Unusual food dilemma, opinions please?

[Diana&Tom]

Help!

After a loooooong search to find a good quality, readily available cat food here in the UK, I settled on a couple of brands that my little civvie Sapphire likes and I was happy to feed her due to good nutritional content. As luck would have it, one of the brands has been discontinued, and whilst perusing the online supplier I use for the other brand, I was alarmed to see that this one contains yucca which is poisonous/toxic to cats. Eeek! A Google search throws up all sorts of stuff from how ingesting yucca plants can cause gastric upsets to dire warnings about how lethal yucca can be in the long-term.

I emailed the manufacturer stating my concerns and got a short standard reply saying all their foods are vet-approved and that yucca is added in small amounts to aid digestion, blah blah blah but I'm not convinced. This is a top-rated brand here (Nature's Menu Country Hunter) and I would dearly like to believe them, but I just don't know what to do. I suppose tiny quantities may be all right... but if this food is given daily, maybe not such a good idea...?

I'd really appreciate opinions - what would YOU do?

 

[Tuxedo Mom]

Hi Diana

It is always worrisome when trying to decide whether an added ingredient is safe in out kitties food. I don't know much about yucca but I did find a discussion about it on Itchmo. They were one of the main sites for information when the 2007 tainted pet food crisis happened. There are two pages of discussions with links to other articles and studies, so maybe you can find some better information in order for you to make a decision.

http://itchmoforums.com/pet-food-qu...chidigera-extract-some-questions-t4302.0.html

 

[Diana&Tom]

Hi Diana

It is always worrisome when trying to decide whether an added ingredient is safe in out kitties food. I don't know much about yucca but I did find a discussion about it on Itchmo. They were one of the main sites for information when the 2007 tainted pet food crisis happened. There are two pages of discussions with links to other articles and studies, so maybe you can find some better information in order for you to make a decision.

http://itchmoforums.com/pet-food-qu...chidigera-extract-some-questions-t4302.0.html

Thanks so much Mary Ann. I did find this site last night (amongst many others!) - this one is certainly very thorough, virtually academic, in its discussion. I think it was there that I found myself nodding in agreement with a comment along the lines that manufacturers seem to put all this extra fancy stuff into pet foods for the owners' sake rather than for any real benefit to the animals. Sigh.

 

[Tuxedo Mom]

I found myself nodding in agreement with a comment along the lines that manufacturers seem to put all this extra fancy stuff into pet foods for the owners' sake rather than for any real benefit to the animals. .

This unfortunately is very true. As well holistic approaches may be good, but extrapolating possible benefits of herbal ingredients is humans is not always the same as in our furbabies. There is a whole industry that does nothing else other than develop palatability enhancers for petfood to make it more appealing to kitties/dogs. Of course as the caregiver we are happy to see our furkids eating, but whether these additives are safe is always an area of concern.

 

[Diana&Tom]

This unfortunately is very true. As well holistic approaches may be good, but extrapolating possible benefits of herbal ingredients is humans is not always the same as in our furbabies. There is a whole industry that does nothing else other than develop palatability enhancers for petfood to make it more appealing to kitties/dogs. Of course as the caregiver we are happy to see our furkids eating, but whether these additives are safe is always an area of concern.

Exactly. Like everyone else, I want to do the very very best by my furbabies but all this worry about food is starting to really upset me. I'm beginning to think that ignorance is bliss - I was quite happy (and so was Saff) with the standard supermarket stuff before I realised how low in quality it was, so began the quest for the ideal food. I don't think it exists :-(

 

[Squalliesmom]

Tough decision, but I would have to stop feeding that food. Even in minute quantities, I would not feed something with toxic ingredients. Also, I look at it from this point of view: If consumers don't put their foot down and draw the line, the pet food companies will never stop adding dubious/toxic ingredients to our pets' foods. Just my 2-cents'-worth!

 

[Diana&Tom]

Tough decision, but I would have to stop feeding that food. Even in minute quantities, I would not feed something with toxic ingredients. Also, I look at it from this point of view: If consumers don't put their foot down and draw the line, the pet food companies will never stop adding dubious/toxic ingredients to our pets' foods. Just my 2-cents'-worth!

Thanks Lucy, I tend to agree. Better to be safe than very sorry. I just wish there was firmer evidence one way or another, though - some sites say it's fine and positvely beneficial, others say it converts to cyanide on ingestion and becomes lethal! It's driving me bonkers. I really want to carry on feeding it as it's good quality protein, but I so wish it didn't have yucca (and one or two other weird things) in it because I'll be at a loss to know what to feed... my options are running out (sounds silly but that's how it feels!)

 

[Squalliesmom]

Thanks Lucy, I tend to agree. Better to be safe than very sorry. I just wish there was firmer evidence one way or another, though - some sites say it's fine and positvely beneficial, others say it converts to cyanide on ingestion and becomes lethal! It's driving me bonkers. I really want to carry on feeding it as it's good quality protein, but I so wish it didn't have yucca (and one or two other weird things) in it because I'll be at a loss to know what to feed... my options are running out (sounds silly but that's how it feels!)

I understand, all too well! It's almost impossible to find a healthy food (that they like and will eat!) that doesn't have objectionable ingredients in it. I've had to "overlook" things like carageenan, guar gums, etc, for a long time. And the ones that I find that are less objectionable are always prohibitively expensive!

 

[Diana&Tom]

Just in case anyone is interested - I've had a couple of emails from the manufacturer of this food who now tell me that yucca makes up 0.0067% of the overall ingredients... sounds such a tiny amount so *surely* can't do much harm (but then it surely wouldn't do much good either, so why bother to add it........)