Paws for thought

Paws for thought
As a cat lover who has taken in a number of stray moggies (six at the last count), I'd like to know how sustainable mainstream cat food is.

Lucy Siegle
The Observer, Sunday 31 July 2011

In days of yore domestic cats did their own foraging. That was sort of the point. They were there to eat leftovers and supplement their diet with rodents. It was an archetype frequently replayed in popular culture. I refer to my own 1970s childhood. A cat was always pictured next to the skeleton of a fish bone recovered from a bin. Not even razor-sharp Officer Dibble could thwart Top Cat's raids on dustbins.

Somewhere the cat went from feline freegan to a beast that must eat wild-caught fish from a velvet cushion. Our cats are now so fat they need scientific dietary intervention from multinational pet food companies.

All of which can mask the primary issue: resource consumption. A 2008 study found the pet food industry to be using 2.48m metric tons of forage fish each year for wet cat food – ie the stuff in tins and pouches. Forage fish such as sardines, anchovies and herring are eaten by top ocean predators such as tuna. As if those top predators didn't have enough to worry about. Humanity still chops through 4.5m tons of tuna species a year. Meanwhile evidence suggests that once the main ocean predators are fished out, the ecosystem begins to atrophy. Goodnight Vienna.

They felt it apt because if social security was changed a significant proportion of the population would end up eating tinned cat food. Actually cat food probably shouldn't be the go-to emergency sustenance. Anything that relies on fish is extremely uncertain.

Cat food is so highly processed that ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/31/lucy-siegle-cat-food-fish

:)

for cats (that sadly includes most of them out there), but a properly formulated dry food is a healthy food for cats.

That doesn't mean we don't use canned foods strategically in certain cats with certain medical issues, but all my cats over the years have eaten exclusively dry food most if not all of their lives and done great.

about cats. Do some research.

"I fed my cats dry food all their lives and they did great."

"My dad smoked for 40 years and drank a fifth of bourbon every day and lived to be 100 and died in bed of old age and was never sick in his life. THEREFORE cigarettes are not harmful to health."

anecdotes are evidence???

No facts are evidence. There is this neat tool, called a search engine. Check it out.

And how many decades of feline-exclusive practice do you have? How many decades of practice altogether?

You see, I am doing what is called "pulling rank". I am the expert here, and you are the layperson. You know virtually nothing about feline nutrition. I know a hell of a lot.

I would appreciate you not giving phony and dangerous advice to people. Any damned fool can read shit on the internet. That doesn't make them the least bit of an expert. A LITTLE BIT OF KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING.

And you can shove your anti-veterinarian hatred where the sun don't shine.

see this kinda thing is why the population of cats and dogs and especially humans need to go wayyyy way down.

because, as direct descendants of Felis libyca, the desert wildcat of North Africa, the Negev, and the Arabian Peninsula, they did not evolve eating fish. In fact, fish is as alien to the diet of cats as prime rib is to that of horses - they simply have NO business eating it. In far too many cats it leads directly to gastrointestinal, dermatological, and urinary problems. Certain fish are even implicated in the development of oral cancer in cats.

The healthiest animal protein source for cats is poultry, so cat foods based on chicken or turkey are the most biologically appropriate.

I could go on, but this is flamebait enough. As a veterinarian with a feline-exclusive practice for the past 20 years, I do know a thing or two about feline nutrition. So that automatically makes every letter I type a bald-faced lie according to the PC Police on DU.

Small, easily domesticated and up to 3 litters a year. There's a fortune waiting for some prescient entrpeneur. Old folks will love it.

cat can thrive on precisely 8 mice per day.

The amount of waste involved in the use of fish products across the board is downright sinful when you look at the impact our yearly take is having on the ocean ecosystems. For instance, one of my pet peeves is how much waste is involved in farming predator fish like salmon.

FWIW I have a lot of respect for the depth of your knowledge of the little fellers and a sincere appreciation for your willingness to share it.

responses whenever I post veterinary medical information or, worse yet, my professional opinion, lol.

It's like taking a doctor's advice if you're sick.

People like canned food bec. it is easy, no smell, no mixing, just pour it in to the dish.
That's why it was invented - for the convenience.
I give it to my cat occasionally, when I am tired to open a can, even tho it is high-end dry food I don't kid myself that it is good for the cat.
It's good for me.

Dry food is addictive. If you give it to your cat for a couple of weeks, you will have great difficulty in getting them to ever eat anything else. I know someone whose cat will starve itself if it can't get dry food.

yeah...good stuff.

haha "professional" eh? That sure carries a lot of weight.

interests - because clearly your own "convenience" takes priority:

"That's why it was invented - for the convenience. I give it to my cat occasionally, when I am tired to open a can, even tho it is high-end dry food I don't kid myself that it is good for the cat. It's good for me."

But by all means do the exact opposite of what any veterinarian says. We evil "professionals" are obviously all only interested in making money (we will have to provide lots more, and more costly, care to your animals if you ignore our advice, lol) so that will work out quite well for us on the whole.

Be sure to always ignore your physicians, too. And your dentists.

They neuter feral cats and then let them roam around. Supposedly it keeps other cats out, and also lets them forage on the local roof-rat population.

as well. The thing that impressed me most about Phoenix was the large numbers of birds.