Looking For Substitutes For Homemade Raw

[Khrad]

Hello fellow cat lovers!
I am looking for a substitute for homemade raw, any suggestions? I'm looking for something freeze dried preferably.
I was thinking about trying Primal, but it looks like it consists of veggies in the diet? I don't know if that is good or not? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! TIA!

 

[lisahe]

We feed our cats several kinds of freeze-dried. They eat two meals of FD food a day and we mix up slightly different combinations.

The cats particularly like Primal, which, yes, does contain vegetables, though not enough to make the food very carby. I won't feed the cats anything with carrots, which are carbier, though: they only get pork and turkey. There's usually something I don't like about any given commercial food. With Primal, though I'd rather not feed the cats the vegetable matter I'm not sure I like synthetic nutrients much more. The big thing is that the cats just love Primal.

Northwest Naturals has some of the simplest recipes you can find. They make turkey and chicken foods and the cats like them fine, though they never get full meals of them.

Feline Natural is also good food with simple recipes, though it's very expensive so we use the least of that one. Our pickier cat loves it enough that she likes to have it crumbled on just about anything. I also buy Stella and Chewy's but only use one or two pieces of that a day: the cats love the flavor but the food tends to be very bony so I don't want to feed much of it.

Freeze-dried food is great because you don't have to worry about defrosting it and you can easily change up textures (by just crumbling or by pulverizing) and blends. Or add plain homemade broth for extra flavor. Our cats actually prefer freeze-dried over frozen Primal so FD is an easy choice!

Good luck with switching your cats over!

 

[LTS3]

Is commercial frozen raw not an option?

Vital Essentials makes both frozen and freeze dried raw. There's also Nature's Variety.

 

[Khrad]

We feed our cats several kinds of freeze-dried. They eat two meals of FD food a day and we mix up slightly different combinations.

The cats particularly like Primal, which, yes, does contain vegetables, though not enough to make the food very carby. I won't feed the cats anything with carrots, which are carbier, though: they only get pork and turkey. There's usually something I don't like about any given commercial food. With Primal, though I'd rather not feed the cats the vegetable matter I'm not sure I like synthetic nutrients much more. The big thing is that the cats just love Primal.

Northwest Naturals has some of the simplest recipes you can find. They make turkey and chicken foods and the cats like them fine, though they never get full meals of them.

Feline Natural is also good food with simple recipes, though it's very expensive so we use the least of that one. Our pickier cat loves it enough that she likes to have it crumbled on just about anything. I also buy Stella and Chewy's but only use one or two pieces of that a day: the cats love the flavor but the food tends to be very bony so I don't want to feed much of it.

Freeze-dried food is great because you don't have to worry about defrosting it and you can easily change up textures (by just crumbling or by pulverizing) and blends. Or add plain homemade broth for extra flavor. Our cats actually prefer freeze-dried over frozen Primal so FD is an easy choice!

Good luck with switching your cats over!

Thank you!

 

[Khrad]

Is commercial frozen raw not an option?

Vital Essentials makes both frozen and freeze dried raw. There's also Nature's Variety.

Thank you!

 

[Khrad]

So I found out the veggies in Primal are for the vitamins. I like both the Primal brand and Vital Essentials but now I can't decide which one!
Do you ladies know what is an acceptable amount of phosphorus I don't want to give them too much bone and I definitely don't want to give them too much carbs. It doesn't seem that either brand has too much but I don't know much about levels.

 

[lisahe]

So I found out the veggies in Primal are for the vitamins. I like both the Primal brand and Vital Essentials but now I can't decide which one!
Do you ladies know what is an acceptable amount of phosphorus I don't want to give them too much bone and I definitely don't want to give them too much carbs. It doesn't seem that either brand has too much but I don't know much about levels.

I tend to look at this issues from the perspective of bone content -- I don't like to feed anything with more than 10% bone, despite the fact that some of what we feed has no bone at all. Some cats tend to get constipated from too much bone. I seem to recall other posts mentioning that Vital Essentials has higher bone content than many other commercial raw foods but that's something you'd need to look into. L lisamarie12 , were you the person who'd looked into that?

Our cats are young (5.5) and I've talked with our cat vet about phosphorus, which she's said not to worry too much about since they're younger, particularly since they eat all wet food. Their canned, homecooked, and raw foods have varied dry matter contents and I haven't calculated what the average would be, though I'd be surprised if it was over 1.5%. (At least I think I would!) We had a kidney cat before these cats so phosphorus is on my mind but healthy cats need it, so I wouldn't go crazy trying to keep it at the barest minimum unless a vet advises it for health reasons. Personally, it's the carbs that I watch most for our cats because they have such tender little digestive systems!

 

[Khrad]

Thank you ladies for all the info. I greatly appreciate it!
I think I'm going to try out Primal as it is more readily available. But I really wish Rad Cat was still an option (sigh) I'm really hoping and praying they'll be back soon.

 

[lisamarie12]

I tend to look at this issues from the perspective of bone content -- I don't like to feed anything with more than 10% bone, despite the fact that some of what we feed has no bone at all. Some cats tend to get constipated from too much bone. L lisamarie12 , were you the person who'd looked into that?

Yes. Vital Essentials is too bone dense. The company also recently changed their ingredient labels on their cat food products, previously they listed "bone" in the ingredients, e.g., "chicken with ground bone" but now there is no mention of "bone" in the ingredients which is definitely misleading and will confuse some people, especially those new to raw, who think they're purchasing a bone free, yet AAFCO approved product that meets the calcium requirements eg., if their cat has IBD or CKD or just want a balanced raw diet with a calcium source other than bone.

(I've seen a few posts from cat owners who thought VE was a comparable replacement for Rad Cat on a couple of the raw feeding groups on FB).

When I contacted VE I was told that on the packaging of the cat food, "bone" was listed, e.g., "prey model diet containing meat, organs and bone", however, imo, bone should be listed in the ingredients, not everyone will notice other parts of the packaging.

I contacted Susan T @TAPF re this and she agreed.

And the only proteins I would consider from Primal would be the lower bone percentages proteins - pork, venison or beef/salmon, ranging from 6%-7%, per Primal.

Definitely constipation, or worse, obstipation, from excess bone can be an issue, as well as urinary blockages from excess minerals, Dr. Pierson has a section re commercial raw diets when she updated her web site in 2017.

Re phosphorus: I can't link right now to this site, however, there was a German study released earlier this year indicating that high phos diets may cause kidney damage in even healthy cats. How high is too high -- I don't know, however, I'll post it later.

 

[lisamarie12]

Thank you ladies for all the info. I greatly appreciate it!
I think I'm going to try out Primal as it is more readily available. But I really wish Rad Cat was still an option (sigh) I'm really hoping and praying they'll be back soon.

Rad Cat is very sadly missed, there is no other commercial raw product on the market that is comparable, unfortunately, other than making your own homemade raw with boneless meat and a premix to balance the food or a recipe with your own supplements.

 

[lisahe]

Re phosphorus: I can't link right now to this site, however, there was a German study released earlier this year that high phos diets can cause kidney damage in even healthy cats, I will post it later.

Thank you for this entire post, lisamarie12, but just to say that I'll be looking forward to seeing the link to the German study. I'm particularly interested in what they considered "high" levels of phosphorus. As with so many other things (like bone content in food!), we feed foods with varying levels that average out to what seems moderate. Having had a kidney cat, of course I, like many others, am trying to find a balance between careful and rational. And it's not easy to figure out what that is!

 

[Khrad]

Thank you lisamarie12 for the great info. I'm kind of lost now I don't know what to go with. Is there any other good brand out there that I should consider? TIA

 

[lisahe]

Thank you lisamarie12 for the great info. I'm kind of lost now I don't know what to go with. Is there any other good brand out there that I should consider? TIA

I'm the other Lisa but let me just say -- in my opinion, anyway -- that there are no perfect commercial cat foods. We all feed the best we can feed, with "best" varying depending on budgets, ingredients, and the always wild cards of our cats' preferences and digestive systems.

Since our cats like variety, it works well to feed about half raw food, a quarter homecooked, and a quarter canned. Beyond keeping the cats interested, it spreads out various risks: I wouldn't want to feed too much bone, phosphorus, thickener, can liner chemicals, and who knows what all else! There will almost always be compromises.

 

[Khrad]

Thank you ladies for all the info, I really appreciate it. As a new cat parent it's hard to know if I'm doing things right. This website has been a godsend with all the great advice, articles and resource info. So thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

 

[daftcat75]

I just started Krista on the transition to homemade raw with Better In The Raw mix. It seemed to be the closest to Rad Cat. Rad Cat kept the same organ meat as the main protein but that's because they were supplying both the meat and the organs. If I went with another mix or my own, I could match the liver with the meat. The only weird ingredient in Better In The Raw is "whey protein." I don't have a huge issue with it because it is a highly digestible protein and it's so far removed from milk that it wouldn't trigger a lactose or dairy reaction. But it does seem odd to be supplementing a meat diet with protein. That said, if it helps Krista beat skinny old cat syndrome, then slurp up your protein shakes!

Better in the Raw for Cats

 

[daftcat75]

And they have an explanation of why they include what they include in one of their blog posts:
Cat Food Ingredients - Better in the Raw for Cats & U-Stew for Cats

 

[lisamarie12]

Thank you for this entire post, lisamarie12, but just to say that I'll be looking forward to seeing the link to the German study. I'm particularly interested in what they considered "high" levels of phosphorus. As with so many other things (like bone content in food!), we feed foods with varying levels that average out to what seems moderate. Having had a kidney cat, of course I, like many others, am trying to find a balance between careful and rational. And it's not easy to figure out what that is!

Sorry I'm just now responding to this - Dec 4th my mom went into cardiac arrest.

Here is the link re: excess phos and kidney damage:

Excess phosphorus damages the kidney - LMU Munich

 

[lisahe]

Sorry I'm just now responding to this - Dec 4th my mom went into cardiac arrest.

Here is the link re: excess phos and kidney damage:

Excess phosphorus damages the kidney - LMU Munich

I am so sorry to hear about your mother, lisamarie12.

Thank you for the link: I clicked through to the article and will have to print that out and look at data! I do find it odd that they fed both groups of cats 14% rice. And table 1 isn't really saying that the dry matter phosphorus in the control diet is 7.5% is it!? (I'm having a hard time understanding how the data are presented!) Anyway, I'll figure this out! Thank you for posting!