Arrggh, a cat forum I am on has a thread about diets - two people have come up with the standard "low-carb is bad" and "low-carb is bad for diabetics" dogma. I respectfully disagreed and pointed them to this website, but no one is paying me any mind.

thecatsite is the best cat forum - bad diet forum.

Thanks for letting me unload.

lol Talon!

I've developed snappy retorts for those kinda comments. Here's just a couple:
"Whoa! Boy, did YOU wake up on the wrong side of the cage this morning!"
and
"Keep talking. I always yawn when I'm interested in your opinion."
and
"When you show me your PhD in nutrition, I might give your dietary judgements some consideration."

Did I mention I don't particularly care if folks like me?

PS. My dad, a type II diabetic, was able to cut his insulin dose in half and discontinue his cholesterol meds (with his Dr.'s approval, of course) after only 2 months on the fat flush plan.

Point out that cats eat low carb, naturally.

The dog training list I'm on is moderated and won't allow any conversation about anything that's not dog-training related, not even dog feeding.

there's value to that.

Do they advocate low-carb/meat only diets for cats? I feed my cat raw meat and bones.

LOL! I like that!

I understand that some people have their opinions and will stick to them - period. I suppose it frustrates me that so many people accept things passed down as "gospel" and will not even try to investigate the inconsistencies pointed out in their reasoning.

I know, I know... I am "preaching" to the choir here. At least you guys/gals understand my frustration.

It is easier to strongly disagree with someone in person - and I have on many occasions on low-carb... even converted a few. But on-line, in a non-diet forum... near impossible, and I know that truly.

I will use the line that cats eat low carb naturully. The birds eat lower carbs too - they just prefer to eat pizza crust and break (and crackers of course) all day if I let them. BTW: The birds are *NOT* happy that low carb is back in the house.

Uh huh. And how many of them are overweight while they are saying this? How much do you want to bet that if you brought up the point being overweight or eating sweets has been proven dangerous many times that they suddenly want to change the subject?

I get this crap from my family all the time, especially my mom. I've stayed at her house and supplied my own groceries and, quite frankly, eat much, much better than she, a Type II diabetic, does. If she'd eat the way I do she would be much healthier.

My SIL works for a cardiologist and keeps telling me about all of the weight I'm going to gain back as soon as I stop 'dieting.' I simply told her that was true of any diet: stick to it and you're fine; hop off and you're right back where you began - if not worse. BTW - she's gained about 50 pounds in the last year and it is NOT becoming on her but she still pushes the low fat approach. I have to take my own groceries to her house, too, because she puts sugar in everything she makes - even in the pasta (yech) salad and cole slaw.

But not if they're being fed lots of commercial cat foods!

I don't feed my cat raw (yet) but I am very careful on which foods I buy her. I get only canned with all meat/fish ingredients. I do give her dry also, but she eats very little (she's very small and underweight and isn't taking to raw very well....but we're working on it!)

I do, however, feed my dogs raw and they get pretty much no carbs....just a few treats a day. Their weights are perfect, they're healthy and look wonderful!

So many of the commercial foods, however, contain high carbs....and there's now an increase in diabetes in cats and dogs!

I had a friend who decided that commercial cat foods weren't good enough for her kitty, so she made her own catfood - for some reason she decided some all-organic rice-based concoction would be healthier, but the cat looked awful, her coat was dull and she quickly became very obese. It was a really sad thing to see!

Cats are not vegetarians. They aren't even omnivores like dogs. If cat food does not contain a very high protein content the cat will be unhealthy as your friend is discovering. Contrary to popular belief, commercial catfood (at least Purina) adheres to fairly rigid guidelines in this matter. My ex works there.

Heard this in line at the health-food store one day, about someone who put his GSD on a vegetarian diet. Dog ran away.

Cats are OBLIGATE carnivores--they don't just get sick if they don't get animal protein; they will eventually die. I can't think of any other obligate carviores off the top of my head but I'm sure there are some in the weasel family, or maybe some of those obscure animals that don't get a lot of PR in the zoo.

It's the eternal hunt for meat that makes them so different from dogs.

I researched training diets for very high-performance dogs once, and read that they can take up to 95% fat when they're really working hard. Think Iditarod.

For one thing, cats need taurine, only found in animal foods, or they lose their sight.

I feed Eukanuba, with high meat content, because my two WILL NOT eat actual meat as a regular diet. I try to bring them along with bits of meat from our dinners, and they have improved..for instance, when I have shrimp, the Norwegian Forest Cat will eat bits I put in his bowl.

How can I have carb addict cats?

The problem is that carbs are addictive, period. I had been feeding Ruggles his all-meat diet for a few months when we went on a camping trip with my parents. On that trip I gave Ruggles a high-protein canned food, but it still had grains and other carb sources in the ingredients list (I have yet to find one that doesn't have any).

Ruggles became a demon cat. He was always on the ledge where I fed him yowling for food. He would scarf down the can of food and ask for more. He stopped being the lovable, cuddly cat I'm used to. I actually got scared at the change in him. After about half of the three-weeks trip, I got some boned chicken thighs and started cutting them up and feeding them to Ruggles. In just over a day he had returned to his normal, lovable, cuddly self and only asked for food at his regular mealtimes.

For me that trip was the ultimate clincher. Whenever I think about putting Ruggles on store-bought canned food (it certainly would be easier), assuming I can find the one with the least amount of carbs, I remember how he was on that trip and say no.

BTW: On that same trip, I had a similar and more frightening experience with my dog Bandit. He actually started having diabetic seizures. Bandit's food was also changed back to meat on that trip and he stopped having seizures.

As far as converting Ruggles to a meat-only diet, I had to persevere. I just switched him. I didn't give him a choice. It took a few days, but he started eating the meat and now loves it. Cats can go for several days without food without ill-effect. Dogs, on the other hand, will get sick. Cats and dogs are very different in their physiologies. Sometimes it seems people think they're the same.

Ferrets also require complete proteins like cats.