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| Natural Nutrition for Cats: The Path to Purr-fect Health | 
 enlarge | Author: Kymythy Schultze
Publisher: Hay House
Category: Book
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $5.42
You Save: $4.53 (46%)
New (27) Used (5) from $5.42
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 211604
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1401910726
Dewey Decimal Number: 636.8085
EAN: 9781401910723
ASIN: 1401910726
Publication Date: March 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: GREAT BUY!Brand New From US Distributor! WE ARE A 5 STAR SELLER with OVER 3,500,000 BOOKS SOLD!!! OVER ~ 600,000 FEEDBACKS ~ POSTED!!!
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Product Description
Cats rule and dogs drool! That’s right . . . cats have surpassed dogs as America’s favorite pets. If you share your heart and home with a cat, then you’ve been drawn to this book because you’re ready for the revolutionary information contained inside.
Kymythy R. Schultze’s wildly popular species-appropriate diet for cats has already improved the lives of literally thousands of feline friends and is endorsed by veterinarians worldwide. In this newly updated easy-to-understand work, Kymythy exposes the pitfalls of the pet-food industry and shares her extensive knowledge of proper nutrition so your cat can live a long, healthy, and happy life.
This book is a must-read for all cat-lovers!
*Also includes important resources for Alternative and Holistic Veterinary Associations!
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| Customer Reviews:
 A good start to thinking about holistic nutrition. . . May 3, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I found the subject intriguing and have a lot of respect for holistic approaches. The discussion of the dark side of the pet food industry was troubling and made me really rethink what I am feeding to my cat. I also respect the author's emphasis in obtaining nutrients from food (the synergistic blend of nutrients in food can't be duplicated in a lab) rather than pills and supplements. Her approach to nutrition can and should very easily transfer to how we (humans) should eat for optimal health.
Unfortunately, there is some seriously sloppy science and argumentation that occurs in the book. For one, the author states that grains should not be part of a cat's diet. Grains are cheap and make up a large part of commercial cat food. Cats are evolutionarily equipped to eat raw meat so that's what we should feed our cats. She insists that this is safe because cats survived millions of years eating raw meat without bacterial problems. The problem in this country is that our farm animals are eating things that they were not evolutionarily equipped to eat. Cows being fed grain has resulted in the evolution of acid-resistant E. coli strains. The acid-resistant E. coli strains have been an issue for human health too. Our farm chickens are also raised in very unsanitary conditions resulting in higher levels of Salmonella, making me very wary of feeding raw chicken to my cat. The author did warn against feeding our cats raw pork because it might not be safe - I'm not sure why she thinks pork is unsafe while beef and chicken are. As far as I know, the main reason why people cooked pork to well done was to kill the parasitic roundworm Trichinella spiralis. Nowadays, the risk of contracting trichinosis from eating undercooked pork is very rare. But T. spiralis is still found in wild animals. So yes, it is natural for cats to hunt and eat wild animals like rabbits. But it is also natural for cats to contract parasites from these natural diets. While the author stresses that we should try to feed our cats organic meats if budgets allow. I agree with this. But feeding our cats raw conventional meat has its potential risks. The author clearly has her own agenda and makes no mention of these potential risks. She dismisses any real discussion about these risks by giving anecdotes of all the healthy pets she and her vet have met who eat raw food diets. These anecdotes are helpful but they are not scientific.
While criticizing how the pet food industry derives its nutrient formulations from studies done on animals that are not cats, the author will make a case for why artificial dyes, benzoic acid, BHA,BHT, MSG, and citric acid are bad for cats while referencing studies that most likely were not done on cats (I'm not entirely sure because the author never footnotes any of the scientific claims she makes). I understand that it is not scientifically sound to make conclusions about cat nutrition if all the studies done were done on horses because they are two different animals, but as someone who is relatively familiar with the scientific process, many of the breakthroughs found in human nutrition were from studies done on animals that were not human. Other breakthroughs were from accidents - yes it's sad that many kitties died because the pet food industry did not realize that taurine was an essential amino acid. It's happened in the human world too. Sometimes the only way to figure out FOR SURE that something is essential for a particular animal is to do testing on that animal. But I'm sure if scientists were starving some cats of an essential nutrient to prove that it is essential, the author and others would throw a fit.
All in all, the book does a good job in starting a cultural dialogue on the issue. That's it. Hopefully it can result in more scientific inquiry on what is best for our cats. Until then, I will be on the lookout for better resources.
 Great info on pet food industry and how-to for raw diet April 28, 2008
Lots of great (scary!) info on the unregulated pet food industry in this country. If you are on the border about switching your cat to a raw food diet, this book will give you the motivation to never feed with commercial pet food again! Lots of detail on how to make your own food and what supplements to add (and why). After conventional vets could do no more for my kitty (and I think were making him worse!) I started taking him to a small-animal osteopath/homeopath. She has been using raw diets on her animals for 12 years and said she found that the animals actually do better on just whole ground up animals (including some liver, heart, gizzard and the ground bones). She did not recommend feeding extra supplements.. If all the supplement preparation in the book looks too overwhelming for you, just try the ground up animal since it is still WAY better than the commercial poisons. Just remember that you must include some taurine (heart and gizzards) and a small amount of liver and some bone for them to get a balanced diet. I think the supplement controversy comes in because cats eating whole animals would eat the stomach and everything and most likely get some vegetable matter from what their prey (mostly mice) would eat. Find a good butcher who will grind whole chickens, cornish hens or quail, rabbits, and turkey meat with added organ meats. They will most likely want to do it at the close of business just before they clean their machines since they would contaminate other meats ground afterwards.. Get the meat coarse-ground and add some small cut-up pieces if you have the time so your kitty has something to chew on.. Also,try to get meats without hormones or antibiotics since cats little bodies really aren't equipped to handle all that either.. although, raw with hormones and antibiotics is still better than commercial as well.. Have patience, if your kitty is addicted to his crunchies, you may have to put a few in the raw food to get him to start eating.. My sister and I both did the "sink or swim" philosophy with our cats (here's the food, eat it) and they both took to it pretty quickly.. and are eating with gusto now! One great benefit is that their poo gets tiny and all dried up with no smell! My kitty had HUGE stinky poo before the raw diet: guess the commercial food had so little nutrient value that it all came out in the litter box! ..Oh, and my kitty is now putting weight back on and his fur is getting thicker every day!
"Meow." Translation: Thanks, Kymythy! March 3, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book contains information that every pet owner should know about! I have a good friend whos cat was killed by eating a well known brand of cat food that was included in the pet food recall last year. This book gives you all the information you need to protect yourself and your cat from such a tragic fate. The book is a worthy follow up to Kymythy Schultze's other two books that I recommend to everyone. The No-Cook book for People and Pets is my favorite receipe book of all time, and the Natural Nutrion for Dogs and Cats book was what started me feeding a homemade diet years ago. She has done a brilliant job of updating the information in the first book and adding new and very timely information for cats and their people. As usual Ms. Schultze adds her brand of humor and charm to the subject, making it a very enjoyable read. I really enjoyed the cat pictures too. Great book!
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