Raw pork and fat globules

[whollycat]

Hi all,

I occasionally feed my kids raw ground pork with a calcium supplement (for cahos ratio), and a few other supplements including taurine.

I have come across this statement, almost verbatim, on a few websites:

http://www.petco.com/Content/ArticleList/Article/18/2/190/Dangerous-Foods-for-Cats.aspx

"Pork - Fat is generally beneficial to cats, but the fat globules in pork are larger than the fat globules in other meats, and can clog the small blood vessels of a cat. ..."

I wish Petco, of all the sites, would have given references to substantiate what they are saying.

I'm not one to blindly follow without peer-reviewed citations to back information up. Anyone know of any scientific or other references that justifies this claim?

Thanks!

Jules

 

[speakhandsforme]

I'm disinclined to believe it, since they also list on that page that BONES are dangerous for cats. :lol3: I mean really. Cooked bones, obviously yes. But just bones? If bones are too dangerous for cats to eat, then how on earth do ferals survive?

Seriously, without some sort of proof, I'd disregard that entirely. I feed my cats raw pork and neither of them have had a heart attack yet.

It also bugs me how they list "eggs" as dangerous, but really it's just the whites. They put that in the description, but someone just scanning the list wouldn't read that. Ditto tuna, liver, and fish. Your cat isn't going to immediately die if they eat any of those things.

Just more scaremongering from the pet food industry IMO.

 

[carolina]

I feed raw pork, and my kitties love it..... with that stated, I do trim the meat and remove the fat from it..... Good, not, advisable, or not..... I do have an obese cat, and he doesn't need all that fat. It is not only from pork though - I do that for all my meats - trim them all.

P.S.: What ground pork you feed? Hope you are talking about one made for pet food, not out of the supermarket? Or you grind at home? You know about not feeding meat bought ground at the supermarket, right?

 

[whollycat]

P.S.: What ground pork you feed? Hope you are talking about one made for pet food, not out of the supermarket? Or you grind at home? You know about not feeding meat bought ground at the supermarket, right?

Oh yes, I grind at home with my trusty Tasin. I don't by pre-ground except when I'm in a pinch and I order from Tracy at Hare-Today to give more variety.

 

[whollycat]

I'm disinclined to believe it, since they also list on that page that BONES are dangerous for cats.

I mean really. Cooked bones, obviously yes. But just bones? If bones are too dangerous for cats to eat, then how on earth do ferals survive?
Seriously, without some sort of proof, I'd disregard that entirely. I feed my cats raw pork and neither of them have had a heart attack yet.
It also bugs me how they list "eggs" as dangerous, but really it's just the whites. They put that in the description, but someone just scanning the list wouldn't read that. Ditto tuna, liver, and fish. Your cat isn't going to immediately die if they eat any of those things.
Just more scaremongering from the pet food industry IMO.

It's not just the Petco site--other sites that support raw feeding also have this listed almost verbatim to what Petco says. I'm a member of another predominately raw feeding forum, and a lot of us feed raw pork and we've had discussions about this, and none are not concerned without evidence to the contrary. I'm looking for evidence...just to be sure. So far I'm coming up empty handed.

I did find http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/skinny-on-fats, but that is human based and as we know, kitties have a different physiology than humans in a lot of respects.

I'm just looking high and low to find any cited references to determine if there is any truth to these sites saying this. Hmmm...maybe I'll contact one of them directly to see what they say.

 

 

[carolina]

IMHO the key for everything is balance - Rotation..... If you feed only untrimmed pork, yes, you will probably have a problem.... But in a rotation, I don't see how it could be a problem, really.....
Pork is only part of my diet - along with chicken, turkey, beef, venison, turkey hearts, duck hearts, Rabbit, lamb...... I mean, I am seriously not worried about the couple of meals a week I feed of trimmed pork meat I serve.......

 

[whollycat]

Thanks all for the input here. As others have suggested, I have decided that as long as I feed a variety of raw, all should be fine. I will also trim excess fat from the pork before grinding.

I would still like to see a study or other reputable reference for the darn statement regarding larger fat globules. I hate it when that happens, so I'm not giving up on my quest!

 

 

[mschauer]

Here's where someone asked several pet food manufacturers about using pork in pet foods:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2981/how-come-pet-food-never-contains-pork

The thing about the size of pork fat "globules" sounds highly unlikely to me. If there really was any such problem it wouldn't be difficult to find a credible source to confirm it. Things like that frequently get started when someone misinterpreted something they read and posted about it then someone repeated it, and someone else read that and repeated it, etc.

 

[AlyssaR]

In Anitra Fraizers "The Natural Cat" it says that almost verbatim. "Ham and pork contain fat globules so large that they clog the cat's blood vessels. Just think of your own tiniest capillary and then think what those globules must do in the capillaries and veins of a cat fifteen times smaller than yourself" I would bet this is where it came from.

 

[orange&white]

Just a quick research is showing that most people think the rumor started with the Petco article (which has been removed).

You can always find "what you want to hear" on the internet. If you want to believe pork is bad, there are articles to prove it. If you want to believe pork is good, there are articles to prove it.

I feed plenty of pork in rotation, and tend to cut calories down in my fatty mixes (chicken, pork and beef) by adding low-cal chicken gizzards instead of trying to de-fat the meat.

 

[AlyssaR]

Just a quick research is showing that most people think the rumor started with the Petco article (which has been removed).

You can always find "what you want to hear" on the internet. If you want to believe pork is bad, there are articles to prove it. If you want to believe pork is good, there are articles to prove it.

I feed plenty of pork in rotation, and tend to cut calories down in my fatty mixes (chicken, pork and beef) by adding low-cal chicken gizzards instead of trying to de-fat the meat.

The quote was from a book first published in 1981, and is worded so similarly that it seemed likely petco initially got the info from there, versus being the first to start the rumor. And yes there are articles on every side of each argument but I haven't seen any hard proof of either. Not arguing pork is bad, just thought I had seen this statement somewhere else before.

 

[orange&white]

That's interesting. This article (Can Cats Eat Raw Pork?) attributed the rumor to Petco, and said that when Petco was asked where they got that information, they refused to reply and then took down the article.

Not surprised if the info was first published in the early-80's...well before anything and everything was subject to "internet spread". Both information and misinformation used to travel a lot more slowly back in the day.

 

[Ardina]

There's clearly no understanding of physiology in that statement. And I'm speaking from an understanding of human physiology, but I doubt that cats are that much different. Regardless of size, proteins, fats, and everything else go through the digestive tract in which they are broken down. Fats, in particular, are emulsified into smaller micelles via bile secretions from the liver and then repackaged into specialized lipoproteins for transport throughout the bloodstream and lymphatic systems.

It doesn't matter what the original size of the fat globules were, since they get broken down. It would be like saying to only feed ground meat because the meat chunks are too big to fit in a cat's blood vessels.

The only way I can interpret the statement to be even slightly reasonable is that the overall quantity of fat in pork is higher, so a higher fat load may not be ideal for overweight cats.

 

[orange&white]

It doesn't matter what the original size of the fat globules were, since they get broken down. It would be like saying to only feed ground meat because the meat chunks are too big to fit in a cat's blood vessels.