Cat Food-Raw Diets

Feeding raw food is a controversial issue often approached from a narrow perspective. For example, in "Hazards of a Homemade Raw Food Diet" in the August issue of Cat Fancy Dr. Narda Robinson warned cat owners against feeding raw food because it contains bacteria. Have veterinarians forgotten that cats evolved eating raw food and licking dirt and bacteria from their fur? Of course raw meat may carry bacteria, but there are ways to handle meat to minimize the possibility cats will become ill eating it.

It worries me that we veterinarians steer pet guardians toward relying solely on cooked, packaged foods. This does not provide optimum health. To prove to yourself that eating only cooked food is unhealthy, try a diet of completely cooked or prepared food: For the next several weeks eat only a packaged product, such as a breakfast cereal that provides all the nutrients you need. Of course, you will not eat apples, oranges, sushi, sliced cucumbers, garden salads, fruit smoothies, or even pesto. Can you imagine remaining healthy? Then, how can we ask cats to be healthy on a diet without raw foods? For cats, who are carnivores, the appropriate raw foods are not apples, salads, or smoothies, but are meats or fish.

A good method for feeding cats—and all pets—is to feed something with every meal that you can look at and identity. This is because if you can’t tell what something is by looking at it, the food has been processed in such a way that many essential vitamins, antioxidants, and enzymes have been lost. Providing only totally processed food will not create a healthy pet. This does not mean our pets will be unhealthy if they receive some processed food. It doesn’t harm our cats—or our dogs—to eat some “unrecognizable” processed food such as kibble, but it is not healthy to restrict them to cooked, processed foods.

If you choose to feed only processed foods, ensure your pet receives the following: antioxidants, vitamins, and Omega 3 fatty acids.