Raw food is not harmful to healthy cats. In fact, raw food can be beneficial – since cats are carnivorous, it means that their system is biologically designed to digest meat from their prey that they have hunted, such as rodents and birds to make some names, they consume raw.
The insight shared by the harmful raw food or pet nutritionist Anjali Kalachand for cats:
• Cats have a small digestive system, which is ideal to digest raw animals tissues quickly, preventing the growth of harmful bacteria.
• A cat’s stomach pH is very acidic, at 1-2, which is much more acidic than humans – this acid environment helps break raw meat and kill any bacteria that can otherwise raise risk for other animals.
• Cats produce digestive enzymes such as proteases and lipis that break protein and fat efficiently in food.
• Cats are also desert animals, which means they do not actually drink too much water, and therefore most moisture they need, they get from their food intake. A raw diet is rich in protein and moisture, which aligns well with the cat’s nutritional needs.
If you choose your cat -similar partner to feed a raw diet, make sure you follow the cold protocol for meat, as the cold process helps reduce the risk of parasites in raw meat and some pathogens. Generally, the freezing protocol I recommend to freeze at the minimum temperature of -20C for at least 7 days, and the sooner you freeze the post is safe.
In favor of caution, Anjali does not recommend to fed fish or pork raw, why is here:
• Raw fish contains an enzyme called thiaminez, which if fed recurrently can break an essential vitamin for cats that can lead to serious health issues.
• Also, there is a risk of parasites if food is not properly frozen
• For pork, this parasitic is a common source of tricnela spiralis, which causes trichinosis – even prolonged colds do not always guarantee that the parasite is not there and therefore is not worth the risk.
While raw feeding suits most healthy cats – to ensure that your cat is important to introduce this well slowly, follow the cold guidelines and make sure that the source of meat is of good quality.
In order to take precautions for cats compromising immunity, healthy cats can digest small amounts of pathogens and bacteria present in raw food, which can cause problems to cats compromising with immune.
