Making the Choice

Homemade can be either the raw food diet, or you can cook it. If you decide to prepare homemade foods for your cat, you'll need to understand the cats' basic nutritional needs and find a good recipe. If you're not ready to become your cats personal chef, there is much you can do to enhance the nutrition of store-bought food.

Feeding Guidlines

Feed only twice a day:
Depending on your cats preference. A large, all-you-can-eat dinner may be enough for some cats with a smaller snack in the morning. Since after a large meal they will sleep for a hours, this may work well for your sleeping patterns as well.

It's not a good idea to only feed them once a day— even though cats in the wild may eat once a day, our domesticated cats have developed different needs.

Remove food between meals:
Cats in the wild don't eat all day. Smelling food all day disrupts the digestion process and slows down metabolism. A slowed down metabolism is one cause of dandruff and obesity.

Cats who have food available all day can become finicky eaters. Give them a chance to work up an appetite!

Foods to avoid:

tuna
tomatoes
eggplants - all nightshade vegetables
onions
chocolate - contains an enzyme that is poisonous to cats
ham and pork

Take action:

Become an educated label reader:
If feeding raw food, or cooking for your cat is not possible, look for the highest quality food

Grocery store cat foods may put their money into advertising instead of high quality contents. Look for fillers such as grain meal, rendered "meat," and corn meal. The 4D meats: Dead, Dying, Diseased or Disabled are considered legal for pet food.

Consider that paying more for higher quality food can be an insurance policy against future illness and disease.

Call the pet food makers:
Ask if the meats used are "human-grade" or Grade A or B meat. Although most pet food manufacturers use the same manufacturing plant, they purchase and specify the contents. The 800 number is usually on the can.