Non-vegan cat food for 30 days, week 1: Raw meat is gross

[Ari Moore]

Sid, Zora and Snow have been eating meat food for a week now, as part of our 30 day trial, and they sure love the flavor - but no health changes so far. If anything Snow's gingivitis and Sid's allergy are acting up more than ever. But we'll keep on going to see what happens!

Here's what we've learned from our first week:

1. We fed the girls organic raw chicken for the first week but are switching to (organic) bagged dry food and cans of cooked food. The raw food has to be left to thaw, which requires timing it out right or you end up with a hungry cat waiting for a frozen hockey puck to soften up. You can't just whip up a new batch of food like you can with Vegecat. Also, if they start eating the food and don't finish, you're supposed to throw away the remainder after a half hour to avoid growing bacteria; in fact, the biggest reason we're switching to cooked food is to help avoid food-borne bacteria. Washing dishes that have blood on them was not only gross but scary - we're not used to having rotting corpse bits in our house and we didn't like the idea of making ourselves or the cats or visitors sick due to insufficient caution. Think about it - do you want a cat kissing you when she just ate dead bird, not lentils? Our vet had said this would be an issue with raw food and now we're taking her advice and moving into safer territory. Another reason we're switching is because raw food is really expensive.
2. Oddly, we've learned that meat-based foods include fruits, vegetables, and sometimes grains, because the animals that cats eat in nature have plant matter in their stomachs and intestines, and cats have evolved to need that plant-based nutrition. We've also seen firsthand that taurine and many other vitamins, minerals and other additives are added to meat-based foods - and the ingredients lists are significantly longer than for vegan food.
3. While the cats love the flavor of their new food, they've also continued to love the few seitan treats we've given them (while they were waiting for raw food to thaw). Given a choice between both options, they seem to love both equally. However, they definitely prefer the raw chicken meat over Evolution canned food.
4. Raw meat food includes ground up bone, which apparently helps keep cats' teeth clean. This led us to decide to give them some kibble with their new cooked food; we're hoping that having something crunchy to eat will help clean their teeth, too. If we decide with our vet that it's safe to go back to a vegan diet after this trial (fingers crossed!!), we may start giving them a combination of wet and dry food for this reason.

I'll post again soon - I hope this diary will help others to decide what to do if their vet wants them to try such a trial. If you've done similar trials or tried half-vegan/half-meat food, or other modified diets, how did they work for you? Did it result in a permanent diet change? Did your vet appreciate your efforts? What did it do for your cats' health?

Previously:
A non-vegan cat food 30-day trial

[Eric Milano]

Best of luck with this guys!

I fed my cats raw food for a while. I used to pop in in the microwave for a few seconds to help it thaw in time if I had forgotton to leave it out. Another good way is to always leave 2 or 3 pucks in the fridge. Everytime you use them, replace them with frozen pucks. This always keeps a few ready to go. I also was ok with letting the food sit for an hour or a little more if they didn't finish it all. The companies need to cover their asses and so they say half an hour, but having worked with bacteria in labs, I was really not concerned and never had a problem. I have since switched to canned food again mostly because it seemed like the cats stopped enjoying the raw food as much plus my girlfriend was not psyched to be using the stuff!

[Ari Moore]

I don't blame her, it's pretty nasty. I used to eat animal products but I never liked handling raw meat - which is part of why I stopped eating the cooked stuff. Thanks so much for all the tips!