Raw feeding and concerns about feline nutrition is quite a recent phenomenon. As with everything 'new' ( I do know it's been out there for a while, but the awareness is starting to raise), there are a lot of positives associated with it. Just like there were with smoking in 50s :-) What are some current known cons or possible disadvantages/risks of feeding raw? Isn't it possible that this trend will be disproved in 5 years time after we've all taken it up? I'm not trying to be negative about it, I just want be aware of both the pros and cons.
susan n2010-08-22T14:36:01Z
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The main disadvantage for me is portioning the foods, freezing or refrigerating, then defrosting.
I have tried some different systems of my own devising but right now almost everything, unless it is a meat for myself that I intend to share with the cats, goes in glass canning jars.
I was inspired by a part of Lisa Pierson's site on preserving foods (not raw) - she used the same canning jars I already had a lot of. So I am using those to freeze cat food. A good feature of them is that they stand temperature extremes. If I forget to defrost food, I can put a frozen jar in a pan of hot water without worry about it cracking. And I don't have to worry about the effects of plastics at all since there aren't any.
You mention one more disadvantage in one of your other questions. That is cats' tendency to drag raw food around. When they have a big piece of something they do tend to make a mess since they are not eating it off a dish as with canned food. One of mine regularly takes her raw food behind the sofa, growling :) . Luckily it is a lightweight sofa so I can pull it out to clean easily.
Raw food for cats is not truly new though. When my mother (who is old enough to be my grandmother+) was a girl people had iceboxes, not refrigerators and freezers. And they shopped for meats a few times a week at a butcher's. My mother said they bought or got free meat scraps and offal for the cats/dogs and that is what they got with the addition of table scraps for dogs and for cats (people had outdoor cats then) whatever mice or voles they caught.
There was no commercial pet food back then - raw meat scraps, table scraps, or mice. But when it became available everyone thought it was a wonderful, modern scientific thing. Little did they know that it was the result of grain producers and slaughterhouses trying to find a way to make money from their waste products. Products probably didn't even have ingredient labels in those days.
And people didn't think smoking was terribly unhealthy either. Pregnant women were encouraged to smoke to keep their weight down....
Update: This is the page of the Lisa Pierson site I referred to:http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood
Have you ever used Eating for Energy (120 raw food diet recipes) strategy? Proceed on this site : http://www.StayEatingRaw.com/Free . This could certainly assist person!
The only con I see if if you need to have someone feed your cats when you are on vacation. Then it could be a problem - or if you need to leave your cats overnight - what will they eat?