Thoughts On These Two Recipes For My Cats, Low Supplements.

[mschauer]

I previously fed my two kittens Dr. Piersons grinded diet. But I heard with a sufficient enough variety supplements shouldn't be necessary. What are your thoughts on the two recipes below?

Your link to the recipes failed so no one can see the recipes you are referring to.

But common sense provides the answer to the variety question in my opinion. Lets say you do feed a wide variety, or what ever you consider to be a wide variety since it is a vague specification. The theory is that if one of the ingredients is deficient in a particular nutrient one of the other ingredients will contain an excess of that nutrient and will offset the deficit in the other ingredient. But what is to that everything you feed isn't deficient in the same nutrient? That would result in the entire diet being deficient in that nutrient despite the variety.

 

[saleri]

Your link to the recipes failed so no one can see the recipes you are referring to.

But common sense provides the answer to the variety question in my opinion. Lets say you do feed a wide variety, or what ever you consider to be a wide variety since it is a vague specification. The theory is that if one of the ingredients is deficient in a particular nutrient one of the other ingredients will contain an excess of that nutrient and will offset the deficit in the other ingredient. But what is to that everything you feed isn't deficient in the same nutrient? That would result in the entire diet being deficient in that nutrient despite the variety.

I suppose that's a fair point. So do you feed raw to your cats?

Curious since would you then say that the Prey Model Diet is then flawed overall? Just curious since it seems like certain raw groups use eggs and sardines as the only supplement and none of the supplements Dr. Pierson uses.

 

[basscat]

I can't see the recipe either. So, this may be completely unrelated.
I've just seen MANY recipes and suggestions that seem to derive their basis on "prey" or what your cat needs based on what it would eat in the wild.
IE: This is what your cat NEEDS because this is a cats natural diet.
Yet, never a mention of bug content, leaves, rocks, or week old roadkill...
I'd bet money that somewhere, there's a study, done by scientists in Helsinki, Sweden, or Germany that says "Twinkies are actually good for you".

 

[mschauer]

Yes I do feed my cats a raw diet. I'm not rabidly opposed to commercial processed foods but I do think there are significant advantages to a home made cat diet if done properly.

How to do it properly though is a highly contentious topic. The purpose of any diet is to provide the nutrients and calories the animal consuming it requires for optimal health. But there are tremendous gaps in our knowledge of which and how much nutrients are needed and what form they must be in for the body to be able to make best use of them.

My approach is to make use of as much known information as possible. That information is succinctly provided by the AAFCO nutrient requirement guidelines. I don't consider the guidelines to be perfect by any means. But for me they are a great starting point. So, my goal is for the raw food I feed my cats to at least come close to meeting those requirements. For me it is an easy way to reassure myself that I'm not missing something that is known to be important.

I frequently get jumped on when I talk about the AAFCO nutrient recommendations because many people are convinced they aren't necessary to follow. There are many other methods of creating a home made diet. At least some of which have been successfully used for the life span of cats with no obvious detrimental affects. I don't criticise those methods. I have just chosen a different approach.

 

[saleri]

Okay sorry about the images. I uploaded the file. The one with Supplements is the recipe from Dr. Pierson, the two without are the two without supplements. All 80/10/10.

 

[saleri]

Yes I do feed my cats a raw diet. I'm not rabidly opposed to commercial processed foods but I do think there are significant advantages to a home made cat diet if done properly.

How to do it properly though is a highly contentious topic. The purpose of any diet is to provide the nutrients and calories the animal consuming it requires for optimal health. But there are tremendous gaps in our knowledge of which and how much nutrients are needed and what form they must be in for the body to be able to make best use of them.

My approach is to make use of as much known information as possible. That information is succinctly provided by the AAFCO nutrient requirement guidelines. I don't consider the guidelines to be perfect by any means. But for me they are a great starting point. So, my goal is for the raw food I feed my cats to at least come close to meeting those requirements. For me it is an easy way to reassure myself that I'm not missing something that is known to be important.

I frequently get jumped on when I talk about the AAFCO nutrient recommendations because many people are convinced they aren't necessary to follow. There are many other methods of creating a home made diet. At least some of which have been successfully used for the life span of cats with no obvious detrimental affects. I don't criticise those methods. I have just chosen a different approach.

I just posted pictures of my recipes if you're curious.

So what's the recipe that you feed your cats?

 

[mschauer]

Here's a link to some recipes I've shared with others. Included are analyses of the recipes compared against AAFCO recommendations.

Raw Recipes - Google Drive

 

[saleri]

Here's a link to some recipes I've shared with others. Included are analyses of the recipes compared against AAFCO recommendations.

Raw Recipes - Google Drive

Okay looks pretty similar to Dr. Pierson's recipe. I'm just curious what the effect would be if I added Vitamin E, Vitamin B, Morton Lite to the two supposed balance diets, and they potentially overdoses on it? Cause those are the only three supplements I wouldn't have essentially.

 

[mschauer]

I'm at work right now. I'll post again when I get home.

 

[mschauer]

Okay looks pretty similar to Dr. Pierson's recipe. I'm just curious what the effect would be if I added Vitamin E, Vitamin B, Morton Lite to the two supposed balance diets, and they potentially overdoses on it? Cause those are the only three supplements I wouldn't have essentially.

Toxic levels of nutrients is actually pretty difficult to achieve. The toxic levels are generally very high, well above what would naturally occur in the meats and organs we use and supplements are never added in an amount that would come any where near toxic levels.

Note that the 2 recipes you refer to already call for adding Morton Lite salt so you wouldn't want to add more. Any home made diet will be low in iodine unless it contains either thyroid gland (where most iodine is stored in the body) or an iodine supplement like Morton's Lite salt.

An analysis of the first recipe is below. Note the vitamin E level is lower than AAFCO recommended. The USDA database (where the nutrient data came from) doesn't have how much vit E is in pork kidney so the recipe vit E likely isn't quite as low as the analysis shows. The database does have vit E levels for beef and lamb kidney and those values are not nearly enough to meet the vit E minimum requirement.

 

[saleri]

Toxic levels of nutrients is actually pretty difficult to achieve. The toxic levels are generally very high, well above what would naturally occur in the meats and organs we use and supplements are never added in an amount that would come any where near toxic levels.

Note that the 2 recipes you refer to already call for adding Morton Lite salt so you wouldn't want to add more. Any home made diet will be low in iodine unless it contains either thyroid gland (where most iodine is stored in the body) or an iodine supplement like Morton's Lite salt.

An analysis of the first recipe is below. Note the vitamin E level is lower than AAFCO recommended. The USDA database (where the nutrient data came from) doesn't have how much vit E is in pork kidney so the recipe vit E likely isn't quite as low as the analysis shows. The database does have vit E levels for beef and lamb kidney and those values are not nearly enough to meet the vit E minimum requirement.

Interesting thanks for the post! Will take a look at vitamin E since vitamin E and B were the only two supplements that I really would have needed to be added, since I'll probably just add some taurine regardless since it's pretty hard to overdose on that.

Did you not add the sardines into it?

Also I made a mistake the first two recipes I wouldn't add morton lite at all because of the sardines.

 

[mschauer]

Sorry, missed the sardines. I've corrected it.

 

[saleri]

Sorry, missed the sardines. I've corrected it.

Oh okay, I may add a tiny bit more vitamin E, I'll take a look at it. Although I do wonder since the sardines are in a tomato sauce how much vitamin E that adds. Probably a tiny amount.

Other thing that seems super low is Iron and much more Manganese, any thoughts on that?

 

[mschauer]

If you look at my recipes you'll see I add manganese. Only a tiny amount, 10 mg, but only a tiny amount is needed in the diet. I know I read that manganese plays an important role in health but off the top of my head I can't tell you the details. I'm convinced it is a good addition to my home made food.

Iron is one I have a tough time with. Our recipes frequently come up low in it, I think because there is so much iron in the blood and most of the blood our feed animals have is lost during processing.

I don't like using an iron supplement because I know they can cause stomach upset in humans. Of course that doesn't mean they do in cats but I can't help thinking maybe they do.

Liver and heart both contain large amounts of iron so I add more of them than most people probably do. My chicken food still comes up a little low in iron but my pork has more than enough. All told my cats diet probably falls a bit short of AAFCO recommendation but I call it good enough.

 

[saleri]

If you look at my recipes you'll see I add manganese. Only a tiny amount, 10 mg, but only a tiny amount is needed in the diet. I know I read that manganese plays an important role in health but off the top of my head I can't tell you the details. I'm convinced it is a good addition to my home made food.

Iron is one I have a tough time with. Our recipes frequently come up low in it, I think because there is so much iron in the blood and most of the blood our feed animals have is lost during processing.

I don't like using an iron supplement because I know they can cause stomach upset in humans. Of course that doesn't mean they do in cats but I can't help thinking maybe they do.

Liver and heart both contain large amounts of iron so I add more of them than most people probably do. My chicken food still comes up a little low in iron but my pork has more than enough. All told my cats diet probably falls a bit short of AAFCO recommendation but I call it good enough.

Okay got it, thanks!