I have made great use out of my Choice Magazine subscription over the years, whether it's through purchasing electronics or appliances, or just the interesting tidbits of consumer information. Of late though, I have been especially pleased to see that it is incorporating more and more information on environmental (or related) issues. Not only is that information relevant for me, I find it exciting that this has been a response to subscriber demand for that information - so clearly, there are more and more (sensible!) people like me in the main stream population.
This month's magazine (June 2007) has an article on Green Power and a comparison between the best deals available according to your state. As usual, the article explains simply and concisely the difference between accredited Green Power and non-accredited renewable energy. If you aren't already a subscriber, I highly recommend it! If you haven't got a subscription though, the article is available on free access from the Choice website, here.
What I also found interesting, was an article on dog and cat nutrition which includes recipes for balanced homemade dog and cat food, written by veterinary Professor David Fraser of Sydney University. I have been making my own dog food* (pinched from Rhonda at Down To Earth) for our two dogs for a while, but as I've posted before I've been a bit paranoid about making the cat food since I had read that they need extra nutrients (thiamine, taurine, potassium and arginine I believe), need higher levels of protein and fat than dogs, they cannot process vitamin A from vegetables and are less able to process carbohydrates than dogs. So I thought I would have a go at Professor Fraser's cat food recipe (hey, if you can't trust a veterinary professor, who can you trust?), and here it is:
Homemade Cat Food (for adult cats)
250g boiled potato
600g lean meat (lightly stewed)
100g raw sheep or beef liver
20g corn oil
25g bone meal (available from most health food shops)
5g table salt
Mix all ingredients together and feed it to your cat once a day, according to it's body weight. I.e. a 2kg cat should have 100g food, a 3kg cat 140g, a 4kg cat 190g and a 5 kg cat 240g.
* Note about homemade Dog Food: the article also mentions that the Australian Veterinary Association says meats preserved with sulphur dioxide (preservative 220) have been linked to thiamine deficiencies, which can cause heart disease and blindness, if it is a large part of their diet. All the pet minces Choice tested contained preservative 220, so if you are making your own dog food as I do, make sure you are buying fresh mince from a butcher that is preservative-free!
4 comments:
Thanks for that cat food recipe, Julie. I've added it to my journal and when you've tested it, we'll try it out on Hettie. Please let us know when you make it up and feed it to your cat. I'll let you go first. LOL Like you, I've never attempted the cat recipe because of the special requirements. It looks like that amount would do Hettie about 6 days, which is good and much better than making it up every day.
I also wanted to say that I really impressed with the wide ranging topics you cover in your blog. It's always a pleasure to read it.
Hi Rhonda, thanks :-) We're going away for a few days but I'll be trying out the cat food when we get back late next week - I'll definitely let you know how it goes. My cat is pretty fussy too so if he likes it I reckon most cats will :-)
Hi there! Thanks for the fantastic catfood recipe! Its brilliant! Just wondering though, I didnt see any mention of dry food at all. Does that mean that you dont use any for your cats? It would be great if I didnt have to buy it anymore as I have never been happy with how artificial it is & how many dye's etc are in it.
Hi naturalmamma,
Sadly I am still using dry cat food as well - as much as I also hate the dyes & additives in it, my cat is old and set in his ways and a very fussy eater. He'll only eat one brand of dry food too, but there are some nice 'natural' additive-free dry foods on the market now which your cat might like?
Cheers,
Julie
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