If you can not at least accept that cats have evolved  for untold millions of years to become carnivores (means:  eaters of raw meat.)  Then you shouldn’t buy a cat from me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_feeding

My top 5 “health foods” are:

1. Raw, frozen, whole mice - can be bought on-line (non-messy).
2. Raw quail - all the bones can be eaten.
3. Raw smelt and other small fish (can be messy).
4. Goat’s milk - a great vitamin supplement and hydrator.
5. Cooked, canned pumpkin - a much better source of fiber than “cat grass” - smear it on the outside of raw meat.

Top five for being non-messy:

1. Ground chicken and turkey should only be given in small portions but is good for mixing with:  medicine, canned cooked pumpkin (as much as possible), boiled canned beets - finely chopped (a teaspoon a day).
2. Goats milk.
3. Raw egg yolks.
4. Raw whole mice.
5. Pet-food-store ground raw (which includes bone, vegetables, and intestines).

3 million reasons for giving raw:

1. It cleans their gums and teeth.
2. It contains healthy enzymes.
3. High protein, low fat.  Perrrfect for cats.
4. Eating on-the-bone raw meat is a workout in itself, it burns lots of calories.

…to 3 million.  Number of years it took for cats to evolve for the specific purrrpose of eating raw meat.  (Fat should be removed, naturally, cats’ prey is extremely low in fat and fat is very unhealthy for cats - lots of protein is good though.)

The comprehensive list:

• Raw, frozen, whole mice have to top the list as they meet 100% of a cat’s dietary needs. The fur and contents of the stomach provide fiber and vegetable matter.  The bones can all be eaten and clean teeth, strengthen jaws, promote healthy gums and provide calcium.  The organs provide vitamins and all sorts of other good stuff.  They can be bought on-line as “feeder” mice frozen, in boxes.
  

• Fresh water and salt water smelt both fresh and raw

• Dried small fish mixed with kibble.

• Raw prawns - yum.

• Raw turtle - yum.

• Raw frogs legs - yum.

• Raw rabbit - yum.

• Raw snake - yum.

• Raw duck - with the fat entirely removed, fat can make cats very sick.

• Raw quail, not expensive and the small bones are all edible.  Nothing should be left of a quail.

• Raw fish of any sort, don’t worry about them choking on the bones but they might not eat the fish unless it is fillet.  I have found fresh water fish to be  somewhat more popular than salt water.

• Raw chicken and turkey, on the bone only, I have found that they overeat ground fowl but it is good for a “sick” cat.

My first experience with raw:

I was about fourteen and my father rented a house in the ultra-rural North of New Zealand about twenty years ago.  The only access to the house - which was quite nice - all polished and varnished wood with tons of “acreage” - was by boat.

Enter: “Dexter”.

Dexter was a German Shepperdish dog of indeterminate heritage; he ate RAW.  Like, still alive raw.  He “came with the house”, and was to me, like “Super Dog”.

As a child, I had heard many stories about dogs and their affinity for raw meat.  I had heard that eating raw meat even once would make a dog more aggressive.  Or that, if a dog ever ate a chicken or lamb or other live stock raw, that the dog would become unable to stop slaughtering more of that same livestock.

Dexter, was the sweetest thing since honey - if you weren’t a possum. If you were a possum, then good ‘ol Dexter would rip you in half and eat the back half of you while the front half was still trying to crawl away.

To him, the “T-bone” of a, “T-bone, steak” was candy.  Chomp, chomp, gone.  But with me, he was gentile as a lamb, but a lot smarter.

Moving on to a more recent experience:

I had just started a domestic cat breeding program called “SeeSpots Bengal Cattery”.  I got my kitties from all over North America from different breeders, and I was all excited. Yet - they weren’t healthy.  Some were healthier than others but they tended to be very lean, almost gaunt, no matter what food I gave them.  Of course I was giving them only “cat” food. That was what I figured cats ate.  I had a lot to learn. Actually cats eat a lot of things naturally - none of them “cat food” though.

Whatever you do:  Do not feed your cat road kill or dead animals you find. They may have been poisoned or have died from an infectious disease.  If you want to feed them animals you have killed yourself, make sure you do not let them eat any of the internal organs or skin.

Feed your cat only human grade food. “Cat food” is OK as a supplement, but inadequate as a main source of sustenance.

Decide what your priorities are. Cheap?  Convenient?  Nutritious?  Not messy?  I get almost all of my food from Chinatown.  Sunrise Market on Powell St. for chicken, turkey, gizzards, liver, hearts and double-yoked eggs (most but not all of the egg white should be removed), sometimes quail.  I buy small, dried fish on Main St and mix that with kibble.  I get most of the seafood from T & T on Abbot St.  Goat’s milk, the Real Canadian Superstore.

Veterinary science is still about 100 years behind human medicine.  Even when diagnoses are possible, cures are rare.  The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR is diet.  Diet is the only thing that you have full control over and therefore is vital to giving your cat the best opportunity to live with, and overcome natural pathogens.