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Is there anything worse than wet cat food?
By adamg on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 5:30pm
Meredith is feeding a neighbor's four cats while she's on vacation. And she has to use wet food because one of them needs medicine smushed in:
... There is something uniquely repugnant about wet cat food: The visceral smell upon opening the can, the squishy noise it makes as I mix in the powdered medicine, the slimy trace of congealed liquid left in the can that I must wash out so it can be recycled. ...
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Comments
Growing up, wet cat food
Growing up, wet cat food made me gag. Someone opened a can and a quick whiff would cause me to dry heave. Absolutely horrendous stuff.
Then my parents got a cat. And I held my breath when it was feeding time. Eventually, I was able to tolerate it. But I still think wet cat food smells toxic.
Yes
Freshly killed, partially eaten cat prey items.
Other than that, I find cat food icky, but species appropriate. I think the most noxious stuff I ever bought was a premium brand of Purina marketed around 1989-1990 or so. It was something like sardine heads in aspic, and it made my cat go all primal.
I guess cat food ain't about us.
Cat 101
I found this posting amusing, however, you obviously are not a cat person!
To ''play'' with a cat, you must engage them with the intrigue of the hunt, not just swing a fake mouse around on a string.
Also, there ARE brands of cat food available that do not have the awful stench -- actually only ONE that I know of.... But Kudos to you for recycling!
And yes, cats are true carnivores & do not benefit from having rice or veggies in their wet food. That's put in strictly for the unknowledgeable owner who wants to give their cat a ''balanced'' diet.
Have fun with the rest of the commitment!
I had a cat who couldn't eat
I had a cat who couldn't eat dry food - something about kidney issues. Canned food is stinky - get used to it. A little stink isn't the end of the world.
Did you even read the blog post?
It's called humor -- no snark required.
Anyway, most cats do fine on dry food, except those with certain medical issues; talk to your vet. Canned cat food in its zillion yummy-sounding varieties really is all about us humans -- the exception being sardine heads in aspic.
Fenwayguy, your information
Fenwayguy, your information on the feline diet and digestive system is about hundred years behind the times.
How many cats are needlessly overweight? How many have diabetes?
Start here:
http://www.catinfo.org/index.htm
An increasing number of American Veterinary Medical Association members, including board-certified veterinary internists, are now strongly recommending the feeding of canned food instead of dry kibble.
The three key negative issues associated with dry food are:
1) type of protein - too high in plant-based versus animal-based proteins
2) carbohydrate load is too high
3) water content is too low
[..]
Cats are designed to obtain most of their water with their diet since their normal prey contains approximately 70 - 75 percent water. Dry foods only contain 7-10 percent water whereas canned foods contain approximately 78 percent water. Canned foods therefore more closely approximate the natural diet of the cat and are better suited to meet the cat’s water needs.
A cat consuming a predominantly dry-food diet does drink more water than a cat consuming a canned food diet, but in the end, when water from all sources is added together (what’s in their diet plus what they drink), the cat on dry food consumes approximately half the amount of water compared with a cat eating canned foods. This is a crucial point when one considers how common kidney and bladder problems are in the cat.
Kidneys
something about kidney issues
Probably feline ketoacidosis. Cats aren't designed to deal with as much grain as an all dry food diet provides, so they may eventually become diabetic. If that happens their kidneys have to struggle to process the ketone bodies back out of their system, and eventually it can kill a cat if it isn't dealt with in a timely fashion.
Having lost a cat to this, I'll just say that if your cat's breath suddenly starts to smell chemically, a bit like model airplane glue, get the to the vet ASAP.