Does Tiki Cat Have Menadione?

[Georgia on my Mind]

I chose Tiki Cat as one of the foods in my girls’ rotation. I just read an Amazon review which said it now has Menadione in it. I searched the ingredients and I guess she’s referring to the “vitamin K supplement.” It’s the very last ingredient listed so how much could it be?

Am I being rash if I stop feeding it?

 

[Georgia on my Mind]

Don’t know how to edit my post.
I should mention I’m feeding the non fish varieties: Puka Puka and Koolina

 

[lalagimp]

I believe it does. It's a controversial ingredient. It meets standards, but shows toxicity when given over a certain dose, but in the small amounts it's in our pet food, it's supposed to be safe. Some owners avoid it completely.

 

[duckpond]

I chose Tiki Cat as one of the foods in my girls’ rotation. I just read an Amazon review which said it now has Menadione in it. I searched the ingredients and I guess she’s referring to the “vitamin K supplement.” It’s the very last ingredient listed so how much could it be?

Am I being rash if I stop feeding it?

they do have Menadione in them now. I wish our cat foods didn't, and i have read up on this quite a bit. If i can find a food without it that is my preference. However most real studies show that the small amount in cat food will not hurt, that they would need to consume about 1000% more than they will get in Cat food. I do feed foods with Menadione, but in a rotation, so my cats don't get it every day. Its hard to find food without it these days. I feed some Tiki cat, but i do try to mix in other foods, foods that don't contain Menadione, Carageenen, Argar-Argar, spinach, or much in the way of gums or artificial colors, or a bunch of carbs. Its hard, that's one reason i feed so many different brands, so i dont give to much of any one thing i wish were not in the food.

i feed a mix of Tiki, Weruva, nulo the minced flavors, against the grain, BFF, Earthborn holistics,fancy feast,Koha stews, Rawz, Ziwi, tried wellness but my cats refuse it, one or two flavors of k9 naturals, and two flavors of Daves. I recentley ordered a few cans of Walk about Goat, i found that does not list agar, but does have guar gum listed. LOl, i like to feed a variety, and my cats seem happy with it. Just how i do things

 

[Georgia on my Mind]

Why do pet food companies do this??It is incredibly frustrating and Tiki will be getting an email from me (a lot of good that will do.).
Okay, so I’ll keep it in the rotation just MUCH less frequently. I also feed Weruva, Ziwi, Feline Naturals, Stella and Chewy’s freeze dried and I’m waiting to hear back from Dr. Elsey’s on the dry matter basis protein, carbs, fat and phosphorus in his canned Clean Proteins.
I pay MUCH closer attention to my cats’ diet than my own
Thanks for the replies!

 

[lisahe]

I also try not to feed much menadione, I just don't feel certain about it. I'll occasionally feed a can of something that has it. (Edit: I think some of Weruva's Cats in the Kitchen cans used to have it but apparently they now don't, if only the ones I feed.) And that's pretty much that. Like duckpond , I just don't feel right consistently feeding something I'm unsure about. (duckpond and I have pretty similar lists of ingredients we don't like!)

I almost forgot to add that it's really too bad about Tiki: not only did they add menadione, they changed their recipes (and even their shredding!) quite a bit. Our cats used to love it but now won't even finish it. Not that it really matters now, after the addition of menadione, but the other night the cats were angry about a leftover can of chicken/turkey that came out before the big changes.

 

[Furballsmom]

Georgia on my Mind why they're doing this in this particular situation is because it's a cheaper more shelf stable method of intending to add Vitamin K which helps in the clotting process - except that naturally occurring K is processed better by the body. If a company already adds K through another means it isn't required to use menadione, but their accounting departments probably get after them about that.
Menadione (synthetic Vitamin K) is Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) by the AAFCO because the research that was done on poultry didn't indicate any problems. Keeping in mind that menadione damages the liver over long term exposure, in my opinion birds used for this testing probably didn't live more than 4 years at best, whereas our dogs and cats live quite a lot longer than that.
The more the pet food companies hear from us and see us voting with our dollars, the more of a difference we can truly make for our furbabies lives.

 

[duckpond]

I don't know why so many companies put it in all their foods, i think Weruva took it out of everything they legally could. In my opinion more cat food companies should on the flavors that do not contain fish.

The vast majority of pet food does not require the supplementation of vitamin K in any form. However, according to AAFCO, cat food that contains at least 25% seafood on a dry matter basis must contain a certain level of vitamin K, and according to AAFCO, the only approved source of vitamin k is menadione.

 

[Furballsmom]

I've never been in a food processing plant, but I've tried to envision it and I'm wondering if, in order to make things as simple/efficient as possible, that when some of these companies determine they need to add whatever ingredient they add it to everything. I have no idea, but...

 

[Georgia on my Mind]

Thank you everyone for your responses; very good learning session.

The only thing that really surprised me was that all of said Menadione was in most cat foods. Tiki Cat has been the only food I’ve seen it in so far (and that was only due to the Amazon reviewer. Does it go by a lot of different names?

Now sodium selenite seems to be in just about everything and that’s one I’ve read is not too good.

 

[duckpond]

Thank you everyone for your responses; very good learning session.

The only thing that really surprised me was that all of said Menadione was in most cat foods. Tiki Cat has been the only food I’ve seen it in so far (and that was only due to the Amazon reviewer. Does it go by a lot of different names?

Now sodium selenite seems to be in just about everything and that’s one I’ve read is not too good.

Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex also goes by vitamin K3.

I don't think sodium selenite is in the flavors of Weruva, Fussie cat, or fancy feast that i feed, it is in most others. it is in Dr. Elseys dry food, but not in Farmina or orijen that i feed. As i said in an earlier post, i feed a WIDE variety of foods trying to minimize exposure to bad things. But if i quit feeding all foods because of scary things i read online i wouldn't have anything left i could feed I try to watch ingredients, and buy from companies that seem responsible and trustworthy, hoping they know what they are doing and the ingredient amounts that are safe. It can be overwhelming trying to figure it all out sometimes.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi - menadione sodium bisulfate, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source of Vitamin K Activity), or Vitamin K3 is what I'm typically seeing.
Oh, I was typeing the same time as duckpond
Regarding sodium selenite, I'm not a vet, but I'm seeing comments that healthy cats are able to excrete the excess if/when they receive too much. With that said, it's suggested that selenium sources should be organic/animal-based rather than from sodium selenite.
Yeah, for sure, the challenges are ever continuous

 

[Kristi01]

Don’t know how to edit my post.
I should mention I’m feeding the non fish varieties: Puka Puka and Koolina

All tiki cat contains medadione in it

 

[MewMama]

Thank you everyone for your responses; very good learning session.

The only thing that really surprised me was that all of said Menadione was in most cat foods. Tiki Cat has been the only food I’ve seen it in so far (and that was only due to the Amazon reviewer. Does it go by a lot of different names?

Now sodium selenite seems to be in just about everything and that’s one I’ve read is not too good.

K3 does go by a lot of names:

• Vitamin K supplement
• Dimethylprimidinol sulfite
• Dimethylprimidinol sulfate
• Dimethylprimidinol bisulfate
• Menadione sodium bisulfite
• Menadione sodium bisulfate
• Menadione nicotinamide bisulfite
• Menadione dimethylprimidinol sulfite
• Menadione dimethylprimidinol sulfate
• Menadione dimethylprimidinol bisulfite

 

[Furballsmom]

To explain a little further about menadione, Vitamin K, when added as natural K1 for "assistance" with blood clotting, is ok.
Sometimes the manufacturer will add a natural source of Vitamin K. If they do that, they've met the requirements. If they don't, as I understand it, they then must add synthetic K3 - menadione.

 

[MewMama]

My understanding is that natural vitamin k isn’t allowed; they must use synthetic. ?

 

[Kristi01]

My understanding is that natural vitamin k isn’t allowed; they must use synthetic. ?

This is true and it's in all tiki food, not just the fish as required by thev aafco

 

[daftcat75]

Counter point to the menadione controversy:
Vitamin K3 (menadione) in Pet Food: Is It Safe? | The SkeptVet

"... no case of toxic effects from menadione in commercial dog or cat food has ever been substantiated. Millions of pets have been consuming this vitamin for decades, so if the supplement were to have any significant potential risk, one would expect many documented cases of harm."

Tiki Cat controls my cat's IBD. Looking at ingredients in other foods that don't belong in my cat's diet like peas, pea protein, potato starch, tapioca starch, carrots, spinach, cranberries, and on and on with the species inappropriate vegetable matter, given that choice, I'll take the meat in meat broth even with the scary but unsubstantiated chemical. I should be so lucky if I can get my cat to eat that much food. She might finally put a pound or two back on.

 

[MewMama]

Other people have had different experiences. From an Amazon review:

Weruva just about killed our cat

By catfan141 - April 7, 2013
This is an alert for anyone currently feeding a diet of Weruva to their cats. The short story: Weruva products gave our totally healthy, 8 year old cat kidney failure. He is now in hospital with CREA (toxicity levels) 5 times the healthy amount (his levels are 11.1 - most cats dies before their levels get this high) and basically what would have been a long healthy life has just been cut short.

The long story:
My husband and I fed Weruva to our 8 yr old, healthy kitty for about 8 months. He had just had a very good vet check up - the vet said he was an example of a 'success story' in diet (we fed a mix of raw and canned food, raw egg yolk supplement, natural vitamin supplements). The canned component of the diet was EVO. But 8 months ago we switched to Weruva from EVO because of concern over the levels of ash in EVO. For the first 6 months we fed half Weruva (a mix of all varieties) and half Stella and Chewy's raw patties (which we've done for a long time). He seemed to be doing well, although seemed a little bit malnourished, like he wasn't getting all the nutrients he needed (we kept finding him licking the cast iron pan on the stove, for e.g. - we now know he was becoming anemic, and was probably licking the pan for iron). We realize now that this was because the food was having an adverse effect on his kidneys, so he wasn't absorbing all the nutrients he should be. We took him to the vet, and got him tested. All was okay, except his kidney values were a little high - his CREA and BUN especially. We brought him in for a urine sample a month later. His urine tested well, highly concentrated. Here's what went wrong - we ran out of the Stella & Chewy patties, & they're not easy to get in our neighborhood so we stopped feeding them to him for a while. We were stressed out in our jobs and (we are kicking ourselves) didn't make time to pick up the patties. So he began an ONLY Weruva diet. At the same time, we were so busy we needed to order from wag.com, so we ordered Weruva in bulk. The only kinds they had in bulk? The seafood kinds. Mack n Jack, Polynesian BBQ, and Asian Fusion. All of these contain the artificial "vitamin K" supplement menadione sodium bisulfate, and have very high phosphorus levels. It is also NOT good to feed your cat only seafood. But we only did this for THREE weeks.

What happened next? Within 2 - 3 weeks of being on the only Weruva diet major kidney failure symptoms started. He stopped eating all the food on his plate, but he was begging for food. In the last week he was thirsty all the time. His haunches became stooped. In the 3rd week we finally realized something was wrong (we are kicking ourselves, again, that it took us so long to realize this). We took him to the vet as soon as possible, and that's when we found out he had 80% - 90% kidney failure. The vet told us we should put him down, or opt for expensive emergency therapy - we opted for the therapy, and thankfully his levels are dropping, but he may not live much more than a few months longer.

Meanwhile, we thought we should warn our good friends who were also feeding their cat the Weruva-only diet. As soon as we realized what had happened we got in contact with these friends who we hadn't seen in a long time (they'd just had a baby). Sadly, they reported that their also young (younger than our cat) kitty had liver disease - he had just been diagnosed. They too had stopped feeding their cat Weruva.

How could this happen to very healthy, active, young cats who were apparently eating the healthiest diet possible? We're not sure, but we're sure it's related to this food. NOTHING else changed in our cat's life, and just before he went on the all Weruva diet he had had a clean bill of health. We think the answer might be related to Menadione Sodium Bisulfate, which quickly damaged our kitty's organs, in tandem with the very high phosphorus levels.

Menadione Sodium Bisulfate is the only Vitamin K supplement that AAFCO approves, but it's safety for pets is "not known," (although many people are of the opinion that is is highly toxic for pets), it is known to be toxic (and fatal) to humans. Several experts consider that it is dangerous for many of the major organs, including kidneys, liver. Here are some linke for more info:

[...]

[...]

[...]

some of the negative effects of menadione are...
* causes cytotoxicity in liver cells
* damages the natural vitamin K cycle
* causes hemolytic anemia and hyperbilirubinemia, not just linked to large doses
* is directly toxic in high doses (vomiting, albuminuria), unlike natural vitamin K
* has never been researched or specifically approved for long term use, such as in pet food
* FDA has banned synthetic vitamin K from over-the-counter supplements because of its high toxicity

[...]
A report at Oregon State University that mentions mendione toxicity
[...]

Here Weruva owner David Forman explains why Weruva chooses to use Menadione:
[...]

Note that at the end of his comment, he states: "if we didn't put it in we would have to label the cans 'for intermittent feeding only'," because AAFCO requires the supplement to be in seafood cans if it's labeled a 'complete food.'
It seems to us that that's the real reason Weruva choose to keep menadione in their products. If we had seen an 'intermittent feeding only label, we would have fed our cat Weruva less often (and he would not be in hospital right now - though perhaps in time the same problem would have developed.) That is what Weruva wants to avoid - people using their cat food less often. The ethical choice would have been to leave out the menadione and label their food correctly, while taking up with AAFCO its lack of safe Vitamin K supplement approvals.

One more note - we've spent over $500 on Weruva food in the past 8 months. And our hospital bill for this weekend, for our cat that may not survive? $2500 and counting. It's going to take months for us to recover from this financially, let alone the pain of losing our beloved pet to the greed of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Meanwhile Weruva hasn't lost any funds and continues to add a harmful ingredient to its cat food.

We're pretty sure there's going to be an epidemic of Weruva-food related illnesses. As the product is on the market for a longer time, more and more cats are going to develop organ damage as a result of the diet.

Why do pet food manufacturers (including these so-called 'organic' food manufacturers) and AAFCO have to play the waiting game with consumers, waiting until enough pets die until they are forced to change their ingredients and regulations?

162 of 175 people found this review helpful

 

[daftcat75]

There's one anecdote and I'm not even convinced it was the menadione. Is there any toxicology that points to menadione toxicity? Show me an epidemiology study.

The reason menadione is banned from human vitamins is that people go overboard with vitamins and they do take massive doses thinking if one a day is good, 20 must be excellent. Pets don't overconsume vitamins so I don't have to worry about my Krista getting into 1000 cans a day.

I've been feeding mine Tiki seafood flavors exclusively for the last few months and her phosphorous and kidney function (crea, bun, protein, etc) all look great. But better than that, her IBD is under control and her pancreatitis is reversing.