Felines "Unique" Nutritional Needs
Unwittingly, many caring cat owners who feed vegetarian diets to their pet cats actually run the risk of causing them chronic malnutrition.
Two (2) essential amino acids:
Taurine and Arginine, are the most important amino acids which are present in meat but missing from plants.
1. Amino Acid - Taurine (L-Taurine)
This particular amino acid is vital for cats’ well-being. While other species can manufacture it in their bodies, cats cannot. L-Taurine is found
This essential amino acid is only found in foods of animal origin, such as meat, egg yolk, and fish.
Example: high amounts of taurine can also be found in the dark meat of turkey and chicken, cow’s milk.
Deficiency for felines
Taurine deficiency in a cat causes a host of metabolic and clinical problems, including feline central retinal degeneration and blindness, as the taurine is vital for a healthy retina (that part of the eye where images are formed), deafness, cardiomyopathy and heart failure (a disease where the heart muscle turns flabby, losing its ability to pump), inadequate immune response or dysfunction, poor neonatal growth, reproductive failure, and congenital defects, growth problems as well as deficiencies of the nervous system. Unlike Arginine, a taurine deficiency usually takes some time to develop. Unlike other mammals, cats do need this amino acid to be present in their organism.
If acted upon quickly, some of these conditions can be reversed.
Taurine is mainly available from animal sources with only trace amounts found in plants.
All pet food manufacturers use synthetic taurine. But once the artificial food goes through the cooking “heat process” these vital nutrients are destroyed.
Taurine is one of the most important amino acids that is present in meat but is missing from plants.
Therefore, a cat's diet must provide taurine. It also helps for the diet to be rich in sulfur-containing amino acids.
Diets low in protein (or inability to absorb or digest protein properly – malabsorption problem in the gut), and therefore sulfur-amino acids, are more likely to induce taurine deficiency. Within the last decade two diseases, dilated cardiomyopathy, and central retinal degeneration appeared in cats fed commercial diets containing insufficient taurine. Even though the label says Taurine added, once the food is heat processed any nutrition is lost over a certain temperature.
Unfortunately, cats cannot synthesize sufficient amounts of taurine from other amino acids for their body to properly function. Symptoms can take 4- 5 months or more to appear. From my experience degeneration started less time - 2.5 to 3 months)
Only some of these problems can be reversed with taurine supplementation.
Since some problems cannot be corrected, it is important to assure that the content of taurine is adequate for any feline diet.
CATS raised and living in the country or in the wild
Taurine deficiency does not appear in cats living under natural conditions, catching their own food (mice, rats), or where the animal is
eating what nature designs a carnivore to eat real meat.
CATS and Kittens raised and living who are (homeless) .. feral or semi-feral or previously owned.
However, from my own experience, caring for kittens and adults who have been surviving in cities will be depleted in minerals and amino acids.
Often dying early infant, or only getting ill in teenage years. Depleted immune system and malabsorption is a big one for them.
EXAMPLE … if a person chooses to cook the meat for their cats or kitten, it should really be done in a small amount of water so that it can all
be incorporated back into the food. .. Cooking MEAT for cats, by itself does not change the amino acid in any way. It just leeches the taurine
out from the meat into the water.
ORAL DOSING TAURINE
* this may be a good way of getting the taurine in a kitten or cat that has a malabsorption problem (runt of the litter etc) as in liquid form it will go into the bloodstream rather than as food (meat) that has to break down in the gut. Oral syringe the juice of the turkey meat or chicken twice a day and also add a tablespoon in milk drinks.
2. Amino Acid Arginine (L-Arginine).
Cats cannot synthesize the essential amino acid citrulline that is low in any food. Cats can convert arginine to citrulline, however, and that means that feline diets must contain arginine to meet the need for citrulline.
Cats fed a diet lacking arginine develop hyperammonemia and show clinical signs of illness within several hours. Ammonia accumulates
because it is not converted to urea; arginine and citrulline are needed for that conversion.
Feline diets must contain arginine. L-Arginine amino acid is an essential amino acid.
Arginine deficiency an arginine-free diet will not only fail to grow but also lose body mass at a very fast rate. Other signs are vocalization
(moaning), tetanic spasms, extended limbs with exposed claws, apnea (absence of breath) and, finally, death.
The best food sources of L-Arginine “amino acid”
You'll find the highest amount of arginine in the Turkey breast, then next down the line is Chicken, Spirulina, Dairy.
Spirulina powder
besides having “l-arginine amino acids” in Spirulina it also has the important “minerals” like.. potassium, magnesium,
zinc, calcium, manganese, selenium, iron, and phosphorus.
Other “vitamin and minerals” are found in the Thyme herb
This herb contains potent antioxidants and essential vitamins and minerals… It is rich in iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium,
manganese, vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, etc.
Thyme Tea
Ingredients
: 1 spring of organic fresh thyme, 10-oz hot water
Preparation
- Place fresh thyme in a mug and pour hot water over, allow to steep for 5 min or more. Remove thyme springs or strain. Alternatively, thyme-infused water can be made by soaking fresh thyme springs overnight in a pitcher of room temperature water and adding a tablespoon in daily meals and milk and water drinks.
This herb is also a potent anti-viral property and is essential for Hepatitis, Influenza, Feline Herpes, Cytomegalovirus, etc. If taken on a regular basis it can significantly help to reduce the viral load in the body.