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

Formulating a complete and balanced cat food diet requires software and experience in cat palatability preferences. 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 feed a highly active kitten or a sedentary senior cat.

I see many 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 so-called “meal completers.” Meal completers are an expensive multivitamin product that makes it easy for the owner. However, they are not precise when overdosing or underdosing essential vitamins and minerals for your cat. Meal completers don’t consider the nutritional differences between the variety of meats and organ meats.

To compensate for the lack of consideration of nutritional nuances, “rotation” is recommended. Rotation does not guarantee a complete diet for your cat; it’s like playing roulette.

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

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

EPA and DHA are essential 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, the valuable unsaturated fatty acids are likely to have oxidized and are no longer available to the animal. Since unsaturated fatty acids have a high potential to oxidize, I prefer to add liquid fish oil to homemade diets.

If you still have questions, contact me for a nutrition consultation.