What are some other myths about cat nutrition that you hear as a veterinarian?

The most common one is that wet food will actually cause harm to the cat's teeth or isn't good for their dental health. However, there's really no difference between your average dry food and your average canned food in terms of dental health effects. The only foods that are going to help with dental health in cats are specifically designed to help with dental health. Otherwise, most aspects of dental health are affected by genetics, so feeding canned food won't necessarily make things worse. It may not make things better, but it’s not something to worry about. Another myth related to this is that cats need to have dry food in their diet. And that's absolutely not true. Cats can live on a canned food diet only. And in some cats, that's an excellent option for maintaining weight and health.

The biggest one is many people want to feed their cats raw diets, and I don't recommend it, mainly because we can have severe bacterial contamination with things like E.coli, salmonella, and listeria that can make both you and your cat sick. Dry or canned foods provide an adequate amount of nutrition, and cats tend to love them, so I generally advise you to avoid raw food diets.

There are many myths about cat food, just like there are many myths about our nutrition. Nutrition is a science that is frequently changing as people become more interested in it for themselves and their pets. One of the myths that we need to dispel right away is that you can tell very much from a pet food label. It's not possible to do that. The only thing that you get from a pet food label is what ingredients are in there. However, I can tell you that even that ingredient list is easy to manipulate. The more important things with a cat’s diet are digestibility and bioavailability. Is what they're eating being absorbed by their body? Is it in that food in a form that can be absorbed efficiently and easily by their body? Are the nutrients that are in there what's put on the label?

They also can do something called ingredient splitting. The public has now decided there are certain things that are bad to have in pet food. So pet food companies can split that into something different, call it two different things, and so it goes down lower in the label. So it looks like there's less of it in the diet, meaning it's no longer the first ingredient or one of the first ingredients. So I know I have people who frequently email me a label and ask me if it's a good diet. And I can tell you that it's simply not possible to tell if that's a good diet from a label. There are things to look for in foods.

The World Small Animal Veterinary Association has come up with a list of things that consumers should look at to choose a diet for their pet. That's a good resource. It is not a perfect resource. There are problems with the list. However, it's the best thing that we have right now. Though, some of the things on their list are a little difficult for a person to traverse. A second organization called the Veterinary Nutrition Alliance has taken some of the questions from the first association, and they've surveyed pet food companies to try and find those answers. So those are two resources. If you are looking to try and determine what might be best for your pet, those are two resources that you can look at.

Of course, we will help guide you. But again, there are new diets on the market coming out all the time, and we can’t be well-versed in all of them. No one can be well-versed in all of them. So it will take a little bit of detective work on your part. And again, you watch your pet and their health and determine if this diet is good for your pet. But that's one of my big beefs.

Another one I'll mention quickly is the byproduct concern. Many people are very concerned when they see byproducts on the label, but I want you to know that byproducts are organ meats. These are not indigestible products like hooves and feathers and beaks and nails. These are organ meats like the spleen, liver, and kidney. These are good for our pets. So I don't want you to have the impression that byproducts are bad for pets. They're highly edible, digestible, and nutritious.

That canned food is not good for a cat. Canned food is good for enrichment and studies are showing cats do better with canned food added to their ration. At James, they used to say that dry food is better for their teeth, but most of the commercial pet foods disintegrate when any pressure is put on them. So there's doubt on whether they're benefiting the teeth unless they're prescription or certified food made for dental care. With dogs, we don't push canned food a lot, but with cats, we encourage it.

That's a really good question. One of the questions that come up quite a bit is about clients who want to feed raw food to their dogs or their cats. I don't have any problem with that whatsoever. The big problem that I have is if somebody goes to Walmart or Sam's Club or the local grocery store and they buy a chicken carcass, and they put it on the floor and let their pets have at it. That's okay from a protein standpoint, but what about all the micronutrients, vitamins and minerals, and a few carbohydrates, fiber, and fat they need? They're missing out on so many other nutrients if they get a chicken carcass or catfish that you filet that you bought at the grocery store. That's the problem. They're missing out on so many nutrients. So I want you to think about going to a website: Balance It. It is a veterinary nutritionist that runs an organized website with a lot of information about trying to feed a raw diet to a cat, or a dog, for that matter. I don't have any problems with raw diets. You just have to make sure that you're not just feeding meat. With meat, they may be getting a little bit more than just the protein, but that's not going to be suitable long term to meet the nutritional needs of any pet, dog or cat.