1. My cat won’t eat this food; what should I do?
2. Should I switch my cat to this food "cold turkey"?
3. How about if I soak the dry food in water until it’s completely soft to change the texture and then add raw to that to trick my cat into eating the new food?
4. My cat is addicted to dry food and refuses to eat anything else. What do I do?
5. I have a diabetic cat and am wondering if this diet would work for him?

1. How much of the raw diet should I feed my cat?
2. How many times a day should I feed my adult cat?
3. I have to work long hours and my cat could go up to 12 hours without food. Should I just leave some dry food out?

1. Should I be concerned that my cat is drinking much less water since switching to the raw diet?
2. My cat’s stools are much smaller and lighter-colored than before.
3. Should I be concerned about bacteria?

1. My cat won’t eat this food; what should I do?
   
   There are so many different factors involved in how quickly and enthusiastically a cat will accept a new diet. If you’re still leaving dry food out at all and allowing her to “free-feed” off that, then you’re not letting hunger work in your favor. You're not doing your cat any favors by feeding dry food. Sometimes it’s best to switch your cat first to a quality canned food, and then start sneaking very small amounts of the raw food into that food and slowly increasing the amount over time until the transition is complete. Get the dry food OUT of your house. Your cat can probably smell it and will hold out stubbornly if she knows it’s there.
   
   Devoted kibble addicts often have a difficult time accepting the new food, so you have to employ some tough love, and gather your own patience while honing your feline manipulation skills to get your cat eating healthier food.
   
   Don’t be in too much of a rush to get your cat switched over. I hear an awful lot of stories of people who give up when their cats don’t instantly take to the new food. Remember -- the idea is to make the transition. Not to make it overnight. Proceed steadily in the right direction, slipping small amounts of the new food in with canned. Don’t rush things. Other people with more cats or older animals took two months or even longer to fully get their crew on all raw. Take the time you need and don't hurry.
   
   
2. Should I switch my cat to this food "cold turkey?
   
   That's a tough one to deal with in a few sentences that give a one-size-fits-all answer. Frankly, the speed at which you should switch your cat will depend a great deal on your cat's age, temperament, health, and the diet she has been eating up to this point. If your cat has only eaten dry food previously, I strongly urge you to ease her off the dry food and get her eating regular meals of a quality canned food slowly first. The next step is to sneak in small amounts of the raw food mix in over time.
   
   There really is no easy answer here, but as a general rule of thumb, I suggest to people that unless they have a very young cat or kitten, it's best to go slowly. Take at least a week to ten days to fully transition an adult cat, and that's presuming the cat is at least already off of all dry food. Raw food is very different from commercial food in many ways, and it's best to give your adult cat's digestive system a bit of time to slowly adapt to the new food. Kittens are magnificent at devouring raw food in remarkable quantities and switching them over is usually fast and relatively painless.
   
   I have certainly known people who have switched their adult cats "cold turkey" and their cats did just beautifully, seemed oh-so-grateful to finally have real food to eat, and showed no sign of anything different other than overall better well-being, "miraculously" improved stools, and satisfaction with their new food. But I have also seen instances of people whose cats took to the new food with gusto initially and then either vomited the food or had a day or two of digestive problems. In these cases, it's clear the transition was made much too quickly. Think it through and try to "see" the situation from your cat's perspective. If you have a fully grown cat that has been eating nothing but meat-flavored cereal (dry food) for several years, suddenly expecting her to be able to enjoy and easily digest a much richer food based on animal proteins--as opposed to all those plant-based proteins and carbohydrates--is unrealistic. And it can be a shock to the cat's system. Remember, you don't want to shock your cat's system. You want to ease her at an appropriate speed on to a healthier diet. Use common sense when switching your cat over to a new food. Don't expect her to transition to an entirely new way of eating in one or two meals. That said, don't give up too soon either. The single biggest mistake I see people make time and again is to say that their cat "won't touch" the new food and then panic and fill up the bowl with dry food. Then, shock of shocks, kitty won't be hungry when the next raw meal is offered. You need to strike a healthy balance that treats your cat's system gently enough to safely transition her over to better food. I don't believe in starving cats into submission when it comes to eating. For a cat that's been on a high-carbohydrate diet, the risk of a cat getting hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) from going for too long without any food is just too high for my tastes. That's why I recommend switching first to canned and then slipping the raw food into that. If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times--you have got to get the dry kibble out of your house. Remember to use whatever combination of the following works and makes the most sense for you and your cat: a reasonable amount of hunger, manipulation and trickery, and plenty of patience.
    
   
3. How about if I soak the dry food in water until it’s completely soft to change the texture and then add raw to that to trick my cat into eating the new food?
   
   Please, please don’t do that. Please. Dry food, when moistened, is essentially transformed into “bacterial soup.” The bacteria load is extremely high in dry food. Add water to the mix, and you’ve just created an ideal environment for fungi and bacteria to multiply. When you moisten dry food, for example, you make it possible to quickly grow fungi in the food resulting in vomitoxin, aflatoxin, and mycotoxin production. Vomitoxin is a toxic substance produced by mold that can (and has) contaminated wheat used in dry pet foods resulting in serious illness and even death.
   
   
4. My cat is addicted to dry food and refuses to eat anything else. What do I do?
   
   If you have a devoted and stubborn dry food addict on your hands, the first thing to do is to stop free-feeding kibble. This is absolutely essential. First, you must get your cat off of dry food. If your goal is to eventually feed raw food, then once your cat is on canned food, you can start slipping in small amounts of the raw food into the canned and then slowly increasing the amount of raw and decreasing the canned. Be patient. Be very patient. Having food available 24/7 is NOT a good idea for any cat, and if your cat has constant access to that food, you'll have a very hard time getting her weaned onto a healthier, low-carbohydrate, moist, high-protein canned food. One way to approach this is to offer two or three meals a day of a very small amount of dry food (perhaps 1/8 to 1/4 of a cup) and, after 30 minutes, take up the food she hasn't eaten. Then do not give in if she pleads for a between-meal snack. You want your cat to get accustomed to eating on a schedule this way--at mealtimes.
   
   You MUST stop free-feeding dry food!
   
   Yes, it takes some patience to get a cat off of dry food and onto something healthier, but think how much time it would take if your cat develops diabetes or some other disease and you're forced to spend time, money, and energy coping with that. Another trick is to dip some of the dry food into the 'juice' of canned food to begin to accustom her taste buds to the taste of the better food.
    
   
5. I have a diabetic cat and am wondering if this diet would work for him?
   
   It’s amazing how many feline diabetics are put on these “special kibble diets from the vets office. High carb diets aren’t the greatest for a feline diabetic. We’ve seen insulin dependency decrease and in some cases have heard of temporary and sometime permanent remission. The only caution is that this diet be administered and monitored by a qualified vet. Let your vet know what you are doing. See Norman in our case studies as an example of how a 15 year old feline diabetic is managing.
   
   Hepatic lipidosis becomes a serious concern once an overweight cat has gone without food for 48 hours.
   
   Hepatic lipidosis is a condition in which fat accumulates in individual liver cells and is a real risk for overweight cats that stop eating altogether. Without food, the body starts sending fat cells over to the liver to process lipoproteins for fuel. Lipoproteins are composed of a simple protein and a fat component that carry fats in the blood. Left untreated, the liver can fail and the cat can die. The veterinary literature suggests that about 70 percent of cats will recover from hepatic lipidosis if they are hospitalized and fed via tube feedings. Who wants to put their cat through that? No one. So, again, remember that starving an overweight cat is not an option. They cannot “live off their fat”. Their fat, in fact, can kill them. So be mindful of this as you approach a sensible weight loss program for your fat cat.
   
   If your cat likes cooked meats, put a small amount on top of the raw food. Parmesan cheese works well for getting some cats to dig in. A very small amount of the juice from canned tuna in water can work but please use this sparingly and remember that your cat should never eat tuna for long period of time, as it can rob the cat’s stores of Vitamin E and cause a painful condition called steatitis. Don't use this as a first resort. If you must (although this is certainly not a first choice), grind your cat’s favorite dry food in a clean coffee mill and sprinkle a small amount on top of the raw food. Decrease the amount of dry food you use this way as quickly as you can.
   
   A sprinkling of “liver flakes” that you can purchase at some pet food stores is also a very tempting way to persuade your cat to dig in. With all these ideas, bear in mind that some cats instantly take to raw with little or no fuss. Younger cats, especially, seem to adapt very quickly to the new food. Even some older cats eat the food with no protest and seem relieved that you’ve finally figured out how to feed them fresh, real food that is much closer to what Mother Nature intended than anything you serve out of a can or a bag. Finally, bear in mind that some cats do better trying to eat a new food if you try feeding them in a new place that’s quiet, private, and away from other cats in the household.
    
   

How much food and how often?

1. How much of the raw diet should I feed my cat?
   
   There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Often, cats first switched to raw will eat voraciously for a few weeks when they’re first transitioned and then they level off. As a very rough guide, start with feeding about ½ cup to ¾ cup of food per cat per day, split among two or three meals. Generally speaking, the rule of thumb is to put out as much food as your cat wants for 30 minutes, then take away what they don’t eat. Very quickly you’ll learn what the right amount is for your cat.
   
   If you have a kitten, remember that she is a voracious little carnivore eating machine and will need not only to be fed MORE times each day, but will eat more food each day in total than an adult cat. I’ve never had a kitten on raw (but you can bet if I ever do get a kitten, I’ll start him/her on this diet from the beginning), but all the people I do know who have fed raw to kittens say the little critters eat them out of house and home. Be prepared to serve food often if you are lucky enough to live with a kitten.
   
   
2. How many times a day should I feed my adult cat?
   
   Two or three times a day works well.
   
   
3. I have to work long hours and my cat could go up to 12 hours without food. Should I just leave some dry food out?
   
   Heck no! A healthy cat can quite easily go a few extra hours without food. You’ll come home to a hungry cat who will likely eat her meal with great gusto and gratitude. Remember, a cat in the wild isn’t getting fed on a strict schedule. Giving the digestive system a rest without the cues of smelling food is a very, very healthy thing to do for your cat, though she may try and convey to you that this is not the case.
   
   
   

THINGS THAT SEEM DIFFERENT AFTER SWITCHING TO RAW

1. Should I be concerned that my cat is drinking much less water since switching to the raw diet?
   
   That’s extremely common. It’s especially noticeable in cats that were previously eating dry food. Cats were designed by Mother Nature to get their moisture WITH their food. And that’s exactly what happens when you feed a good, balanced raw diet. You should, of course, still have fresh drinking water available for your cat at all times.
   
   
2. My cat’s stools are much smaller and lighter-colored than before.
   
   That’s common and is indeed desirable and what you should expect to see. If you’re not feeding your cat all kinds of indigestible or species-inappropriate ingredients (vegetables, grains, etc.), then your cat is going to produce less waste. A lot less waste. You'll be astonished. One of the more pleasant surprises from raw feeding is how dramatically reduced stool odor becomes when a cat is eating a raw, grainless, vegetable-free diet.
   
   
3. Should I be concerned about bacteria?
   
   I certainly had trepidations about feeding raw meat to my cats. I was terrified of Escherichia coli, Salmonella, you name it. At that time, I had only begun researching the issues related to feeding raw, and I found a very discouraging polarization that was unhelpful in making decisions: there were the "raw folks" who seemed annoyed if you even asked questions about parasites and Salmonella. They seemed overly defensive and annoyed at anyone even raising the issue. At the other end of the spectrum were the selected individuals in the veterinary community and the pet food industry with their grave warnings about all the risks associated with raw feeding.
   
   Permit me a soapbox moment here: I know so very many cats these days are susceptible to infections, chronic (and expensive) urinary tract woes, skin allergies, vomiting, diarrhea, IBD, and so on. There are so many animals with very weak or compromised immune systems. What I've come around to in my own thinking is that we help to create weak cats. We overvaccinate them, we blindly follow nutritional advice from vets who are not necessarily well informed on nutrition from unbiased sources, we feed steady diets to carnivores of meat-flavored cereal laced with toxic preservatives, and we jump to immediately suppress all symptoms with drugs like prednisolone when they're sick. But if we can find a way to minimize whatever has the potential to weaken the immune system, then it stands to reason that cats will be in better shape to fight off the bad stuff thrown at them. For my money, nothing beats feeding a cat the diet that nature intended for them to eat--raw meat, bones, and organs. To be sure, feeding a balanced raw diet is not the answer to everything. However, I think you get an awful lot of bang for your buck feeding this way.
   
   I advise anyone considering a raw diet to do as much of their own reading as possible on the issue, focusing heavily on information from unbiased sources. I suggest always asking yourself if a given raw diet recipe is truly species-appropriate or might just be an "adapted dog diet" recipe. I am a lay person--not a professionally-trained nutritionist and certainly not a veterinarian. Ideally, you should work closely with your vet on any changes you want to make to your cat's diet. Unfortunately, not nearly enough vets are well-versed in feline nutrition to be of very much help, and many default to either reflexively dismissing raw diets or offering to sell you a bag of some prescription food.