Minutus

BOTH are predisposed by cat food containing vegetables or fruits -
and Wellness is notorious for adding these.
So if you want to avoid urinaryt tract issues hyou need a food with
ZERO fruit or vegetables.

Ghe most common urinary crystal isues in cats is struvite which
occurs any time the urine is above pH 6.5, and there is adequate
magnesium in the diet.
Irresponsible cat flood makers remove the magnesium, to av oid
struvite, with no regard for magnesium deficiency issues.
Others add citric or phosphoric acid to overcome the pH problems of
added fruit and veg that does not belong.

None of these cheapskate "holistic" options is healthy.
The food needs to be pH appropriate for cats to start with, and only
high quality (not by-product) and high quantity animal protein (and
some grain that is NOT gluten) can produce the correct urine pH at
5.5 to 6.0 in a healthy way.
Any crystals are CAUSED by wrong diet.
On the contrary - Wellness is a cheapskate food with lots of fruit
and veg to do harm.
There needs to be an appropriate amount of all the electrolytes.
Sodium is required under stress, and cats are especially subject to
stress. They have to be worried about their solo predator status, and
are designed to be concerned if there is anything that could risk
their security, even just in theory - it's just how the solo predator
instincts work.
SO a correct amount of salt, at the right point in the ingredients
list is actually very appropriate.

I sorta doubt anyone adds a "ton"
But beware of foods where added salt is high on the list of ingredients.
It pays to look at what is before or after the salt, if salt is
there, so as to see if it is a major or minor ingredient by volume.
Salt has nothing to do with crystals in feline urine.
It is pH as a result of wrong protein or plants in the food, that
causes feline urinary crystal issues, not salt.
Too much salt can affect blood pressure and lead to other problems
via the renin-angiotensin feedback loops.
Too little can precipitate failure to respond well to stress.

For the record, here are the ingredients of the food I find best to
use (ProPac kitten dry):
Chicken Meal, Rice Flour, Ground Yellow Corn, Chicken Fat (preserved
with mixed Tocopherols, a source of natural Vitamin E), Dried Egg
Product, Dried Beet Pulp, Fish Meal, Dried Whey, Natural Flavoring,
Brewers Dried Yeast, Yeast Culture, Salt, Potassium Chloride, DL-
Methionine Hydroxyanalogue, L-lysine, Wheat Germ Meal, Choline
Chloride, Vitamin E Supplement, D-activated Animal Sterol (source of
Vitamin D3), Taurine, Vitamin A Acetate, Niacin Supplement, D-Calcium
Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Thiamine
Mononitrate, Ascorbic Acid, Biotin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin
B6), Inositol, Folic Acid, Manganous Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Copper
Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Zinc Proteinate, Manganous
Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Magnesium Proteinate, Copper Proteinate.

You can see where the salt is listed. Personally I'd prefer to see
the potassium salt before the sodium salt, adn they are next to each
other - but the position relative to other items looks correct. It is
not in the "ton" category.

Namaste,
Irene
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

ALL commercial cat food is processed.
The discussion is about finding the BEST commercial food for cats,
for those who do not farm mouse to supply to theor cats live.
Anything short of live mouse, is of course "processed":-)

What matters is whether the end result food is nutritious after
processing or whether the processing results in a product with
nutrients lacking, or nutrients that can not stay fresh long enough
to benefit the cat. It also maters whether the processing is
acceptable taste-and-texture-wise, to cats.

So unless you feed live mouse - it is processed food and the
discussion is on value of the end product.
Refined is a term used to describe the INTENTIONAL removal of
nutrients, such as for example the production of white sugar from raw
sugar.
There is no refining of anything that goes into the production of the
catfood that I suggest as the best available one.
So we need to stick to facts not fiction and myth here.
An open mind is always a better way to learn what's of benefit but
there is no law about having one.

Namaste,
Irene
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

my preference is raw/organic which i was doing. but my
19 yr old, on her 12th life by now, stopped eating it and i
needed to find something that she would eat. wellness was
the best i could find easily. i am not happy giving it to her,
but i could do a lot worse.
i agree with you.
tanya

--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, Irene de Villiers wrote:

Irene - There is no reason to be nasty. I was quoting from a website
and there are others that state similar and others that state the
benefits. It is all in the way the information is presented (and in
who you believe). Personally, I don't believe anyone involved in the
Pet Food Industry and I may be a bit bias because of this.

However, YOUR QUOTE fails to mention the entire definition...
"Examples: Chicken meal is often used in dry cat food. The quality of
the protein will depend on the type and amount of chicken meat in the
mixture, as well as the amount of bone and connective tissue processed
with the meat. Although better than chicken by-product meal, chicken
meal is generally a lesser quality of protein source than chicken meat."

The main message behind my ENTIRE prior post is that you cannot trust
ANY pet food manufacturer and you can only verify what is in the food
if you make it yourself. Can you argue with this statement? To pull
my message apart and ignore that statement is changing my previous
post altogether...

Here are websites others might find interesting on this topic:
http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/grayarea.html
http://www.acreaturecomfort.com/truthaboutpetfood.htm
http://www.petsfortheenvironment.org/bl ... _meat_meal
http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Re ... ient_Label
http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?a ... y&show=004
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/petlabel.htm

Years ago, prior to the invention of dry pet food, dogs and cats ate
scraps off the table and the "catch of the day" -- which for a cat was
a mouse or two and a few bugs. You didn't hear so much about obesity,
diabetes, kidney disease -- nor did you have to take your kitty in for
dental cleanings. What happened??? Kibble happened. Now our beloved
pets have to endure similar medical conditions to our own and it is
all due to processed foods. Canned or dry it is still processed foods
that are poorly regulated, as seen by last year's pet recall. Now I
could go on further regarding the differences between dry and canned,
but that is not important since the topic was "the best food to feed
your cat". Neither canned nor dry fit this category at all.

If it is a comparison of canned and dry food for cats that someone is
looking for, there is ample literature out there on the benefits of
canned over dry.

Take care,
Meo

"The Greatness of a Nation and its Moral Progress
can be Judged by the Way its Animals are Treated."
~ Mahatma Gandhi

How did cats survive in days before pet food?
Christine
http://anubys.bravejournal.com/entry/15500
Dogs in days before vets and petfood became the norm!

What became of cats before vets and pet food? Not much was different, I suspect, except for the effects of repeated vaccinations.
I know of one cat in Switzerland in the 1950s -- unneutered, given home cooked food of chicken livers, oatmeal, and human vitamins, who lived to be 23 or so, with hundreds of descendants before she died. I also know another cat, country born and bred, a mostly Siamese, neutered, kept indoors, fed all her life on supermarket (yucky) kibble, who also lived a healthy life (no shots for either of them, no vet visits), and was playing and cavorting until dying in her sleep of "old age" at 23. The third cat I'm thinking of was healthy until age 7, when a change of owners occurred. The new owner gave all vaccinations annually, and that cat died of metastatic breast cancer at age 10 -- despite having been spayed as a kitten, which supposedly eliminates the risk for this.
These three anecdotal accounts don't add up to anything scientific, although they suggest that vaccinations may have a deleterious effect on long-term health, and food doesn't matter as much, perhaps, given reasonably good nutrition, as this discussion might have intimated. Neither cats nor dogs in the "old days" universally lived long, healthy lives, nor did they suffer inevitably from whatever unscientific feeding they endured.
It's been fascinating learning many more aspects of feline nutrition than I had known before -- thanks to those who have contributed from their knowledge. In the long run, though, basic real food is probably best, and individuals vary dramatically in what they need. As with the fad for keeping the environment "germ-free" for kids, over-obsessing about perfection in feeding our companion animals (or ourselves) may be minimally productive, possibly counter-productive.
Rosemary

Irene said...
Marilyn - I am sorry but I have other things to do as well and do not
feel like spending a lot of time on something so obvious as a book on
plants for cats when cats do not digest plants at all.

Marilyn replied...
I am VERY short on time this weekend, with family commitments, but wanted to respond to this...because I feel this statement shows the crux of the problem with Irene's "understanding" of research and cat food.
Irene, you talk about all the plant additives to food, yet you have no clue as to really how they work in cats! I suggested reading material that may help you...but you have no inclination to really have knowledge about in info you are spewing!:( That is what I've found every time I joined Catwell, which I why I declined your offer to join. *I* don't want incorrect info rammed down my throat! *I* don't want to be put in a position where info is being spoon fed to me.
IF you ever get the inclination to actually learn, you may want to start with Anitra Frazier's "The New Natural Cat". It's full of helpful ideas, that may give you a better idea of what to endorse that is actually GOOD for cats.
Good luck with your search for "the best.
Marilyn

i love anecdotal information. it puts 'life' to staid statistics or
raises the questions to confront them.
all my cats were fed kibble and cheap canned food for a number
of years. they never had vaccines but were neutered/spayed.
most of them died between 11-13 yrs from a variety of things.
the remaining one from that crew is now 19 but has a weakened
constitution due to the yrs of toxicity that seamed to be agg by
a grief almost 8 yrs ago. i do think bad food can be very detrimental
to cats, as with people. but will never disagree about the nagative
impact of vaccines.
tanya

Irene said...
"Ghe most common urinary crystal isues in cats is struvite"
Actually struvite and oxalate crystals are about 50/50. Oxalate crystals most often occur in cats with Persian in their background (keep in mind that shorthaired cats can also have Persian in the background) In the case of oxalate crystals, there is most often a genetic predisposition to them, which *can be* aggravated by diet, stress etc...and a whole lot of salt in the diet is one of these aggravations! "Electrolytes" is NOT the same as an over abundance of salt in the diet...then you are talking an unnecessary depletion of fluids and nutrition because of the over abundance of salt.
Marilyn

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