- Joined
- Aug 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10
- Purraise
- 8
I want to try making my cat's food at home. To have complete control over the ingredients, safety, freshness etc.
I had to euthanize Francis the Second on 24 July. Advanced kidney disease. Fed him the best supermarket and super premium food I could find. Can't help thinking what I was feeding him contributed to his illness and premature death. I was hoping he'd be in my life another 6 or 7 years as his namesake was.
Starting with Susan Thixton's Buyer Beware, the AAFCO Publication, FDA, the National Research Council Your cat's nutritional needs, and a host of scientific journals meant for people with credentials I don't have... as well as helpful articles here and elsewhere,
with tweaks addressing needs a cat has that a human doesn't, he's going to get human edible food because Whole Foods doesn't sell beaks, feet, intestines full of dung etc and call it meat.
Maybe AAFCO has cleaned up its act since Thixton wrote her book. But I can't rest easy with "maybe" when the goal is to augment his health as much as possible.
Bit of a rant here. It will be a departure to feed my cat from "human edible" food (a regulatory term), "human grade" is a marketing term so that there are no lingering doubts about what's really in that can.
Only way to totally remove those doubts is to make it myself.
If one is wired to sweat the details, as I am, one can go to the USDA FSIS site to see if those "human grade" claims are true. If they aren't on that list, they aren't human edible.
Have refrained from adopting another cat until I know what I'm doing and in a friend's words, have all my ducks lined up, as I usually do.
It's been 5 weeks, one day....
I had to euthanize Francis the Second on 24 July. Advanced kidney disease. Fed him the best supermarket and super premium food I could find. Can't help thinking what I was feeding him contributed to his illness and premature death. I was hoping he'd be in my life another 6 or 7 years as his namesake was.
Starting with Susan Thixton's Buyer Beware, the AAFCO Publication, FDA, the National Research Council Your cat's nutritional needs, and a host of scientific journals meant for people with credentials I don't have... as well as helpful articles here and elsewhere,
with tweaks addressing needs a cat has that a human doesn't, he's going to get human edible food because Whole Foods doesn't sell beaks, feet, intestines full of dung etc and call it meat.
Maybe AAFCO has cleaned up its act since Thixton wrote her book. But I can't rest easy with "maybe" when the goal is to augment his health as much as possible.
Bit of a rant here. It will be a departure to feed my cat from "human edible" food (a regulatory term), "human grade" is a marketing term so that there are no lingering doubts about what's really in that can.
Only way to totally remove those doubts is to make it myself.
If one is wired to sweat the details, as I am, one can go to the USDA FSIS site to see if those "human grade" claims are true. If they aren't on that list, they aren't human edible.
Have refrained from adopting another cat until I know what I'm doing and in a friend's words, have all my ducks lined up, as I usually do.
It's been 5 weeks, one day....