How to have a healthy cat

Thursday, April 19, 2012 by: Madeleine Innocent
Tags: cats, pet health, cat food

(NaturalNews) Domestic cats are suffering with more and more health problems at earlier ages. Clearly something is profoundly wrong with the current model of feline health care. Here the main cause of this decline in health is explored, along with the action you can take to have an enormous and positive impact on your cat's quality of life.

Diet is at the heart of the majority of feline health problems

Most people who are concerned for their own health are fully appreciative of the role food plays in their health. The motto 'garbage in, garbage out' is a succinct, if somewhat crude way of getting this message across.

The same is no less true for cats. Commercial cat food is the fast food of the feline world. Commercial cat food manufacturers are corporations. Corporations are all about making as big a profit as possible. That is there bottom line. Corporations are run by many people all doing their job, making up the bigger picture. Corporations tend not to have much in the way of ethics or scruples as these get in the way of profit.

There are few laws in any country regarding pet food. Those that are in existence are almost impossible to uphold. Few people will spend the thousands in legal fees needed to pursue a lawsuit for the sake of an animal. The few who are able and willing would have a hard time proving that the brand in question caused the problem.

The ingredients of most commercial cat food

The best food will always go to the more lucrative human market. Meat is expensive. Every tiny morsel that can be turned into a profit, will be. Cats don't just get the dregs, they get what is deemed to be unsuitable for human consumption - slaughter house waste (fat, etc), road kill, euthanized animals from small laboratories, dead or diseased farm and zoo animals, even euthanized pets from veterinary clinics in some countries.

These are sent to a rendering plant where they can be left for days in any weather, before being processed. The processing itself uses very high temperatures and pressures to kill pathogens. This process also kills and alters nutrients. The euthanasia drug doesn't break down during processing.

The end product has a preservative added (normally one that is considered unfit for human consumption on toxicity grounds) to ensure it keeps indefinitely without refrigeration.

This is sold to pet food manufacturers. Because they didn't add the preservative, they can legally claim their product to have 'no added preservative.'

The pet food industry uses this product as their protein base, diluting it down with cheap carbohydrates such as fast food waste, newspaper, sawdust, ground up nut shells, and anything else cheap on the world market.

Isolated and synthetic 'nutrients' are then added to try to address the nutritional imbalance. Synthetic nutrients cannot be digested or utilized. At best they pass through your cat's body unused. At worst they end up in parts of the cat's body they have no business to be.

This sad picture may not even be the worst one. Better or more expensive commercial cat food may start off with slightly better ingredients, but the processing will be similar.

Cats are carnivores, not omnivores

Cats eat the carcass they have just killed immediately. They don't scavenge as dogs do. They are unable to digest old or decayed meat.

Cats are lone hunters and they alone are responsible for their food. This means they have adapted to have light bones and organs, so they can run fast, lightly and for sustained periods of time. This means they are unable to digest vegetable matter, which takes longer.

The best food for your cat is food you have made yourself from quality ingredients. You can find more information on this subject here. http://naturallyhealthycats.com/indexnn.html

http://naturalcathealth.com
http://www.bornfreeusa.org/facts.php?more=1&p=359
http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/did-you-know.html

About the author:
Madeleine Innocent has been a full time professional homeopath since 2000. She treats both people and animals with homeopathy and diet-for-health, both at her clinic and on-line.
Her websites and blogs are
http://twolegsandfour.com.au
http://perthhomeopath.com
http://naturalcathealth.com
http://naturaldogshealth.com