What is the difference between a professionally formulated diet, and a free internet recipe”?

To formulate a complete and balanced cat food diet a formulation software, and experience in cat palatability preferences are needed. The software holds all the information about nutrients in various ingredients, AAFCO min and max guidelines for essential nutrients, calculations about caloric density, feeding amount and how to adjust the amount if you are feeding a highly active kitten or a sedentary senior cat.

I see a lot of ratio diets (80/20 or 80/10/10) on the internet. Many of them are not complete and balanced for adult cats. They lack essential vitamins or minerals, and should not be fed long term.

Many FB groups advocate and promote for so called “meal completers”. Meal completers are basically an expensive multivitamin product to make it easy for the owner. But they are not precise when it comes to overdosing or underdosing essential vitamins and minerals for your cat. Meal completers don’t take the nutritional differences between the variety of meats and organ meats into consideration.

To make up for the lack of taking nutritional nuances into consideration “rotation” is recommended. Rotation does not guarantee a complete diet for your cat, it’s like playing roulette. I prefer to not do this with my cat’s life, or my clients cat’s life.

I have ordered a few completers online, and I am very surprised to say some lack basic information about ingredients and nutrient profile. Without knowing the essential nutrient profile of the completer, it is impossible to calculate if the diet has enough, or too much of the essential vitamins and minerals for a cat.

Most meal completers don’t contain omega 3 fatty acids, they will need to be added in the form of fish oil or another source of omega 3 fatty acids.

EPA and DHA are important for a cat’s immune system. DHA is vital for neurological and visual development during pregnancy and growth.

In completers that contain some form of powdered fish oil chances are high the valuable unsaturated fatty acids oxidized and are no longer available to the animal. Unsaturated fatty acids have a high potential to oxidize, this is the reason I prefer to add liquid fish oil to homemade diets.

If you still have questions feel free to contact me for a nutrition consultation.