Hiss & Tell: Cat Behavior and Beyond
Episode 14: Decoding Cat Diets & Nutrition with Dr Gina Rendon and Dr Lee Nancarrow
Prepare to challenge every belief you've held about what makes your cat's diet purrfect. We're tackling common misconceptions head-on, from food allergies to the effects of preservatives and dyes. Dr. Rendon and Dr. Nancarrow help us navigate through the murky waters of hypoallergenic diets and the impact of feeding schedules on your pet's health. Plus, we're stirring up the pot with a candid debate on raw versus commercial foods – a discussion that might just redefine your cat's mealtime.
Hydration hacks, weight management wisdom, and the grain-free controversy – we cover it all, blending practical advice with the latest in feline health research. As we wrap up, we ponder the parallels between the diets of domestic cats and their wild relatives, questioning the appropriateness of our chosen pet foods while weighing the balance between economic feasibility and the ideal nutrition for our cherished companions. Join us for this purr-inducing episode that is a must-listen for every cat owner out there looking to optimize their furry friend's well-being.
Prepare to challenge every belief you've held about what makes your cat's diet purrfect. We're tackling common misconceptions head-on, from food allergies to the effects of preservatives and dyes. Dr. Rendon and Dr. Nancarrow help us navigate through the murky waters of hypoallergenic diets and the impact of feeding schedules on your pet's health. Plus, we're stirring up the pot with a candid debate on raw versus commercial foods – a discussion that might just redefine your cat's mealtime.
Hydration hacks, weight management wisdom, and the grain-free controversy – we cover it all, blending practical advice with the latest in feline health research. As we wrap up, we ponder the parallels between the diets of domestic cats and their wild relatives, questioning the appropriateness of our chosen pet foods while weighing the balance between economic feasibility and the ideal nutrition for our cherished companions. Join us for this purr-inducing episode that is a must-listen for every cat owner out there looking to optimize their furry friend's well-being.
Hi and welcome to Hiss and Tell a cat behavior and more podcast. I'm your host, christina Wilson, animal behaviorist. Today's episode is all about feline nutrition and I'll be speaking with Dr Gina Rendon and Dr Lina Nkaro. We're going to get into all different kinds of stuff different diets for different ages of cats. Can you make your cat vegetarian? Kidney diets for cats, raw diets for cats. This is going to end up being a two-part discussion because we just talked for so long, so come and join me in part one. Hi and welcome to another episode of Hiss and Tell. I'm your host, christina Wilson, cat behaviorist, and with me today is Dr Gina Rendon of Williamsburg Vets in Brooklyn, new York, and Dr Lee Nancaro of Erlanger Veterinary Hospital in Kentucky. Welcome, gina and Leigh.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:So we are going to be here talking about cat nutrition. We have a lot of questions from our listeners and I guess what we're going to do is just start off with a very general kind of intro to both of you guys. I think our listeners all know about Dr Rendon, but, dr Nankaro, do you want to tell us a little bit about your start in veterinary medicine, what led you to be so interested in nutrition and basically who you are?
Speaker 3:Sure, graduated a long time ago, practicing about 33 years now and work in northern Kentucky. My interest in nutrition didn't start till gosh. Probably maybe 15, 10 years ago, because of my own personal health issues, I started looking at my diet, changing things around and really started cutting out processed foods. And I remember being at work one day and throwing a bag of food over my shoulder and thinking this is ultra processed food and just the light bulb went off. I need to learn more about nutrition for my pets and for my patients. So that's what started my interest. I did take a six-month course on nutrition through the College of Integrative Veterinary Therapies. I think it was 2016, 17, somewhere in there. And then you know, I'm just doing my own research and trying to learn what I can to help patients.
Speaker 2:Well, what I wanted to note, which is something that we had talked about, the three of us, is that this, this topic, is such a hot topic and incredibly it's like it's, like Lee said, talking about politics, religion, sex, and so just to warn listeners that this is something that we know, that this is controversial and we know that people have very strong opinions and feelings about things, and so you know we're going to give advice based on you know, our research and our knowledge. But we certainly understand that people have very strong feelings about food. I think it's true for human food too.
Speaker 2:Like people, are very emotionally invested, and so just be ready.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it really. It really tight, like from a psych perspective. It really ties into people's emotions about their caregiving capacity and the amount that they care for their pets and, you know, obviously for themselves, and so I do think that's a big reason of why it's such a hot button hot button issue.
Speaker 2:I can't even say button. Today for some reason Hot button issue.
Speaker 1:And I will say that I got the most questions from listeners about this topic. We saw that they just kept coming and when I was like, oh, they've got to be done now, there were like 10 more Way more than for anything else. When we've done general, you know, cat health or things about pet loss and grief, which I thought was going to be really the most questions, and we did get a lot of questions about that, but this was easily two to three times the amount of questions we've ever had from listeners.
Speaker 3:So this is like you said it is a really hot topic. It's a hot topic.
Speaker 1:People are really, really interested. People have a lot of interesting ideas, a lot of interesting things that they're doing, and so, to that end, let's get right into it. So, getting back to the topic at hand, what are the? Essential nutrients that cats need in their diet, and can you explain how that's different from what is needed by other companion animals, let's say dogs?
Speaker 3:So cats are obligatory carnivores, they have to eat meat. So let's just start with protein. Proteins are made of amino acids and cats have 11 essential amino acids, meaning they have to get those amino acids from their food. They can't produce those essential amino acids by themselves. I think humans have eight or nine, depending on some genetic variance. Dogs, I think, have 10 essential amino acids and there are other variations. Cats are very unique in that they can't make vitamin B3 or niacin from tryptophan, like other species can. They can't make vitamin A from beta carotene that other species can. So those ingredients have to be in their food, and there are more.
Speaker 3:those are just a few.
Speaker 2:Right. Cats do have to be on. They have to have a meat-based protein diet, unlike dogs. Even though dogs are considered carnivores, they have somewhat become more of omnivores, just with domestication. They can be on vegetarian diets that are enriched because they can process certain amino acids. They can make certain amino acids from those vegetable protein sources, whereas cats cannot. So cats do have to have. They cannot be on a vegetarian or a vegan diet.
Speaker 1:So that's very important. Yeah, people, please do not make your cats vegetarian or vegan.
Speaker 2:Do not make your cats.
Speaker 1:I am a staunch vegetarian and live with 11 cats, none of whom are vegetarians or vegans, because they would not survive it and I just I have heard those stories from people who are like I want to make my cat a vegetarian. I'm like no. I don't even think it's a good idea for dogs frankly, but that's a whole. That's a whole other discussion, yeah, One of the.
Speaker 2:The one of the questions was specifically about taurine, which is one of those essential amino acids and I think you know taurine was a big issue when. I think it was like in the late 80s before the 80s that the commercial diets did not have enough of taurine and so cats were developing heart disease because of that it's actually dogs as well. But since the late 80s, foods have actually increased their the amount of taurine in diet, so it's not as much of an issue. So if people are concerned about taurine in their diets, it's not something that typically is a concern anymore. So just to add to that.
Speaker 1:I do think that's something that was heavily featured in a lot of the questions, and I think that is something that is out there kind of in the popular culture.
Speaker 1:knowledge is that, oh, cats need taurine. Like, if we're going to cook for our cats, we have to supplement this, and we'll get into that in a little bit about if we want to cook for our cats, what all do we need to include in there? So how do you go about assessing nutritional needs for individual cats? Let's say that you know you have a, you know age, weight, activity level, health concerns. How do you factor all of that into kind of deciding what nutritional needs for each particular cat may or may not be?
Speaker 2:Um, it's funny because the, the, the list of things, basically, is what you use to assess. You know, right. So what is their age, what is their activity level? You know how are they looking? Are they over conditioned, are they under conditioned, meaning? You know, too much weight, not enough weight, how does their coat look? And then, as you know, they kind of depend, not necessarily how they age, but you know some cats, as they do age, can develop certain health issues that may require changes in their diet, and so kidney disease, diabetes, you know, sometimes they'll have allergies and those may require some dietary changes. So it really is an entire picture type of a thing. So you have to do an assessment based on how the animal looks and then you know what their, what their lab work looks like, and then you know what they want to eat, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that actually leads me to a question that was not on on my list, surprising you guys with this, this question.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know, uh-oh.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get you this is gotcha journalism. But speaking about cat allergies and food allergies specifically, what foods do you find to be the most commonly allergy-causing foods for cats? Ie like what proteins are cats normally the most allergic to that you find?
Speaker 3:I think. Well, I mean, we were taught it's either the protein or the carbohydrate source that they're having a reaction to. I would have to say, call out chicken because it's probably the most common protein in cat food. My thoughts go beyond carbs and protein because I've been using hypoallergenic diets and my response is weak. It's so disappointing and so I've kind of gotten out of that box and have looked. Well, maybe there's a preservative or a dye or a byproduct of processing that they're having a reaction to, and I'm trying to move some of those pets to more of a fresh diet to try to avoid those ingredients. Again, my response is weak. I don't know how you feel about it, Gina, but the hypoallergenic diets, I just don't see good response with Some.
Speaker 2:I do, I would say I do agree that it's a small percentage. I think when cats have allergies, they're very different from the way dogs have allergies. But I just wanted to back up for a second and talk about proteins. What are the proteins that most often cause allergies, whatever allergens? And I think it's really important to note that a protein is a protein, is a protein, and so it really isn't necessarily that there's something special about chicken or there's something special about beef. It really is whatever an animal is exposed to the most, and so chicken is the top of the list just because that's the most common ingredient in most diets for cats. And so you know, if we were in Australia and they were only feeding kangaroo, then kangaroo would be the most common allergen.
Speaker 2:And so I think it's important to know that there's not anything magical or specific about proteins, right? Any protein and that's true for vegetable protein so the grain source of it versus the animal protein. Animals can develop allergies to either of those, and it really is about exposure, I think. You know. I think that it's not only exposure, I think it's our modern world, you know. I think that animals are exposed to so many things, so many synthetic things in the environment that I I mean. I think that probably we're seeing an increase in allergies for a lot of different reasons, but, um, but when it is a food allergy, it tends to be more often, um, a meat protein or some protein from whatever the the grain is.
Speaker 1:Um, so what are some common misconceptions about cat nutrition that you guys run into in your practices and how do you address those, If any? Maybe you have wonderful, amazing clients who have no misconceptions about nutrition.
Speaker 2:I think that the main thing that I think is really important for people to know is that, if there may be, I think sometimes people will believe that, if you know, if a cat is not eating, they'll eat when they're hungry, and and cats, I think, are one of the only creatures on earth that they would rather die than eat what they don't want to eat. They have all kinds of processes that will you know that they can get really sick if they don't eat. Unlike, you know, with humans or dogs, like dogs, if they don't eat for a few days they're going to be fine, but with cats, they really have to be eating regularly and if they don't eat, it is really important to just make sure that they're eating. So I think that that's actually a really important thing for people to know. You can't, you can't, you don't want to starve a cat because they will go into liver failure and and they will die. So I wanted to put that out there or they'll get a stomach tube.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yes, exactly, put a. Put a feeding tube in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah All right, that's, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:But I don't really Do you feel like Lee, that you hear many people having. I mean, I think we're about to hit probably the hot topic, which is raw diet. Yeah, and I think we may have different views on raw diets, but I think that's the big one is should I be feeding a raw diet versus should I be feeding a commercial or homemade?
Speaker 1:diet. I think those are the big questions that people have. Yeah, Okay Well we.
Speaker 3:One thing I would add is the misconception that the dry food helps keep teeth clean.
Speaker 1:Um.
Speaker 3:I would say 95, I don't know a lot of clients feed dry food in our clinic and yet we do dentals all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know we brush our teeth two, three times a day and our dentists still want to see us every six months. It makes sense. I don't think it's got any. The kibble is not cleaning their teeth.
Speaker 1:That's fair, I think that's a general misconception. I think it's also marketing. That's a marketing misconception. So many dry foods and so many treats. We've got some that were sent to us that are like dental treats. What's the science behind that? There's so much marketing of that of kibble, so I can't necessarily fault clients for thinking, for having that misconception, but I think it is just out there in the heavy marketing by these, these food companies, that they're trying what they can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that the research is out still on you know the best, the best dental health, and I think there are issues both with, because I know that there's the claim that raw diets are better for teeth if they have bones in them, and I think that there are some issues with that as well. But just to throw this out there, there is, there's a veterinary oral health council, which is an independent group of veterinarians that assess all of the dental treats that are on the market, um, and if you go to their website, they actually have a variety of different things. I mean, nothing is as good as brushing or doing just regular dental care. But, um, you know, there are various things that they'll um that they test to see how effective they are, and those treats are listed on that website. So, okay, cool, thank you.
Speaker 1:So what are your recommendations for transitioning a cat from one type of diet to another? So let's say you're doing dry and now you're gonna introduce wet food, or you're doing commercial and you want to introduce homemade. Do you guys have recommendations for the best way to do that? The big word is patience.
Speaker 3:A process can take months, like if I'm trying to switch a cat from dry food to canned food and they're free feeders. I first get them just eating meals, maybe four meals a day, and then I will try to introduce like I'll feed them a little less One morning, feed them the canned food. If they don't like it, then you give them the dry because, as Gina said, we can't starve the cats because they'll get hepatic lipidosis. So it's a really long process. The other version may be texture for cats.
Speaker 3:Some cats they get hooked to the crunchies and putting them on a canned food it's like no, it's like going from pretzels to soggy pretzels Yuck. So one thing you can do is is, once you get them eating meals, then starting adding a little like chicken broth to that kibble to start softening it up, and that might take a month just to transition them to a soft kibble and then try to transition them to, you know, canned food. I have this conversation with clients a lot and it's, you know, so many people say, oh, my cat will never eat canned food because they've tried it for a day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right, right Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no offense to my clients. I love my clients. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think people in general may not have an idea of how much of working with cats is going at a pace that can be often excruciating for us as humans, and I like to tell my own clients that it's really baby steps, like baby stepping with cats. You know everything from introductions to, like you said, transitioning of food. Is you have to do really not desensitization and counter conditioning, but really like just the tiniest incremental steps so that you don't go above their threshold or push them to a place where they're going to now not tolerate at all the changes that you're trying to make. And I really think for us as people, that can be so uncomfortable and we just want to like yes, get to the goal, you know even me as a behaviorist.
Speaker 1:sometimes I'm just like I don't want to do all the steps, just get there. It can be so frustrating for our psychology, but cats are just very different in their brain and we have to respect it.
Speaker 3:Appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Did you have something you wanted to add to that?
Speaker 2:No, that's exactly right. Yeah, it's going to take patience and time.
Speaker 1:Yes, Okay, can you discuss the importance of water intake in a cat's diet? And strategies for encouraging them to drink more water, especially if they're in one of these households where they primarily consume just dry food.
Speaker 2:I think we probably both agree that just dry food alone for cats is not optimal. I don't really know any vets right now that really think that that's optimal for cats, and we can get into the details of that a little bit more optimal for cats. And we can get into the details of that a little bit more. But for me I do tell every kitten owner that they really should make sure that their cats are used to the texture of canned food and that they should expect to switch over to it.
Speaker 2:I prefer canned food or wet food diets for adult cats. We can talk about kittens in a little bit and then if a cat is not taking in enough water either through canned food and usually I recommend adding a little bit of water or broth to the canned food, even even though it is moist, just to increase their water intake. But you can offer things like low sodium chicken broth as a treat.
Speaker 2:Tuna juice I went to one lecture where some smart vet talked about making tuna juice ice cube treats, where you take a blender and you put a can of water-based tuna fish with a whole thing of water in it, you blend it up and then you make little ice I know right and you make little ice cubes of tuna juice and then you can thaw those out every now and then, or whatever it is that your cat likes. You could do that with chicken, you could do that with almost anything and make a flavored broth and then thaw those out and offer that flavored broth. So I think those are good ways to get water into cats. And then, of course, fountains. A lot of cats really like to play in fountains, but that's generally what I recommend.
Speaker 2:Imagine getting one of those accidentally getting up and being tired and getting one of those tuna cubes in your coffee in the morning In your gin and tonic.
Speaker 1:Oh, even better. Yeah, you're making a nice G&T with some tuna water. Delicious. You're on to something new You're going to become a you know, cocktail creator, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, did you have anything to add, dr Nancaro?
Speaker 3:Not really. I think the fountains are a good idea. Some cats love to drink right out of the faucet. Every morning I have to leave the faucet running in the bathroom. So, if that's what they need okay, yeah. The faucet.
Speaker 1:The toilet is very popular in our house. As long as you know that you don't have any of those like toilet bowl cleaning products in the toilet bowl and your toilet bowl is cleaned relatively often. And one strategy that we've devised in our house is we realized that our cats really like to drink out of our water cups. They prefer even though they have all the fancy fountains that they could get. They have bowls everywhere. They have so many water sources. They love our cups of water the most.
Speaker 1:So we thought let's give them some decoy cups. And they drain these things multiple times a day. So we got them even a really big one of those like joke wine glasses at a thrift store, you know where you're like, oh, I'm just going to have this one glass of wine and it's like the whole bottle can fit in the thing. So we got them one of those and because it's shaped like a person glass, they think it's ours. So they drain that whole thing every day, and then a coffee mug full of water that they also think is ours.
Speaker 1:and those are their two main drinking sources and they love it because they think they're taking from us, and they have never been more hydrated so I really do recommend that as kind of some reverse psychology for people on their cats is.
Speaker 1:It really does work because they love having like a little bit of what what you're having, and I also think sometimes faucet drinkers having had cats who are faucet drinkers also do that because it's their way of getting you to stop and pay some attention to them and spend a little bit of time with them, Even if you have a fountain that is constantly circulating and giving them that circulating water. Sometimes that behavior is really about let's actually hang out.
Speaker 2:Socializing, Socializing getting you to stop and slow down because you're so busy. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think that's a great point. Yeah, I think sometimes these little behaviors are more about connection than they are about their kind of esoteric water demands. But however, you get more water into your cat is great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, but it is important. So getting your water to drink more is your water. Your cat to drink more is definitely. I always, always recommend it for every cat. They can't have too much water.
Speaker 1:Yes, how do you evaluate the quality of commercial cat food and what ingredients do you look for or avoid when recommending uh products to your clients?
Speaker 3:This may be a loaded question. There's so much I can't really, truthfully, with a lot of certainty, answer that question. That's fair. There's so much information that's conflicting I don't know what to believe. I do know for, like, when I'm trying to get people to buy canned food to avoid carrageenan Carrageenan is an ingredient, it's an emulsifier and it's a pro-inflammatory ingredient, and we don't need any more inflammation in our cats.
Speaker 1:Right or in our people.
Speaker 3:In our people right, yeah.
Speaker 2:For me, you know when I'm recommending commercial diets and you know I think we're going to talk about the various options for feeding cats I you know I go basically by the recommendations by AHA, the American Animal Hospital Association, avma. There's a group, the Wasava, and basically making sure that the manufacturer of the food is working with a veterinary nutritionist, so somebody, a boarded nutritionist that's helping with the guidelines, ideally doing their own feeding trials so that they actually have animals that they're following over time and looking at the effects of the diet, making sure that you know the manufacturing plants that they're using are plants that they own. There's a website, the Pet Veterinary Nutrition Alliance I'm sorry, I think it's just the Pet Nutrition Alliance is what it's called and it basically it's an independent group or it's like a collection, collection of groups, and they send questionnaires out to all the food manufacturers that are out there and give you a sense of like, are those standards being met? And so, um, you know, if it seems, if it's a high quality diet, then you can see on that website. You know who's helping them to formulate the diet.
Speaker 2:If they're giving them, I think there are certain ingredients that they're looking to make sure that they're meeting their recommended requirements. So you know it's not the. I think the issue is that there are so many diets on the market right now. There's like a million different diet. People come in every day with something I've never heard of, and it's just impossible as a vet to be able to evaluate every single diet. So that's one resource that I use and so that, as far as commercial diets go, that's that's how I choose.
Speaker 1:Where do you guys each land on the? Just because I know this is a huge thing in the again the popular discourse on grain-free versus not grain-free. Is that important? Does it matter to cats?
Speaker 2:What's the deal In cats. I don't think it does matter as much as with dogs In dogs I definitely recommend against grain-free.
Speaker 3:So a few years ago it came out that there's a potential link for grain-free diets and dilated cardiomyopathy. The word there that I like to highlight is potential.
Speaker 2:We still don't know.
Speaker 3:And I don't think you know. There is no nutritional need for cats for carbs. They don't have essential carbs, they don't so, and grains are carbs. Grains also are GMOs, so there's a reason, I think, to try to avoid those, particularly in some of these animals that have allergies. So I think I'm a little more controversial in that area.
Speaker 2:but those are my I don't think it's. I think for cats it's not that controversial. I think the grain they don't require carbohydrates. I think the link is that it seems to be diets that are primarily fortified with peas, lentils and chickpeas, so there's something about those If they don't have other carbohydrate sources. I think they're called like oh, I can't remember the word.
Speaker 2:No no, no, it's something like pulse grains or something like that. There's some term for it, but those seem to be implicated, but, as Lee says, there's not. I don't think anybody's really even looking at these diets anymore. The FDA put out an advisory and then they basically were like, we put out our advisory and we're not doing anything else about it. So, but again, with cats it's not as big of an issue, so okay.
Speaker 1:This is my own dumb question shoe. So, okay, this, this is my own, uh, dumb question. But what are? What are cats who like feral cats, who are not being like colony fed? What do you guys think they're? They're eating. I mean, they're obviously eating like probably mice and maybe some bugs, moths lots of bugs, yeah, rabbits um probably getting into the trash.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah I just kind of wonder sometimes why we're feeding them these and obviously they're being fed kind of byproducts of human diets, right but why are we creating diets for them that are more human-based um, protein sources and human-based when we could be giving them at least like partially? Would it be better for them to give them like insect based and like rodent diets, when those are things that we have sort of commercially available?
Speaker 2:I'm just trying to think you know, like New York, the rat population well.
Speaker 1:I don't think a cat and a. I think a rat would take out a cat every time, I think, unless you know.
Speaker 2:But I'm saying if you harvest, them if you you know you catch them and then take them to Purina or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have sometimes wondered, like why are we giving them and is this a cause of problems that they're eating these protein sources that they would never be able to take down? A cow? They would never be able to take down Even a chicken would be incredibly difficult. You know, like bobcats, don't have a great track record with chickens. I usually see our bobcats that you know live in our backyard with squirrels.
Speaker 3:You know, like it. Just I think it's coming from the waste products from the food industry on the people side, right, so they started using it.
Speaker 1:And we didn't even have animal feed until what, 50, 60 years ago, it started in like the A little more than that, maybe about 100 years ago.
Speaker 2:I always think we're in the 90s.
Speaker 1:Honestly, it is so upsetting to realize that, like oh this happens to me all the time I'm like no, I got to add 30 years to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was like the late 1800s is when the first pet foods were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, but I when the first, yeah I was gonna say yeah, well, but I think the first like really commercially available pet food, wasn't it like the 30s or the 40s? I feel like probably.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think they had mostly um, uh, food for, like pigs and things like that.
Speaker 3:I mean, they went into cat and dog food.
Speaker 2:I have to look at us, yeah I think that's that's right about the 30s, but but I think I think lee is right I think it probably was the products that were left over and you have to do something with them, and so then you make you know pet food with them.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But you know, I think you know, one of the things with these companies that have been around for a really long time is that they really did the research to establish what the nutritional guidelines are, and so, and we can certainly start talking more about, like, commercial versus non-commercial diets, and and I think this is where we may have a little bit of a divergence of opinion about things, I and. So I guess what I really want to talk about is processed foods, because you did bring up, lee, the processed foods, and and I agree, like on the human side, it is definitely a concern that there is so much processing that really strips away, you know, nutrients and all of that. I think one of the big differences that I kind of think about, though, is that processed food and on the human side, a lot of it is junk food, so there's no processed food on the human side that is trying to meet all of the essential nutrients that you know for a human every single day. So you're not going to, you know, live off of Lay's potato chips.
Speaker 2:Obviously you're not living off of I would love to live off of Oreos, because they're my favorite, but those processed excuse me, those processed foods are not, you know, they're not developed to meet all of the requirements, whereas with dog and cat foods they've been doing that research. They establish the guidelines and those diets are regulated and monitored and they should meet all of the nutritional requirements, for, you know, a dog or a cat, and so I think that's a big difference. I agree, you know, there's something a little bit creepy about the fact these foods have been processed so much, but at the same time I think economically it makes sense for a lot of people, not everybody can feed like a fresh food diet.
Speaker 2:And and also I think you know, on the cat side of things, they do introduce more vegetable ingredients into cat foods. You know carbohydrates when it's processed it actually is digestible by cats and so carbohydrates at a high, if they're processed under high temperatures they can be digested and used. You know, nutritionally used by cats they can be digested and used. You know, nutritionally used by cats for, like the environmental footprint. You know it's raising animals we all know has a huge carbon footprint, right, and so if you can reduce that to some degree by also using some vegetable sources for foods, I mean that's one argument for that. But but you know my, my preference is not for, you know, commercial dry food for cats but for canned food I'm relatively comfortable, okay.
Speaker 2:And Lee you may have, I'm sure, different opinions about this.
Speaker 3:I mean, if I had to choose between, you know, kibble versus canned food, I would pick canned food For the moisture content. They tend to be higher in protein tend. I think those and those are two really huge items that we need to look at for cat nutrition. I just get concerned about the high processing and the byproducts of that high temperature. You know produces advanced glycated end products that are pro-inflammatory and may be carcinogens. So you know, if I can take a client one step further, I would love to take them to a human grade, gently cooked frozen diet that is AFCO approved. That would be my ideal, but it's expensive.
Speaker 3:And I get that, and not everybody can afford it, so that's totally fair.
Speaker 1:So before we get more into those topics, there's a couple more questions that I want to address.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:It's just. I know that's where the conversation is moving. Yes, but what foods or supplements do you like to keep weight on cats? So for those cats that may not be obese but are actually the opposite that we need to keep weight on them, what do you like to recommend?
Speaker 2:That's a hard one.
Speaker 1:It is. That's why I'm asking it. It is a really hard one. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And whatever they'll eat, you know whatever, whatever protein that you can get them to eat is usually my, my recommendation. There are some you know formulations of foods that are made very palatable. You know, and those will definitely have, you know, additives in them. But so, like the intensive care types of diets that are out there, some cats will eat those. I think you really have to play around with it. I mean, cats are so unique, you just have to figure out what it is that they like and feed them. In some cases, you know, especially towards the end of life, when cats are really not eating, there are appetite stimulants that make a big difference and sometimes I will use those just to kind of boost their desire to eat.
Speaker 3:I would say this is more of a problem in our senior cats than the younger cats. Sure, the younger cats are overweight. Yeah, are senior cats than the younger cats Sure. Senior cats are overweight. Yeah, and it is so sad. You know, they just they, just they lose their muscle and they just they. Oh yeah, I get that question a lot and I wish I had the answer. I had one client say can I feed my cat Romano cheese Because he loves it?
Speaker 2:I'm like sure If it doesn't cause problems, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's a tough problem. I heard Dr Barges from Georgia say that he starts kittens eating everything so that they have a variety of food and have that exposure, so that later on in life, well, maybe they'll eat whatever.
Speaker 2:It's like kids, I guess. When you introduce them to a lot of things, then they're much more inclined to eat a variety of foods later on. So it's very similar.
Speaker 1:But I will say, in our house for keeping weight on, I have had really good success with that urgent care food and then I also really like to use kitten food as a way to keep weight on just because it's so high in fat and it tends to be weirdly more palatable to a lot of cats. And then another form of trickery that works really well in my house, just from a psychological perspective, is to put the food somewhere the cat thinks they're not supposed to have it, and that just speaking about Mimi, right?
Speaker 2:Mimi, who is our chronically underweight cat.
Speaker 1:Um, always will want to steal the food if she thinks she's not supposed to have it. So if she doesn't want to eat but then she thinks that I've put food for someone else somewhere and she's not meant to have it, she'll go eat that whole thing. So that can often be very helpful, um, if the cat thinks they're pulling one over on you and you actually just get them to eat a whole can of food. And they think they've really done one, they've really gotten one over on you and you're actually like.
Speaker 2:You ate a whole can of food you dummy.
Speaker 1:Tends to work well, and so then also, are there any supplements that you guys recommend for cats? I know, gina, you and I you've got me on antinol. On the green-lipped muscle powder there's lysine, like. What supplements do you guys tend to recommend for cats?
Speaker 2:Do you have any supplements that you recommend?
Speaker 3:Sorry, you know, if I'm going to send an omega-3 fatty acid, I just make sure it's marine base or krill, not a flax seed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cats and dogs don't convert vegetable fatty acids into active fatty acids, and so when people do this all the time, they put olive oil on the food, all you're doing is adding calories. That's true for both dogs and cats. So don't put olive oil, don't put flax oil, coconut oil None of that is actually bioavailable to dogs or cats, and so it has to be marine fish based in order for it to be available.
Speaker 1:That's a very good note, because I think most people don't know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, very helpful. Don't know that? Yeah yeah, all right, very helpful. Thanks for listening, as always, if you enjoyed the podcast, please go ahead and give us a rating and or a review. We'd super appreciate it. Join us next week for part two of our discussion on feline nutrition. We'll be talking all about raw food and answering your questions. You can find our social medias about raw food and answering your questions. You can find our social medias Instagram and TikTok. At Hisintel podcast For cat behavior consultations, go to catitude-adjustmentcom. Music provided by Cat Beats.