What is Raw Cat Food?
There are many different types of cat and dog food readily available today due to new developments in the food processing methods. As a result, there is also some confusion as to what each food process means and how it relates to your pet's health. Today we are going to discuss the raw food diet.
First, I Laszlo want to establish just a few points...cats are obligatory carnivores, meaning we thrive on meat, bones and organs. We can't fully digest produce (fruits and veggies) like our canine friends do, as our digestive tracts are shorter and therefore we do not absorb all the vitamins and nutrients in that produce. Its not that they are bad for us, it's just that we don't get all the benefits.That said, Beau and Bouvier love fresh arugula and mom always gives them a few sprigs. Me, I'm not so interested in leafy greens.
And we don't need gluten and other types of carbohydrates as fillers, as I remind you in my opening statement that we are hardcore carnivores. We require high dietary protein levels because unike most animals, we use protein rather than carborhydrates as our primary energy source.
Also a lot of fillers are in pet foods today as a way of reducing the costs by putting less of the "good stuff" in there. High quality proteins cost more than those carb fillers do.
Also us cats are meant to get most of our moisture directly from our food. When we make a kill in the wild, it is a warm-blooded creature and we consume the muscle meat, the organs, bones and the blood! If it was an herbivore, we also got the contents of its stomach which supplied some greens, etc.
Please never serve us cold food as we are very temperture sensitive. Let the food rest and become 'room temperture"...adding warm water reminds us of "that kill"!
Lastly many cat parents tell mom that their cats drink a lot of water, but mom recently learned that scientists and vets have proven that cats would have to lap up water 2000 times to equal a 1/4 cup! Thats a lot of lap, lap, lapping!
So we also advocate for hydating your cat's food with a 1/4 - 1/3 of a cup of warm water mixed with some bone broth or goats milk to each meal...that's a 1/2 cup to 2/3's cup per day...start slowly and work up towards that. We 3 cats get served "chunky soup"...funny we often drink up most of the warm water before we consume all the meat!
Description of raw pet food processes without getting too scientific!
Raw food is pet food that has never been cooked or processed. It mimics our ancestrial diet and is known as a "healing diet" as it has minimal ingredients and no junk nor fillers.
One way it comes is frozen in the freezer having been quickly frozen after formulation and simply requires the meal portion to be defrosted, brought up to room-temperture and served. On a pure cost basis for its nutritional value, it is the best value out there. You can serve your cats fresh human grade whole muscle meat protein for $2.00 a day both meals! That's $1.00 per meal!
It also comes freeze-dried where after formulation, it was put into a chamber and over a very long process of 18 - 30 hours, had all the moisture evaporated out of it, but all the protein nutrients, vitamens and minierals were preserved and not denatured. This process creates a shelf-stable food that is very easy to rehydrate and serve very quickly. While it is a more costly process than the frozen, many pet parents like it because of the ease of handling it. Great to travel with and for when you forgot to take out the frozen wet food ahead of time.
The win for the cat parent with the raw food is your cat's poop will be reduced by 50% and almost no poop odor! We guarantee that this diet will eliminate most of the offensive litter box smell!! WooHoo!!
If you want to learn more about the raw food diet, we have several additional blogs in our Food and Nutrition section. Also feel free to contact us in the shop and we are happy to help you as you discover the features and benefits of the raw food diet!