The badness of seafood

Hallo everyone,

In another thread I was told not to give more than 30% of seafood.
Why?

I never read anything about that fish is bad.
Can anyone enlighten me on that?

Thanks.

Ella

 

People have said there are at two things things wrong with seafood.
1. It can become addictive. Cats might not eat anything else.
2. It tends to have a high percentage of phosphorous which is bad for impaired kidneys. A lot of older cat have impaired kidneys and diabetic cats are typically old.
3. Seafood typically has a higher percentage of heavy metals such as mercury. With the shorter live of cats with respect to humans this concern is less than in humans.

 

Hyperthyroidism, etc.

I would keep it FAR less than 30%.

In addition to the issues that Larry mentioned, there is a proposed link to hyperthyroidism due to the fact that fish accumulate PBDEs - fire retardent chemicals that are known to affect the thyroid gland.

I don't feed ANY fish to my cats. However, if a cat really loves fish, I can live with a meal or two per week but my preference is none.....given how common Hyper T is in the cat.

 

There are also some kitties who develop fish allergens. Every cat is different so keep that in mind.

My cat Luna developed fish allergens with seafood flavours, as well as beef. When he wasn't allergic, I would also limit fish servings to about twice a week.

 

I think it's reasonable to use moderation in all things I'm not as much on the anti-fish wagon (boat?) as others. Liver/giblet flavors were also tied to hyperthyroidism in one study, and I think two pointed to litter use as a factor! It certainly has multifactoral causation, some of which are still unknown. Besides that, high dose fish oils are recommended for cats with arthritis and may be useful in renal disease too, so fish products certainly shouldn't be crossed off the list completely.

I think a bigger issue is that some cats seem to get stuck on fish flavors and won't try other foods.

 

Well, I'm very much screwed now, cause my cats loooooooooove fish (canned food). Other canned flavors I barely have to try.
Really, I swear to you... when I give them f.i. canned chicken or beef they look at the food, then they look at me and when they would have a middle finger they seriously would use 'm.

But, my little fur balls love to chew on some raw meat. Raw fish: no way. So... I guess I have to switch the diet (again). And introduce more and more raw meat.
And so they go in 2 weeks time from 100% dry, to 100% wet/can to a mixture of can with raw meat.

Is it okay for now to hold on to 1/3 can fish, 1/3 raw meat and 1/3 can meat in a day ?
I just bought a lot and a lot (really a lot) canned fish for my furies.
Just let them eat it all and don't restock. That's what I have in my mind...
So that way I can introduce them (and me) slowly to more and more raw.

 

Ca-to-phos ratio

You probably know that this is a unbalanced diet - unless you are paying attention to the Ca-to-phos ration of that 1/3 raw meat portion - but I do want to mention it for other readers.

I have always said that one should not make diet 'all or nothing'. If your cats really like fish, why not just mix in 10% to each meal? Sometimes we have to negotiate to keep everyone happy.

Allergies (in *some* cats, certainly not all) have also been mentioned as another issue with fish which can present as IBD.

 

No, I don't know ... :?

I thought if I give several things it would be balanced. At least better than giving only canned seafood.
I've read somewhere on catinfo.org (I think) something of making raw food; that is to say, do a bit more than just chop the meat up. But I honestly don't know where to get the minerals and other stuff, neither do I have a grinder or the place for it...
(is something that has to be discussed with husband as well).
So, I want to do better for my cats. But what to do when one can't get fully raw???

Any ideas?

 

Couple of thoughts:

1) If you want to make your own raw food, do you have a local butcher who could grind the meat for you? This way all you have to do is add the supplemental ingredients.

2) You can purchase the supplemental ingredients online and have them delivered.

3) There is a company called Feline Future ( http://www.felinefuture.com/?p=1031 ) that provides the supplemental ingredients in powdered form. All you have to do is add the meat. I don't know if they will deliver to Amsterdam, but it's worth a look and email to find out.

4) Is it possible to purchase raw food locally? A couple of the manufacturers are Nature's Variety
( http://www.naturesvariety.com/ ), Feline's Pride ( http://www.felinespride.com/aboutus/mission.aspx )
Maybe there is a European version of a raw food maker. One of our members, Monique - mmair - is in Germany and may know of someone. Maybe you could contact her and ask.

 

Feline Future has an European online storefront: http://www.feline-future.com/index.php?map=EUROPE

Feline Future is a powder of all the essential vitamins and minerals your cat needs. You follow the directions on the package and add the appropriate amount of powdered mix to the approprate amount of raw meat. The web site has lots of information about the products and how to use them and general information about feeding a raw diet, http://www.feline-future.com

Another similar product is Better In The Raw, http://www.knowbetterpetfood.com/home It's a powdered mix of vitamins and minerals that you add to raw meat. They do take international orders.

 

I could hug and kiss you all... What a great info again!
Joehoe... (sorry, that's in Dutch).

The butcher is also a very, very good idea. We have in the neighborhood a butcher that's biological, which means that he doesn't use animals that were kept in barns and such.
Super!!!

Okay.. I'm going to read and order and make my cat's happy.
Thanks a lot again and have a very nice new year!!!

 

This not how dietary balance works.

Balanced + balanced = balanced

Balanced + UNbalanced = UNbalanced

This is not necessarily true if the canned seafood is a *balanced* commercial diet.

You have to be careful to balance the calcium-to-phos ratio as mentioned in my previous post. Plain meat contains no calcium and is, therefore, UNbalanced.

If you add only around 10-15% of an UNbalanced diet to an otherwise balanced diet, that is probably not that big of a deal.

However, if you start making 1/3 of the diet UNbalanced....then the overall diet is UNbalanced.

 

Please be sure that you understand the issue of calcium-to-phos balance.

You need to ask your butcher if they are willing to grind the bones with the meat - in a proper ratio.

All too often I see people feeding terribly UNbalanced diets! I just conducted an interview with a reporter from WebMD. The subject was "Biggest Mistakes People Make When Feeding Cats".

The most common mistake, in my very strong opinion, is the feeding of dry food but another fairly common mistake is feeding an UNbalanced diet.

 

I must be truly stupid, so an example...

Let's say I go to the butcher and let him cut up, grind a whole rabbit for me. That must be okay, mustn't it?
In the wild cat's don't have all those extra supplements or can ask a rabbit whether it's ratio is okay.
So, you see, I'm still very much confused now.
How can I ever be sure that I'm giving the right ratio?

I do get though that throwing in a lot of unbalanced food makes the whole unbalanced. That I can get.
I don't know how can food in the US is labeled. But here, in the Netherlands, calcium and phos (phosphorus or ??) are never mentioned on the labels of the can food.
I'm starting to wonder how to get things right...

 

Thank you, Lisa, for explaining it a bit more.
It's a pitty that we don't have such a label like AAFCO here. That would be progress.
I guess in the meantime I just let them finish all the can food I bought for them and study all I can on the whole raw food diet. Give's me some transition time for them as well as for myself.
Thanks again for the info and patience with me...

 

some collected wisdom from the archives:

http://fdlibrary.yuku.com/topic/19

 

Thank you Anne...
I'm going to read it...

 

I take so many things for granted and....forget that some things are different in the US.

I was hoping that all canned food sold anywhere would have some statement of balance/completeness on the label....but I see that is naive of me to think.

We have some foods over here (such as Wysong All-Meat cans) that are NOT balanced (no bones...no source of calcium...) and are labeled for "supplemental feeding only".