i feed her ami cat kibble
I do not believe in feeding cats any kibble at all. Only canned (wet) food is acceptable to give to a cat. I got that from this website:
catinfo.org. Feeding a cat kibble (dry food) can lead to painful urinary tract obstructions which prevent a cat from being able to pee, leading to death. This is more likely to happen in a male than a female, due to males having a more narrow urinary tract. But kibble is unhealthy for females anyway, because water is the most important nutrient, and cats have evolved to get most of their water from food. They do not have a strong impulse to drink because evolution has trained them to get most of their water from the bodily fluids of their prey. So if dry kibble and a separate water dish are all that is available to them, they will live their lives in a dehydrated, unhealthy state.
Also, after finding catinfo.org about 6 years ago, and being influenced by it, I started going to the pet stores to buy the higher quality canned cat foods for my cats. These foods, such as the American brands Merrick and Wellness, have meat, not meat by-products, as the main ingredients. I believe that this meat can be used for human consumption, for purposes such as soups, so after going vegan a three years ago, I stopped buying the 'good stuff' and started buying the brands of cat food that are sold in the grocery stores.
The way it works in America is that if you want the higher quality foods, usually, you have to go to a pet supplies store, because the regular cat food that is sold in the grocery stores, such as Friskies and Fancy Feast, have meat by-products as the main ingredient, as opposed to meat.
I am operating under the principle that no animals are being slaughtered to produce this lower quality food. The animals are slaughtered to produce food for humans and leftover parts of the animals that are unfit for human consumption go into cheap cat food. One advantage of buying this food as opposed to vegan cat food is that I do not have to worry about the pH. Vegan cat food is too alkaline and if you use it you have to get urine acidifiers for your cats, or else they will get
bladder crystals and kidney problems, apparently.
When
Bond Pet Foods cultured cat food or some similar clean meat cat food comes out, I'm going to buy it, in cans. Until then, I'm going to continue to feed my cats the cheap, grocery store variety, meat by-product canned foods, unless I hear some compelling argument for why I shouldn't. Like I said, to the best of my knowledge, farm animals aren't dying specifically to produce this food. So I don't see an ethical problem there. The only reason I can see for giving vegan cat food to my cats is the "meat of unknown origin" problem. For instance, they will sometimes find trace amounts of barbiturates in cat food, and it is suspected that this is because euthanized dogs and cats from veterinarians' offices made it into the food, as well as other contaminants. Stuff like that makes a more compelling argument for making the switch to vegan cat food, but I have yet to find a reliable source of information on that problem.
Given the risks, such as the alkalinity of vegan cat food, what is your main reason for feeding it to your cat and why would you not feed her canned food made from meat by-products?
