Why feed a raw diet?

The motivation to explore homemade cat food or feeding a raw meat diet can have different roots. For some, it is about saving money because, typically, homemade things cost less, because they eliminated the person who otherwise needs to make it for you. Making a raw meat diet at home is certainly less expensive than buying pre-made frozen pet foods or buying premium brand canned cat food, but only to the very resourceful person can turn the homemade diet into something that saves money. Those who have access to fresh meats from the own farm, meats from the place of business or employment, or meats from  hunting have the opportunity to save a lot of money.

Some turn to homemade cat foods or a raw meat diet as a last resort to stabilize or even cure an illness or ailment their cat has acquired. Homemade foods have been employed for a long time to control food sensitivities and allergies, because the ingredients of the food can be controlled. Raw meat diets have affected over-night cures for chronic cases of IBD. Cat owners are successful in getting a handle on their cat’s obesity and diabetes with the raw meat diet, and any a case of bladder infection and urinary crystals has been prevented from recurring.

A large number of people make homemade food for the family cat, because they are aware of the benefits fresh foods have to offer. They are health conscious and choose fresh, homemade foods for themselves and can not justify feeding the family cat a diet of mass-produced pressed pellets and foods from a can.

The educated cat owner is not fooled by pretty packaging and tempting advertising about the true nature of the commercial pet food industry as a profitable waste management service. Our society creates enormous amounts of food waste.  Nearly everything you buy at the grocery store today, meats, dairy, eggs, baked goods, oils, juices, soy products, etc. incur as many by-products as products to buy. This waste wasn’t created at no cost to the producer and retains considerable food value. Producers would like to see something in return for it instead of paying to have it disposed off. Today, a profitable industry deals with food by-products like slaughterhouse and fishing waste, spent dairy cows, spent laying hens, unwanted male day-old chicks, cereal waste, seed meals from pressing oil, fruit waste from pressing juice, etc. to feed livestock and pets. Pet food is by far the most profitable branch of this industry, because people have an emotional bond to their cat or dog, which is shamelessly exploited.

In my opinion, homemade cat food is a stepping stone to many good things. Consideration towards and awareness about the needs of one species, like the dietary peculiarities of our domestic cat as a true carnivore, inspires consideration towards and awareness about the needs of other species, like the animals used to raise the meats we use to make homemade cat food. Demand for healthy and ethical meats opens up farming and business opportunities for ordinary people. This, in turn, furthers a community’s independence, sustainability and self-reliance set in the healthy landscape of small scale farming – the cultural heritage of the majority of people on this planet. It enables humans to live with this planet instead of living off it. This is my personal philosophy and deeper meaning of feeding homemade cat food.

The question why to feed raw meat or meat raw is probably easier to answer: because we can. The cat does extremely well on eating meats raw and may draw a much greater benefit from ingesting meats that have not been exposed to heat. We know that nutrients in meat are altered or outright destroyed when exposed to heat. Meat in its raw state is also a source of microorganism that help to seed and maintain the essential mircobiom of the cat’s alimentary tract. Although much is talked about harmful bacteria in meat, of which there are extremely few for the cat, the beneficial bacteria (probiotics) the cat receives from raw meats are being ignored. A mounting body of evidence suggests that good health is not possible without a complex and healthy flora of microbes in the gut. These beneficial microbes that live in symbiosis with their host colonize the skin, mucus membranes, and digestive tract from the surrounding natural world and from foods.