Lisa dvm
Active Member
I have added a few things to the Making Cat Food page:
Constipation:
April, 2011 update: One of my cats, Robbie, has an anatomical abnormality in his rectum and needs to have his stools softened to facilitate defecation. I have been using guar gum (purchased from Whole Foods Market - or you can order it online) which is a soluble fiber source and it is working very well.
There are two types of fiber sources: soluble and insoluble.
Soluble fiber traps water in the stool, thereby softening it, but does not swell. It is fermented into compounds that can be helpful for colon health.
Insoluble fiber (e.g., cellulose from vegetables) also traps water but it swells - adding bulk to the stool. However, this is not what we want for cats. Cats are not designed to eat a high plant fiber diet that results in a high volume (large diameter) stool.
Vegetables contain predominantly insoluble fiber making them much less desirable for treating constipation in the cat.
I have been adding 1/8 - 1/4 of a tsp of guar gum to 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of a meal of the recipe on this site + plus an extra ~2 TBS of water. (I am not adding the guar gum to the whole batch of food since I am playing around with the amount.)
There is one drawback to using guar gum....you will no longer be able to brag that your cat's feces do not have any odor. The feces of a cat fed the recipe discussed on this webpage (without guar gum) have very little odor but guar gum is fermented into some pretty stinky gases by the bacteria in the colon.
guar gum link: http://www.amazon.com/Barry-Farm-Guar-G ... B00015UC5M
Bacon fat:
Do not remove the excess fat around the meat no matter the condition of your cat. Cats need a reasonable amount of animal fat in their diet. In fact, I have been playing around with adding bacon fat to individual meals to give my cats a variety in flavor and to also increase the fat content since one of my cats is older and a bit on the thin side.
I baked 18 ounces of the fattiest bacon I could find and it yielded 16 TBS of fat. I used a broiling pan to catch the drippings. Cook it slowly until the bacon is dry and crispy. That way, you will collect the most fat from the bacon. The dried bacon makes nice bacon bits for non-vegetarians. Or you can feed them to your cats as treats. Nitrites in cured meats is a controversial subject so I opted to purchase nitrite-free bacon from Whole Foods Market.
Constipation:
April, 2011 update: One of my cats, Robbie, has an anatomical abnormality in his rectum and needs to have his stools softened to facilitate defecation. I have been using guar gum (purchased from Whole Foods Market - or you can order it online) which is a soluble fiber source and it is working very well.
There are two types of fiber sources: soluble and insoluble.
Soluble fiber traps water in the stool, thereby softening it, but does not swell. It is fermented into compounds that can be helpful for colon health.
Insoluble fiber (e.g., cellulose from vegetables) also traps water but it swells - adding bulk to the stool. However, this is not what we want for cats. Cats are not designed to eat a high plant fiber diet that results in a high volume (large diameter) stool.
Vegetables contain predominantly insoluble fiber making them much less desirable for treating constipation in the cat.
I have been adding 1/8 - 1/4 of a tsp of guar gum to 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of a meal of the recipe on this site + plus an extra ~2 TBS of water. (I am not adding the guar gum to the whole batch of food since I am playing around with the amount.)
There is one drawback to using guar gum....you will no longer be able to brag that your cat's feces do not have any odor. The feces of a cat fed the recipe discussed on this webpage (without guar gum) have very little odor but guar gum is fermented into some pretty stinky gases by the bacteria in the colon.
guar gum link: http://www.amazon.com/Barry-Farm-Guar-G ... B00015UC5M
Bacon fat:
Do not remove the excess fat around the meat no matter the condition of your cat. Cats need a reasonable amount of animal fat in their diet. In fact, I have been playing around with adding bacon fat to individual meals to give my cats a variety in flavor and to also increase the fat content since one of my cats is older and a bit on the thin side.
I baked 18 ounces of the fattiest bacon I could find and it yielded 16 TBS of fat. I used a broiling pan to catch the drippings. Cook it slowly until the bacon is dry and crispy. That way, you will collect the most fat from the bacon. The dried bacon makes nice bacon bits for non-vegetarians. Or you can feed them to your cats as treats. Nitrites in cured meats is a controversial subject so I opted to purchase nitrite-free bacon from Whole Foods Market.
