Laura sent me this email regarding her cat’s trouble with urinary crystals.
I have enjoyed reading your Cat Bible book, and other information on your website, but I still am very uncertain on how to resolve a recurring situation with my dear male cat Leo (about 6 years).
He has had 4 episodes of urinary crystals in the last 6 months, two of which caused blockages, resulting in lengthy vet stays. He was on a catheter both times, which I’m sure was very uncomfortable.
His last blockage with last Thursday, and he is still have difficulties passing urine. His PH is 7.5 and the crystals are Struvite.
I feed him wet food only – alternating Science Diet’s CD with Primal raw beef cube. He does not get kibble. With this high protein diet, I am baffled as to why he is getting sick so often. A high protein diet has not seemed to acidify his urine and he is still developing crystals.
I know CD has by-products (which I’m not crazy about), that’s why I was trying to feed him some raw food. Now I’m really confused. I feel like I need to make a change quickly, but I don’t want to choose a food that will aggravate his situation. I’m not sure if he is reacting to the CD or to the raw food, so I’ve eliminated the raw food. However, I’d like a better plan moving forward since CD isn’t the best canned food, and I’m unsure of raw food.
I’d love your advice so that I can get my Leo back on track.
Your instincts are right on the mark – the Science Diet CD not only has by products, but plenty of carbohydrates, too. What most bothers me about products like this is that they call themselves a “chicken” cat food and in this case the predominant ingredient is pork by-products. Now where in God’s name does the discarded portion of a processed pork fit into a healthy diet for cat? Chicken is the 4th ingredient — and then some corn products like starch and corn gluten meal. “Chicken liver flavor” is something synthetic — because the pork liver they are using instead is surely much cheaper, although from a 500 lb. animal that could never be a cat’s natural prey.
The Cat Bible tells you how to read a label and this one should set your hair on fire by that yardstick.
Pork By-Products, Water, Pork Liver, Chicken, Rice, Corn Starch, Oat Fiber, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Fish Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken Liver Flavor, etc.
So right now your kitty is not on a high protein food – or one made of ingredients that are natural and healthy for a cat. - You need to get Weruva or Halo Spot’s Stew that use only human grade meat- no by-products of any animal and no meal. Until you get the cat off this highly processed inappropriate protein source you cannot know how much it is negatively influencing his health.
As for raw, it is the gold standard for cat foods and the best choice you can make for your kitty. You’ll be doing him a great favor if you can go to all raw (but not beef!! again, don’t feed your cat a meat source with no logical connection to a cat, who can naturally catch mice or birds, to which chicken and turkey are the closest thing). Another thing about crystals is that beef and organ meats can make them worse – and rinking lots of fluids can reduce the problem. So since it’s rare for a wet-fed cat to be thirsty and drink alot, you can give him fluids he’ll be motivated to drink. See if he’ll do well on a bit of milk (can upset the stomach) or try a nifty product from The Honest Kitchen called Ice Pups. It is a ground up chicken and greens powder that you dissolve in water. It was developed to be frozen into cubes for dogs to enjoy in hot weather, but i find it is a great way to get pets to drink fluids they wouldn’t normally drink. The more you can get him to drink, the better – the page for The Honest Kitchen is on my website and they give a discount to my listeners.
I’m hoping this will help, although it will take a few weeks to start to show results. I’m sorry for all you and he have been through.
I re-read your chapter on nutrition and how to read labels. Armed with this information, I spent an hour or so at the pet store reading labels… very interesting!
Following your suggestion, I bought Weruva’s chicken canned food -10% protein, and Leo loves it (it also smells great). I noticed that they use tapioca or potato starch. In your book, you mention potatoes as an ingredient to avoid. I wasn’t able to tell from the label what percentage of the food was comprised of starch. In Leo’s situation, what is your opinion of this ingredient.
I also purchased a chicken canned food from Instinct. From the label, it looks good, but Leo really prefers the Weruva.
At some point, I’ll venture into the raw food diets, but Salmonella is a concern and I don’t want to add to Leo’s health issues.
Thanks so much for your help and advice. I really appreciate having a reliable resource to help sort out the myriad of information available.
I know that the starch in Weruva food is used as thickener and is only a tiny portion of the food but I let the owner of the company, David Forman, explain it to you himself:
We use potato starch at less than 1% of the overall formulas, and as potato starch is made of other components other than carbohydrates, the percentage of actual nutrition coming from the potato starch is likely under 0.5%. In other words, the potato starch serves no nutritional purpose. The purpose of the starch is to thicken the gravy so the formula will not be super watery.
There is of course a big difference when using potatoes as the carbohydrate/binder source in kibble where the percentage of potato has to be high in order for the kibble to hold itself together. The quantity necessary of potatoes in kibble (or other carbohydrate sources in kibble) typically forces the potatoes to be a significant source of nutrition. Cats are of course obligate carnivores and need no carbohydrates. And dogs, also carnivores, do not need the carbs from potatoes, though some dogs may be able to adapt better than others when eating an omnivorous diet.
As for feeding raw, I don’t think you need to rush into that. Many cats do not do well on it and with Leo’s issues, I think you’ll feel most comfortable using different Weruva flavors and use Dr. Harvey’s Whisker Smackers and Halo’s Liv-a-Littles for treats.
Thank you so much for the information and your reassurance! Both my cats absolutely love Weruva – they lick the bowl clean and ask for more. This is unusual for them. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve spent trying to find a wet food they like since they both really prefer Wysong’s Uretic dry food (which is no longer part of their diet). I’m hopeful this new food will help Leo to heal.
I am going to put your question and my answer on my blog because I think other can benefit from this information.
-Tracie Hotchner

The Cat Bible