Rad Cat now using organic egg shell calcium!

[otto]

I was browsing the Rad Cat website, checking the ingredient list, as I do periodically for all commercial foods I feed my cats (since things can change without notice) and much to my pleased surprise I read "organic egg shell calcium" in the ingredients list instead of the bone meal.

I wrote to them right away and, as usual, got an answer back quickly:

We switched to organic eg gs hell calcium a couple of months ago. We’ve always wanted to make products that were 100% organic and we’ve done everything we can to get as close to that as possible, while still keeping our products affordable. So, the organic eg gs hell calcium was always on our minds and we finally decided to move forward with it. Also, bone meal seems to not be as popular as it once was (as a human supplement), so it was time to move on, anyway. The news is something folks with cats that have kidney disease are raving about because the phosphorus levels have decreased a bit. It’s about seven times the cost of bone meal or conventional egg shell, but it’s worth the increased expense for us. We haven’t raised prices even with the addition of certified organic chicken and aren’t going to. Organic is important to us, as it is for many, many people and we’re just happy to be constantly improving on the products we already produce!

She said they aren't planning to raise the price of the Rad Cat frozen raw food. That is a big relief to me.

 

[ldg]

Wow - that's great!

 

[peaches08]

Please pardon my ignorance, but why is egg shell calcium preferred over bone?

 

[otto]

Not bone, bone meal.

Most of what I have read says that bone meal is the least preferred method of calcium supplementation.

The main reason (among others) I chose Rad Cat in the first place was because they do not use bone. However I've always slightly worried about the bone meal in the Rad Cat (because that's what I do best, worry :lol3 but not enough to give up the Rad Cat.

That it makes the Rad Cat a bit lower in phosphurous is good news too, for my Mazy cat.

 

[Willowy]

I believe the problem with bone meal is that it's made from the bones of beef cows (of course), who are fed nasty things and spend time in nasty feedlots, and toxins/heavy metals end up in their bones. I think that bone meal was quite high in lead for some time (presumably because many feedlots are by highways, and leaded gas) but I don't know if that's still true. Although I think diesel fuel is still leaded?

Anyway, good news that they switched to eggshell! I wonder if there's really any difference between regular eggshells and organic eggshells? Besides how the hens are raised, of course, and I would always prefer to support human chicken raising. But as to chemical residue or whatever.

 

[carolina]

I believe the problem with bone meal is that it's made from the bones of beef cows (of course), who are fed nasty things and spend time in nasty feedlots, and toxins/heavy metals end up in their bones. I think that bone meal was quite high in lead for some time (presumably because many feedlots are by highways, and leaded gas) but I don't know if that's still true. Although I think diesel fuel is still leaded?

Anyway, good news that they switched to eggshell! I wonder if there's really any difference between regular eggshells and organic eggshells? Besides how the hens are raised, of course, and I would always prefer to support human chicken raising. But as to chemical residue or whatever.

Although Rad Cat used Human Grade Bone Meal...... Which was not really the nasty stuff......

 

[lcat4]

I started re-buying the RadCat after they switched their calcium source to the eggshell - I had stopped buying it before (when it was bone meal) once I started watching my boys' phosphorus intake.  My cats do like it. 

RadCat may have said they won't raise their prices, but my local source sure did.  Perhaps I was getting a good deal before, but I was surprised the last time I got to the cash register, up at least a couple dollars per 24 oz container.  I'll buy the lamb in the future so my cats can have the protein rotation, but I can easily do turkey or chicken on my own (mixed with Alnutrin) for much cheaper, so that's a tougher sell on a regular basis.  Maybe I'll have a container in the freezer just in case. 

 

[otto]

I expect the price will go up eventually, how can it not? Everything else does, after all, but I know they don't want to lose their customers. Mazy and Queen Eva each get one ounce of Rad Cat a day, in addition to their other foods. I don't want to take that out of the rotation, even if it is difficult for me to get.

I've been paying about $12.86 for a 24 ounce container for about a year, and that is from two different stores, one is a 100 mile drive (one way) to get to and the other (new place I've only used once so far) is only 25 miles. The problem with the new place is, they don't have a freezer. So if I can't pick it up from them right when it is delivered, I can't order it. The last time it worked out okay, because my schedule had a switch one week and I ordered it for delivery that week. But most of the time I can't get out there on a Thursday. The place far away will get it in for me and store it as long as I need them to, until I can get there. But obviously the gas expense and time involved is much greater.