Article Bacteriological evaluation of commercial canine and feline raw diets
I have read and heard of many studies discussing dangers of raw food diets for cats, but less on the evidence of their impact on the health of cats.
Surely a diet closer to a cats natrual wild diet is preferrable to highly processed and cooked foods, including a high amount of vegetables and grains? If they hunt and eat live prey then why is raw feeding a problem? Is it because it it produced commercially and manufacturing practices can introduce pathogens? Also, would different companies not also have better or worse practices that contribute to a less infected product?
I would love to see more brands tested and more replicates found, and more research done on the presence of pathogenic bacteria in cats as a direct result of their diet, raw or no.
Thanks for bringing up this great and very important topic Jasmine Mueller.
Yes, you are absolutely correct that a fresh raw meat diet is the best way to feed most cats (who are obligate carnivores).
Raw feeding is a "problem" primarily because of the AVMA recommendations against it. There's no good science to support this assertion.
However there's huge amounts of "low quality" anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
In addition to the straight nutrition benefits, are the postulated ones relating to increased vitality and secondary improvement in mitochondrial function and physical energy production.
In my veterinary practice since 1985, I, and many other holistic vets, have seen *clinical* benefits in all organ systems.
As you would expect when the general vitality level is increased.
If you want to keep this discussion going I will gladly post references including my upcoming Vitality and Balance article.
Wow, that's so great to hear! All I've heard from my vets has been grief about the bacterial risks. But both of my cats have been fed mixed raw primarily and some canned food and they have been in excellent health. Apart from my one cat's dental issues since she was a kitten.
I wish I had a holistic vet near me!
I would absolutely love to see your references, your article, and any anecdotal evidence you want to share from your practice.
Hi Jasmine, regardless of what that full paper "reviews" the bottom line is that the raw diet works!
The only proviso is to be mindful if there are immunocomprised or toddlers in the house.
Tufts Veterinary Nutrition has some information on feeding raw. It has also been linked to DCM.
Perhaps but any diet can be "linked" to DCM or other diseases however a diet high in fresh taurine and carnitine make that much less likely.
RCTs by those with an agenda are only a piece of the pertinent data.
Clinical results are often more important.
AVMA is "anti" raw feeding no matter what the clinical results are.
Is this open-minded, objective science ("real" science)?
Clinical results are often more important.
I wonder Karen, which vet clin path lab you work in?
I of course take anything I read with a grain of salt, and I have yet to gain access to that review yet. It did note in it's abstract that they stated there wasn't very much literature on raw diet feeding yet, which I feel is a key factor in this controversy. More unbiased studies should be done to have good evidence that it is or is not healthy, so when people dismiss it as unhealthy for cats I take it as a personal opinion since there hasn't been much research done.
Anecdotal evidence is the majority of what we have to go on at this point.
Considering major animal food companies have a lot of profits invested in the further recommendation of feeding of dry food by veterinarians, I take it with a grain of salt. I have no interest in profit motivated recommendations. Considering dry food feeding leads to chronic dehydration and thus bladder and intestinal issues, I wonder why it is recommended so often.
DCM is caused by a lack of taurine right? Considering whole prey raw diets have very high levels of taurine I should think a raw diet would have no link to DCM. Unless you are referring to the study where a cat was found extremely malnourished after being fed exclusively chicken breast by, frankly, an imbecile. Surely we are all aware that raw food diets aren't just giving your cat raw chicken breast and considering that healthy.
In any case, i'll read what research is out there and hope for more. But since raw food is very stigmatized and taboo I expect a lot of the research to have bias, which I will take into consideration. Hopefully much more well designed research will be done so we can see what the best diet is for cats.
Hi Jeff
You were asking what lab I work in. I work in a diagnostic lab, in other words, I work in a lab were samples are sent to us from veterinary clinics across the Maritimes and we provide clinical results for the veterinarians to diagnose the issues their patients are having. We do help with running samples for researchers but this is more often for aquatic and Agricultural samples then for small animal research. So in my job I see a lot of samples come through our lab for patients being checked for DCM due to the diets they are on.
So I have no involvement with the pet food industry in my job and I am not influenced by them either.
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