Essays and Insights on Cats
Don’t Starve a Fat Cat
Please oh please - never starve a fat cat. Getting a fat cat to lose weight isn't about taking away their food - it's about getting the right food into their diet. Hepatic lipidosis is a condition in which fat accumulates in individual liver cells - it's real risk for...
Basic Facts About a Cat’s Pancreas and Insulin
A cat's pancreas has two main jobs: 1) making and storing digestive enzymes and fluids; 2) producing and releasing hormones that regulate blood sugar. The sugar released into the bloodstream from a a cat on a high-carbohydrate diet sends an alarm to the pancreas to...
Pilling Cats Safely
None of us want to have to give our cats medication, it nonetheless is something that many of us may one day face or are perhaps facing already. One little fact that I had never focused on until it was driven home to me by Dr. Lisa Pierson is how important it is,...
Decrypting Food Labels 101: Understand Dry Matter Basis
Pet food labels are not required to meet the same standards as human food labels and lack a good deal of consumer-friendly, useful information. Even the ingredient lists on pet food labels is only moderately useful. One really vital thing to understand? Dry Matter...
Dry Food Accounts for Most Contamination Disasters
A direct quote from Dr. Lisa Pierson's fantastic website. She sums it up better than I ever could. I don't think that a single cat or dog caregiver in the US is not aware of the thousands of cats and dogs that suffered tremendously and died - or have been left with...
Ingredient Splitting
It's good to get a little educated about "ingredient splitting" tactics on food labels. Ingredients in pet food are listed on the label in descending order by weight - and while this means you should always look for meat as a first ingredient in a diet for a...
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Reluctant Raw Eaters
So you want to make the switch to a raw diet, but you're not sure if your cat will eat it. Maybe you offered raw food and your cat ate it with gusto once, then reverted back to pleading for kibble. "Nice little novel experience you offered me there, staffer, that was...
Low Value of Plant Protein to Carnivores
A substantial share of the protein in dry cat food is frequently plant-based. Here's the problem: Plant based proteins have a lower biological value to obligate carnivores than meat proteins. For pet food manufacturers, obviously, plant proteins cost less because...
Being Vegetarian and Feeding Meat to Cats
Vegetarians feeding carnivores — how does that work? While vegetarianism as a nutritional choice for humans is magnficent but it's a dangerous option for cats, all of whom are obligate carnivores. It's time to address the "eeew!" factor that I often hear about. Cats...
Feline Disease
High Protein Diets and Diabetes
Feeding a high-protein/low-carbohydrate diet to diabetic cats can very quickly reduce their overall insulin requirement. So what? If you're changing your diabetic cat's diet to a lower carbohydrate diet (a good idea!), your cat can very quickly go into remission - and...
Feline IBD
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Litter Boxes
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Loving Cats
Introducing . . . Wilson
Meet Wilson. He is about 4.5 years old (we think?) and was living for a short time with an amazing and deeply caring foster family. I met him a few weeks ago by pure happenstance and was instantly charmed and intrigued - despite being strongly committed to not being...
Nettie the Wondercat: 1995-2011
Yesterday, with help from our wonderful vet, we said goodbye to the beautiful form that our Nettie the Wondercat occupied for close to sixteen years. I'll offer some of what I sent to family and friends yesterday: I wanted to share this news so that you might remember...
Duke: 1994-2010
Four days ago, with the help of one of the most amazing and compassionate human beings I’ve ever known — our vet — I faced the wrenching, but loving, task of easing my most beloved Duke out of his failing body. Aside from being one of the biggest loves of my life, it...
Making Cat Food
What it Really Costs to Make Cat Food – Not So Much!
Dr. Lisa Pierson of catinfo.org - who is much more of a numbers person than I am - has on her website an awesome, detailed breakout of what it costs to make homemade raw cat food. Many folks are understandably dubious about the price of doing it themselves and, to be...
Getting Back the Chunky Value
I love what feeding a balanced, raw diet does for cats. But everything we do that isn't exactly what Mother Nature intended has consequences. Like, for instance, the act of grinding the food. I don't see a way around that - in order to feed a nice balance of meat,...
Merci Beaucoup, Martine!
A huge shout-out and meow of sincere gratitude to an amazing and very generous website visitor, Martine Potier, who has kindly translated the "Foodmaking" page of catnutrition.org into French. Vous etes le melileur, Martine! A friendly reminder that because this...
Feline Periodontal Disease
Carnivores Through and Through
Our cats are carnivores in all their parts. Honoring that truth helps keep them from getting obese and sick. Look at the beautiful TEETH of a cat! Those lovely, sharp, prominent canines are there for stabbing. The entire structure of a cat's mouth is designed to shear...
Getting Back the Chunky Value
I love what feeding a balanced, raw diet does for cats. But everything we do that isn't exactly what Mother Nature intended has consequences. Like, for instance, the act of grinding the food. I don't see a way around that - in order to feed a nice balance of meat,...
Pet Food
Pet Food Ingredient Labeling Sleight of Hand
Beware the (legal) sleight of hand with pet food ingredient labeling. As we noted recently, pet-food labeling rules dictate that ingredients be listed by decreasing weight, or predominance, in the food. But "ingredient splitting" is a way to include a lot of grain...
Sometimes Chicken Isn’t Exactly Chicken
It's useful to sharpen your translation skills in understanding what the NAME on the label of a cat food product actually means. You might be surprised to know that: AAFCO rules dictate that a product labeled "chicken food" must have at least 95 percent chicken on a...
AAFCO Doesn’t Regulate or Certify Pet Foods
AAFCO may not be what you've been thinking it is. The "100 percent nutritionally balanced and complete" claims on processed cat food that are based solely on meeting AAFCO industry standards are far from a robust standard for nutritional excellence that supports...
Urinary Tract
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Veterinarians
How Do We Change the Veterinary Paradigm?
In many ways, veterinarians are on the front lines of this "lead the change on the collective bad habits in how we feed our cats" thing. They are the first line of defense against the dominant paradigm that implies, “Dry food is fine, it’s nutritionally complete, and...
Veterinarians and Nutrition: It’s Not What You Think
Are you confident that your vet is well-trained to give nutritional advice? That your vet has critically reviewed the science provided by pet food manufacturers? How much study of nutrition do vets get in vet school? "It doesn't feel like enough," said Amy Cheung, a...
Be Informed, Not Intimidated
The standard rejoinder I heard years ago and continue to hear from many vets goes like this: many homemade diets, including all meat diets (whether raw or cooked), are "highly unbalanced and are likely to be deficient in key nutrients unless properly supplemented."...