite many claims saying there are no preservatives, logic tells you there has to be.

Cooking in itself may preserve meat a little longer than raw meat, but not for weeks, or even years.

So what, you may be thinking, I know there are preservatives in some of the foods I eat and I seem to be OK. Surely a few preservatives doesn’t mean I’m not feeding my cat a healthy cat food?

I personally don’t think any preservative is OK. It may appear to be harmless in the short term, but in the long term there will be consequences.

But apart from my personal opinion, there are some laws, perhaps rather basic or not well enforced, in almost every country around the world, that protects human food. So all preservatives used in human food has to be considered ‘reasonably safe’ by some standards.

Unfortunately, there are no such safe guards in pet food. Or the laws are even less effectively enforced than the human laws.

So the preservatives used in cat food can be the most toxic. Does cat food containing highly toxic preservatives sound like a healthy cat food to you?

Ever heard of formalin? Embalmers use it to preserve dead bodies.

Formalin, also known as formaldehyde, is widely used in pet food to preserve it.

You probably haven’t heard of ethoxyquin. That’s a preservative used in the rubber industry. It’s in the tyres of your car. So what on earth is it doing in your cat food?

Lets look at ethoxyquin’s history. When factory workers were exposed to it, they exhibited side effects similar to those of agent orange:

  • constant diarrhoea
  • vision disorders including blindness
  • organ failure
  • organ cancers
  • leukaemia

Are you getting a bit concerned? Perhaps your cat is suffering from some kind of organ damage? Here are a few other common preservatives used in cat food to keep it at room temperature indefinitely;

  • sodium nitrite, which gives a nice rosy colour to food and can produce powerful carcinogenic substances known as nitrosamines
  • propyl gallate - is now suspected of causing liver damage
  • propylene glycol used to maintain the right texture and moisture content is used as coolant antifreeze in engines
  • up to 1000 times more salt than occurs naturally

No manufacturer can keep preservatives out of dry cat food if it has a long shelf life.

So, if you don’t feed your cat a commercial cat food, what can you feed her?

To my way of thinking, the only sure way of knowing you are providing a healthy cat food is to prepare it yourself.

Before you throw your hands up in horror, saying you don’t know how, you don’t have time, that’s where I come in.

I’ve done the research for a balanced, healthy cat food.

I’ve made all the mistakes and can show how not to fall into the traps I did.

By feeding your cat a healthy cat food, you’ll have fewer trips to your veterinarian and your cat will live longer.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Holistic Cat Food For the Healthiest Cat

Once you’ve started looking around for holistic treatment for your cat, it’s a natural sequel to think about holistic cat food.

There’s a saying that currently people have never been so well fed, but so under nourished. As this is a direct result of poor farming methods as well as bad dietary advice, it’s no less true for your cat as it is for you.

Changing over the diet of your cat to a more natural one, will not only benefit him, but your pocket too. Because your cat is healthier on this diet, you’ll have fewer visits to your preferred cat health professional.

But what exactly am I talking about?

Well, an holistic cat food is one which so closely resembles a wild cat’s diet, as to be in the same league as far as health is concerned.

You’ll probably be relieved to know, I’m not suggesting you go out and catch mice. What I’m asking you to do is to consider the diet of a wild cat and then be mindful in duplicating it as closely as you can, within the framework of readily available food and the constraints on your time.

Actually, I’ve already done that for you, so you don’t have to do all the hard work. I just want you to know the reasons behind feeding your cat an holistic diet to ensure better health and longevity.

It’s worth remembering that cats have evolved on a wild diet over millions of years, and are extremely healthy on it. Otherwise they would have died out.

So trying to duplicate nature’s bounty for your cat is the best way to ensure his good health and longevity.

Providing an holistic cat food isn’t difficult once you’ve opened up your mind to the idea of it. Isn’t that always the biggest hurdle? Once you’re open to the idea the rest, as they say, is easy. With a bit of guidance from someone who has made all the mistakes possible.

A quality, balanced holistic cat food:

  • will provide your cat with all his nutritional requirements.
  • will make your cat content and much less interested in hunting - hunting domestic cats usually means they are lacking nutrients in their current diet and they’re trying to redress that
  • is free from chemical residue, such as preservatives and colour, which cats are so sensitive to
  • contains no synthetic vitamins or minerals - which are difficult to absorb and utilise so tend to be excreted
  • is raw and so contain all the enzymes and other nutrients lost in cooking

Holistic cat food contains only naturally occurring vitamins and minerals, in a balanced and whole food form. You know, you shouldn’t need to supplement your cat’s food. All the necessary nutrients should come from the food, and in the wild, they do.

But, because modern farming methods cut corners in quality to boost quantity (and so profit), the resulting foods are often poor in nutrients. So supplementing becomes necessary.

Most supplements on the market today are isolated nutrients. In nature, nutrients are always found with other nutrients that they co-depend on. For example, calcium, phosphorus and magnesium must be in the natural balanced ratio and need vitamin A and D to be properly utilised. Iron, copper and cobalt co-depend on each other. And so on.

In addition to the isolation, most modern supplements are synthetic. Synthetic nutrients aren’t easily absorbed or utilised by the body. And you can overdose on synthetic nutrients more easily than on natural ones, which the body knows how to deal with.

Holistic cat food, on the other hand, is easily absorbed and utilised by your cat. The supplements are a whole food, and are nutrient dense. This means all that is needed is readily absorbed.

It is not time consuming to provide this diet, if you follow my easy feline dietary advice, It’s simply a question of being aware of certain pitfalls. It may take you and your cat a while to work things out, but it’s well worth it for the huge benefits which follow.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Homemade Cat Food - Quick, Nutritious, Healthy

As you have already decided, or are thinking seriously about, providing your cat with homemade cat food, I want to congratulate you!

This is the first huge step anyone can make in re-establishing the health of their cat.

But you do need to be aware of the pitfalls. You do need to ensure that you are providing Fido with all the essential nutrients for a healthy body. That’s not all. You need to ensure Fido’s mind is equally healthy.

Like it or not, your cat evolved by killing and eating small animals, up to about their own size. When making your own homemade cat food, you need to keep this firmly in mind.

By preventing them from killing their own dinner, you are removing something very important in Fido’s life, so you have to try to compensate for this, as much as you can.

Unless Fido is a working cat, keeping mice or rat numbers down, I’m sure you don’t really like to see him hunt.

How do you provide him with such a good and adequate diet that he really just can’t bothered to hunt?

First of all, you look to nature for the answers.

Since a wild cat tends only to eat what he has just killed, this immediately tells us four things:

  • he likes his food fresh
  • he likes his food raw
  • he likes his food warm
  • he likes bones with his meal

That’s a bit of a contradiction, isn’t it? Raw, but warm?

Surely you need to cook the food to kill off any worms or bacteria?

What about bones? Won’t they splinter and get caught up in his gut which will require expensive and distressing veterinary surgery to remove?

You know, there’s a lot of misleading information about the best food for cats, ‘out there’. Most of it comes from pet food manufacturers or those who sell or promote it, so have a vested interest in it.

In my opinion, you can’t improve on nature. So when making your own homemade cat food, try to stick as close to a natural diet as you can.

You can’t duplicate it, but you can come close.

While kittens will have no trouble adapting to eating a healthy homemade cat food, adults who have got used to the appetite stimulants in most processed food, can have a hard time adapting.

You will probably get a lot of accusing looks, turning his head away in disgust, walking away, turning his back on you, pawing the food as if to bury it, the works, during the transition period and you will feel a really nasty, uncaring cat person - rest assured Fido will make you feel that way! However, you do need to persevere for his sake.

He will come round. You just need to stick at it longer than he does... Trust me, he won’t starve himself!

Homemade cat food, is without a doubt, the healthiest food you can feed your cat, as long as you follow nature’s laws. You can restore good health in an ailing cat, you can keep your cat healthier, longer.

You have made the first giant step forward in considering a homemade cat food. The next step is in working out what the best one is.

I wish you every success!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Wellness Cat Food - Seven Reasons Your Cat Needs it Now

Unless you have become increasingly concerned about the health of your cat, in particular the quality of her food, you could be forgiven for wondering what on earth wellness cat food is.

Year by year we see more and more distressing media reports that pets are dying in their droves from one commercial pet food or another.

One brand may be using melamine as a filler in their cat food.

Another brand may be having trouble keeping their commercial premises free from salmonella.

There are as many problems with all commercial pet food as there are brand names.

Lets have a look at some of them:

  • a filler is something all brands use to bulk out the meat (by-products) to increase their profit
  • all brands use cheap meat (by-products), as the expensive cuts go for human consumption
  • the quality of the meat (by-products) varies with different brands, but many contain hair, hooves, beaks, entrails (and contents), laboratory animals (who may be highly toxic from new drug tests), euthanased pets (including toxic flea collars, tags, etc), zoo animals and horses (still containing the lethal chemical), road kill, dead or diseased farm animals
  • cheap meat (by-products) have a very high fat content, as there is little human market for fat
  • the food is cooked for a prolonged time period at high temperatures - cooking kills off enzymes and vitamins and can chemically alter food
  • to try to address this imbalance of nutrients, synthetic nutrients are added later, which are difficult to digest and have limited use as they are all in isolation
  • to ensure the cat ‘food’ has a long shelf life (which is in everyone’s interest except your cat’s), preservatives MUST be added (the manufacturer may not have added them, but they will have been added somewhere along the line) and these are typically preservatives that would never be allowed in human food, due to their high toxicity

Horrifying as the above may be, you don’t need to go searching to find a brand of wellness cat food that doesn’t have any of the above. I’m sure some are emerging from the murk, but even these you may find difficult to be 100% sure they are consistent. We all have bad days, when we can’t get the ingredients we want. What happens then? Are their ethics compromised in order not to let their customers down? What happens if the business is sold? Will the new owner or manager have the same high standards?

To have consistently high value wellness cat food, it’s best to start from scratch yourself.

I hear you cry “I don’t know how”, “how do I ensure it’s balanced?”, “it sounds too complicated”, “I don’t have the time”, “it sounds expensive”, my cat won’t eat anything except one brand”.

Wellness cat food means going back to nature. It means working out what wild cats eat (who are naturally healthy and disease free). It means taking a bit of time to work through your perceptions about what you think the best wellness cat food is. Don’t forget you’ve been programmed (another word could be brainwashed) by those who benefit by spreading this mis-information.