danoodlez

Cool AMA! Thank you for stepping up :) My question would be: how much training did your education provide on nutrition, specifically for cats? And was this education in any way shape or form influenced/sponsored/provided by pet food manufacturers? The reason i ask is because i only recently after an expensive surgery for struvite crystals learned how horribly inappropriate dry food/kibble is compared to the biological needs of a cat. They should eat meat and meat only, but we literally feed them 0% meat. Instead we give them cheap plant based stuff with just enough added essential amino acids for them not to (hopefully) die on the diet. There are plenty vets who warn against dry food, but still so many "normal" vets seem oblivious or comfortable recommending dry food/kibble- when there are no benefits yet so many dangerous downfalls. Dry kibble is literally like trying to modify old worn rubber-tires with just enough nutrition to sustain a human nutritionally... a pointless exercise yet we do it on our cats.

Thanks! So ive done a lot of personal digging, and as an academic i accept that the truth is more elusive than one might think. But my current view is that kibble is cheaper to produce and therefor more arguments, in way of scientific research, is produced towards defending these sub-par diets to make them seem better than they are. As you mention, there is little funding for the expensive-to-manufacture, bio-appropriate meat based stuff, but plenty of "oh we found X positive correlation with Y-kibble specifically while ignoring all the other drawbacks of the product". Professionally run Zoo's for instance with properly trained biologists will feed raw meat with vitamine powder to all their felines. Personally I dont want the hassle nor more importantly the risk of making my own food (potentially incorrectly) so i buy canned food that contains 98% meat(mixed but specific ingredients, no "meals" or anything) and 2% vitamines. The fancier the nutritional breakdown gets, the more crap is in it (and the litterbox later). I also add kelp (Ascophyllum Nodosum) to specifically help with plaque. As for kibble and dental care, from the research ive seen, kibble has a virtually negligible effect once you break down the numbers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4494333/ but kelp on the other hand has a "significant effect": https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25511384/