Cats, like all animals, have nutritional and dietary requirements that are different from those of human beings. Every cat owner must be aware of certain nutritional truths about their feline companions, if they want to help their pets maintain good health. For example, it is a fact that cats, unlike dogs, cannot under any circumstances survive on a strictly vegetarian diet. There are certain vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that cats must obtain through food sources because they do not share the ability of other mammals to synthesize those substances in their bodies. The most important of these nutrients is taurine, an amino acid essential to the preservation of a cat’s vision that can only be found in meat products.
Hairballs are one common health problem that all cat owners have likely encountered at one time or another. Brushing your cat frequently is one way to help reduce the incidence of hairballs; but during the warmer months especially, so much hair is being shed so steadily that there is really no way to stay ahead of it by brushing alone. This is why it is important for cats to have grass or something else green to chew. Cats actually chew grass when outside because they cannot digest raw green vegetation well, and grass tends to cause light preventative vomiting that breaks up hairballs before they can become a serious problem.
Arthritis can affect cats as they age just as it affects human beings. Glucosamine and Chondroitin are often recommended as supplements for people suffering from the symptoms of arthritis, and in truth these nutrients are probably even more effective in cats than they are in humans. As a cat’s body ages, it sometimes loses the ability to produce glucosamine and chondroitin in amounts sufficient to promote healthy cartilage production. Introduction of these critical substances to a cat’s diet through supplements can halt and even reverse the spread of arthritis. In fact it seems to work so well that it can stimulate the feline body to begin producing more of these nutrients naturally, and it may be possible in some instances to take older cats off of glucosamine and chondroitin after the effects of the supplements have taken hold.
Commercially produced cat food is a significant source of health problems in cats. Just like their human companions, cats tend to get too much processed food in their diets, and the results are nutritional deficiencies that can seriously compromise the functioning of a cat’s normally resilient body. For example, urinary tract blockages caused by crystal formation are directly related to over reliance on commercially produced dry cat food. More inexpensive than meat-based canned cat food, dry cat food lacks moisture, which causes problems because cats tend not to drink as much water as some other animals and need to get water in their diets. Without adequate water intake, cats can suffer from blocked urinary passages, and can eventually succumb to kidney failure if the lack of water is chronic. Perhaps even more disturbingly, the cancer epidemic in cats – and dogs as well – has been linked to vitamin E shortages. There are several subtypes of vitamin E, some of which are missing in commercially prepared cat foods – including the vitamin E subtype credited with the ability to successfully combat cancer cells in the feline body.
It appears that just like their human companions, what cats need are diets made up of natural foods loaded with important nutrients that help preserve and promote outstanding biological health. In many instances, the best sources of these foods actually overlap with the foods normally consumed by humans. Fresh lean meats (lightly cooked or raw in the case of cats), finely chopped vegetables, eggs, various seeds and nuts – these are just some of the foods that are apparently quite beneficial to the health of cats. So even though it is important to remember that cats are different from human beings, and have different nutritional requirements, it turns out that the keys to good health in people and their feline housemates are not as unrelated as we might have been led to believe.