Cat Food

Pragmatic Environmentalism has had a couple posts on the difficulty of finding cat food.

This is from September when it was time to switch her cat to adult cat food:

I’ve never thought much about cat food. As a vegetarian, I feel bad feeding my cats meat, but I know that they actually must have it (unlike dogs). Contrary to popular belief, it’s not because of the taurine and other nutrients. While those are essential, synthetic versions and additives do exist—that’s what’s added to commercial cat foods (and Red Bull). The real issue is that they have a difficult time digesting vegetables and can develop urinary tract problems without enough meat in their diet. While some people claim that you can feed your cat a perfectly healthy vegan diet, I would be very worried about making mine sick.

And this is from a few weeks ago, when the cat became ill:

Male cats (and, my vet says, long-haired male cats in particular) can develop a life-threatening urinary tract obstruction. It seems to be more about mineral balance than protein, but it’s why we’d never try to feed our cats a vegan diet.

Knowing this, I specifically chose a dry cat food that had a lot of high-quality protein (Newman’s Own). But my vet says that cats who are prone to Oliver’s condition should be on specially formulated food, preferably wet. The extra water is really important to flush out his digestive tract.

But most cats should eat dry food. There’s more info at the original posts, and I highly recommend reading them.

I don’t have a cat right now, but I wouldn’t feed one a vegan diet. Cats are carnivores, which means they need meat.

But enough about what I think. Do you have a cat? What do you feed it? Have you thought about its food, or do you just buy the first thing you see at the store?