cat food – Pain In The Bud

Caturday Links And Open Comments: That Study About Cats = Happiness, The ‘Carrie’ Remake, And More!

Open comments, open links! Plus, we talk about cat-friendly hotels, the recent report on contaminants in cat food, Mike Flanagan’s latest Stephen King adaptation, and more!

We’re gonna try something new this week and dedicate “Caturday” to links, off-topic discussions and anything you’d like to post about.

It’s a good opportunity to touch on stories that we didn’t get a chance to go in-depth on, talk about and recommend entertainment, and follow up on stories in the news.

If there’s anything we’ve missed, something you’d like to point out, or you just want to write about what a dashing and meowgnificent feline Bud is, you can do that here too. (And don’t forget to talk about your own cats!)

The Clean Label report on contaminants in cat food

Five cans of cat food displayed on a white countertop, each with a different texture and color of the food inside. — Mmmm, slop!

Thanks to Candi A. for keeping us in the loop and posting the link to her friend’s assessment of the concerning findings about heavy metals, pesticides and other nasty stuff found in cat food.

In case you missed it, here’s the link Candi shared.

I have only been able to read it once and have not yet read the full report, so I’m going to refrain from adding anything yet. I need to see all the details and whether the brands I usually buy are included. I expect they will be, as Clean Label chose samples from the 100 most popular cat food brands sold in the US. (For our friends outside the states, there could be useful information as well. The big brands are corporate conglomerates with international reach, so brands sold in the US are likely sold under different names or slightly different packaging elsewhere.)

Of course I’m not an expert on feline nutrition either, so we should all decide what’s best for our cats based on what we know about them and the information we gain from reports and analysis.

I hope to revisit this in an in-depth post, hopefully with some input from veterinarians and experts on feline health.

Contractor work and staying at a pet friendly hotel

I won’t be able to use my bathroom overnight while a contractor puts in new floors, sink, etc., and my friend who feeds Bud while I’m away will have me, but not him. (I wonder why? It couldn’t have anything to do with him practicing some light mauling on her at least three times, would it?)

There’s also no way I’m gonna leave him here with an unfamiliar person, work noise and the uncertainty of not having me there to show him it’s all okay.

A cat sitting on a bed in a modern hotel room with wooden walls and a large window showing the outside view.

So it looks like I’m gonna stay at a pet-friendly hotel that I have verified as specifically cat-friendly as well. I’m going to get a disposable litter box, bring his bowls and some food, and I think he’ll be okay as long as he’s with me and I don’t leave him alone in an unfamiliar place. I’ll pick up dinner or order delivery, and I think we should be good.

But since there are plenty of cat experts here (that’s YOU!), including those of you who have dealt with this situation, I figured it’s a good idea to ask if there’s anything I haven’t considered or if you have advice for helping things go smoothly.

I think we have a good secure attachment thing going on. The earthquake about 18 months ago verified that — we woke up to the building shaking, Bud was sleeping on me, and he popped up his head to look at me like “Are we good here, Big Bud, or should I start running around screaming?”

I was actually proud of him for that, and for taking my word for it that everything was fine. Once he got reassurance from me, he relaxed and went back to sleep.

So I think that as long as I’m there with him, my fearless tiger companion will be okay.

Cats = happiness?

So, about that study: a research team looked at happiness indicators in 93 countries, as well as rates of cat ownership, toxoplasma gondii infection rates and other factors.

A happy cat sticking out its tongue with closed eyes, sitting against a blue background.

They found that having a cat or cats is linked to higher self-reported satisfaction with life.

It’s pretty wide-ranging, and the researchers themselves caution against drawing any hard conclusions from the data. However, they did note a few interesting points, including:

Toxoplasma gondii infection is higher in countries with fewer cats. This tracks with earlier studies that show even though t. gondii is heavily associated with cats in the popular imagination, felines are actually not the primary transmission vector. Other factors, like rodent infestations, as well as the quality of waste and sanitary infrastructure, are much more closely related to exposure and infection in people
The total number of estimated cats in a country is not associated with higher happiness levels, but the number of “owned” cats is. In other words, the link between cats and happiness seems to hinge on our personal relationships with cats, and not merely their presence. Countries overrun by strays, for example, do not have the same correlation
Speaking of correlation, that’s as far as this goes. The researchers note the data they have cannot prove causality. In other words, countries that have higher levels of cat adoption and ownership may be wealthier in general, and wealth — at least enough to free people from true poverty — is correlated with happiness. It could be that people who have more money are more likely to spend disposable income on little buddies. It does not mean you have to be wealthy by societal definitions, and it helps to remember how fortunate most of us in the first world are compared to the true poverty of the “global south”

Overall, the study’s authors conclude we need follow-up research to firmly establish a potential causal link between felines and greater satisfacfion in life.

A woman in a striped robe holding a glass of red wine, looking confidently at the camera. — Telegraph columnist Hannah Betts

If you’re skeptical of a causal link between cats and happiness, here’s a take from a Telegraph columnist who admittedly loves the slobbering subservience of dogs and detests the fact that feline affection must be earned. In fact, she questions whether feline affection actually exists.

Fair warning, she has an uncharitable view of our beloved house tigers and retrograde views on what their behaviors mean, but sometimes it’s helpful to understand why certain people don’t like our perfect little angels who can absolutely do no wrong. And yes, that’s sarcasm. I love Bud in spite of the fact that he can be a jerk at times, and maybe even a bit because of it, but it would be madness to claim cats don’t feel affection toward their bonded humans.

Influencers

Speaking of Jenner-Kardashians, I’m not sure if I missed this at the time or decided if it wasn’t worth getting upset over, but while I was just searching for Betts’ column to add the link, I found this story from seven months ago about widespread disgust with Khloe Kardashian for having her cats declawed.

A person dressed in a gray cat costume with cat ears and whiskers, holding a gray cat in her arms.

That the Kardashians are a family concerned with little else besides fame and money is not news, but I am planning on posting about the effect of celebrities and influencers on pet trends in the near future, and whether it’s declawing, purchasing “exotic” wildlife like monkeys as pets or keeping entire menageries of neglected, miserable animals, like it or not there are a lot of people who think it’s okay to do things because the walking examples of botched plastic surgery they idolize have made the behavior popular.

Animals are the ones who suffer, and groups dedicated to their welfare fight uphill battles trying to correct misinformation/combat harmful trends spread by influencers. There’s gotta be a better way, including holding social media platforms accountable when they elect to ignore animal welfare concerns. A video does not have to involve direct violence inflicted on an animal for it to qualify as animal abuse, and it’s crucial people understand that.

One disturbing example is a Youtube video uploaded by a young woman who adopted an adorable baby macaque, then proceeded to mentally torture the poor animal. One video involved her repeatedly offering a bottle of milk to the baby only to yank it away at the last second, laughing as if her actions were pure comedic genius. The baby became so traumatized, she stopped eating. That IS animal abuse, even if some minimally-trained, ignorant moderator employed by Youtube does not agree. Social media operators are not the ultimate arbiters of morality, animal welfare, criminality, political speech or anything else, even when they’ve appointed themselves to those roles.

These are the same people who invite teenagers and pre-teens onto their platforms, employ psychologists to help them keep the kids hooked and doomscrolling all day, provide them with filters that do little besides undermine their self confidence, provide platforms that are practically custom-made to enable anonymous bullying, then absolve themselves of responsibility when the inevitable happens. They are the last people we should trust with deciding what is acceptable or moral.

Mike Flanagan’s ‘Carrie’

A young woman with long dark hair and dirt smudges on her face is aiming a bow and arrow with a determined expression. — Amber Midthunder, a Native American actress, played a Comanche healer named Naru who wants to follow in her brother’s footsteps as a hunter in 2022’s “Prey.”

Which finally brings us to the brand new adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie, streaming now on Amazon.

I’m only a few episodes in so I can’t offer any major conclusions, but so far it seems to be everything we’ve come to expect from a Flanagan project — thoughtful, respectful of the source material while also giving it a modern makeover, and operating on a strong foundation of writing and acting.

It has a lot to say about bullying and the modern technologies that turbo charge the cruelty kids are capable of. Adults are hopelessly outgunned on the tech front, which makes foundational parenting more crucial than ever.

I’m especially happy to see Amber Midthunder in a major role after her exceptional performance in 2022’s Prey, and I’m really hoping we’ll see more of Cassandra Naud, who showed up briefly in one scene so far with a hint of more to come.

A woman smiling with a bruise on her left cheek, set against a purple background. — Cassandra Naud

Naud was awesome as the legitimately terrifying antagonist in Influencer and its sequel, Influencers, and she’s unmistakable thanks to the birthmark that dominates the right side of her face. She’s a fantastic actress and astonishingly beautiful, and in interviews she talks about her childhood decision not to have the birthmark removed because of potential complications. She came to see it as an advantage because it renders her unforgettable, but I think her work speaks itself these days.

Carrie was released this week, with all eight episodes available to stream at your pace. Frequent Flanagan collaborators Samantha Sloyan, Michael Trucco, Rahul Kohli, and Ruth Codd have returned, while Flanagan’s next project is an Exorcist sequel due early next year.

Thoughts? Questions? Links? Stories about your cats? Flattering notes about what a dapper furred fellow the Budster is? Leave ’em in the comments!

Cat Food Loaded With Carcinogens, Heavy Metals, Microplastics And Herbicides, Investigation Finds

“Lead was found in 99%, cadmium in 96% and arsenic in 94% of cat food samples across 62 brands,” the Clean Label Project said.

A new investigation found cat food is packed with pollutants and toxins that are lethal to our furry little friends.

Almost no brand was left untouched in the investigation by the Clean Label Project.

“The investigation tested 100 top-selling cat foods for more than 122 contaminants, including lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, pesticides, herbicides and phthalates, the plastic chemicals linked to an increased risk of death in humans,” CNN reports. “Lead was found in 99%, cadmium in 96% and arsenic in 94% of cat food samples across 62 brands. Contamination varied by product type — wet, dry, and air- or freeze-dried — and the type of protein, such as poultry, beef or fish.”

What’s especially worrying is that many of the most prominent contaminants are directly linked to the most common and lethal health problems in cats, including kidney disease and liver damage. Kidney disease affects more than four in 10 cats ages 10 and older, and four out of five cats age 15 and older, according to Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

The numbers are seriously concerning and, although caretakers have long known pet food manufacturers cut corners, often loading their products with fillers and the lowest grade meat available, the new investigation paints a picture far worse than most of us imagined.

A gray cat licking a tube of pet treat held by a person. — The Clean Label Project cat food investigation raises serious questions about the damage pet food is doing to our beloved little buddies. Credit: by Anjie Qiu/Pexels

Compounding the problem is the fact that government regulations on contaminants, like many laws dealing with animals, were designed for farm animals. At about eight to 12 pounds, cats are significantly smaller than the animals regulators had in mind, meaning their bodies are less able to filter out toxins and they absorb significantly more than farm animals or adult humans.

Seafood is especially dangerous. Per CNN:

“Mercury levels were about 18 times higher and cadmium levels about 2.5 times higher in fish- or seafood-based cat foods than in foods made with other proteins. Wet versions of seafood products contained the most mercury — nearly 28 times as much as wet foods made with other meats, especially poultry.”

This is horror movie stuff, directly contributing to the early deaths of countless pets, grief over their short lives, and an unquantifiable amount of money spent on veterinary care for food we’re told is healthy but instead contains toxins directly linked to chronic and frequently fatal health problems.

The Pet Food Institute describe itself as “the voice of US pet food.”

Despite the major concerns raised by the Clean Label Project’s investigation and the inevitable anger of people who love their cats, the pet food industry isn’t just denying the findings, it’s sticking to its claims that manufacturers care about their customers and the animals they love.

After touting “testing protocols,” manufacturing “verification” and “science-based preventative controls,” Pet Food Institute CEO Elise Fennig told CNN the industry’s products are “safe, nutritious, and consistent.”

“Cat owners should feel confident that the food they feed their pets is safe and produced according to rigorous regulatory and quality standards,” said Fennig, whose previous roles include executive positions at the American Frozen Food Institute, the National Confectioners Association, and the Frozen Potato Products Institute, industry groups that push the narrative that ultraprocessed foods made at industrial scale are healthy staples of American diets.

So we have someone with a degree in public relations telling us that despite laboratory tests revealing horrific contaminants and toxins in cat food, we should all just relax and “feel confident” that the products are “safe” and nutritious” — not because she’s able to offer any evidence in support of those claims, but because she says so.

Well, Elise, I don’t feel confident, especially because experts CNN contacted, who are unaffiliated with the research, said it looks rigorous and well-executed.

You know what would make me feel better? If you and the top executives at pet food companies were willing to eat human-grade food with the same level of contaminants for six months or a year.

If your products are as “safe, nutritious and consistent” as you claim they are, let’s see you eat food laced with arsenic, cadmium and lead for six months, then release the results of your bloodwork and physicals. Then we’ll see, won’t we?

Otherwise it seems as if you’re shitting on us from great heights and telling us it’s raining gold.

A pet supply aisle featuring various brands of dog and cat food bags on shelves, with colorful packaging and pet toys on display. — The investigation involved laboratory testing of 100 of the top cat food brands

The apparent ubiquity of contaminants and toxins also raises the question: is any brand of commercial cat food safe? Should caretakers give up entirely on pet food and learn to prepare meals for their felines?

It will be interesting to see where this goes and if the industry can be forced to correct its course through things like consumer pressure and class action lawsuits. The vet bills are one thing, but robbing us of years with our little pals, and seriously harming their quality of life, is especially disturbing.

Expect no help from the government on this. Our “leaders” are too busy enriching themselves with insider trading, stacking the decks in favor of incumbents and riling the electorate with culture war nonsense. They can’t even be bothered to ban food dyes (relying on voluntary measures and asking manufacturers to police themselves instead) identified as primary culprits driving unprecedented rates of cancer, so there’s no reason to believe they’ll care about animals.

We’re alone in this, except hopefully for animal welfare organizations and other nonprofits dedicated to pets. That means it’s on us to apply pressure and make sure we don’t relent until we can trust the food we’re feeding our beloved buddies isn’t killing them.

‘Okay, My Feline Overlord, What Would You Like For Dinner?’

Have you ever asked your cat what she wants to eat?

Every once in a while, as Bud happily dances around the kitchen because he knows it’s Yums O’Clock, I’ll look through the available inventory and give him a choice.

“Hey, Bud!” I’ll say, holding a different kind of food in each hand. “Which one do you want?”

And without fail he’ll mrrrrrp enthusiastically and select his dinner by choosing one can – or more often, a Perfect Portions tub – and rubbing his face against it while trilling.

I’ve addressed the topic of meal variety before on PITB. One great piece of advice I got before adopting the king was to feed him as many different varieties of food as possible. Turkey, his absolute and longtime favorite, chicken, tuna, salmon, beef, duck, trout, pate, chunks, shredded cuts in sauce. Sheba, Iams, Nutro, Blue, Fancy Feast, and occasionally even the Temptations “catnip-flavor” pate, even though that’s probably not great for him.

It has many benefits, the most obvious of which is that he enjoys his meals, he looks forward to them, and he reliably eats his wet food. That’s important because cats have a low thirst drive and he needs the hydration. It’s also satisfying as his caretaker to remove his bowl when he’s done and see that he’s licked it clean. It means he’s happy, healthy, has a good appetite, and he won’t be yowling at me for snacks because he’s still hungry.

It also means we won’t be put in a tough spot if, say, one particular brand changes its formula or discontinues a flavor. I’ve heard stories of frustrated people taking weeks to find a food their finicky cats will accept when a particular favorite is no longer available.

Still, I wonder if given the choice, he’d want even more variety. I don’t even know if he’s actively making a choice when I give it to him. Can he smell the food through the sealed packages? Is he really selecting what he wants, or is he just picking one at random?

Has anyone else tried this?

Want Your Cat To Eat More? Give Them Variety, Study Says

Like us, cats get bored with the same stuff all the time.

One good piece of advice I got before adopting was to introduce the kitten to as many different flavors and textures of food as possible.

That way you won’t have a picky cat and you won’t find yourself in a scramble if the one variety of cat food your feline master will eat is discontinued or becomes difficult to get. That became a major problem during and after the pandemic, when disrupted supply chains and shortages of packing materials meant you never knew what you’d find on store shelves.

But there’s another good reason to do it: variety keeps your cat happy.

Even if your cat has a favorite food, too much exposure to that food will have diminishing returns, a research team from Japan’s Iwate University found.

But it’s not just the type of meat, texture or brand. Smell is hugely important to cats, and the study found they have much bigger appetites when presented with a novel food odor.

This is helpful not only to help us make sure our little buddies eat, but also because most of us don’t think about olfactory stimulation with cats. We build them cat condos and catios, we provide scratchers, we rotate toys. But how often do we give our cats the opportunity to enjoy new smells?

One of Buddy’s favorite things to do is sniff around the apartment building. I wait until late at night when it’s quiet and let him walk the hallways, stopping at each door to sniff. (I always remain a few feet away because it makes him feel safe, and because I can scoop him up and bring him back if he gets frightened.)

He loves it, and I don’t do it enough. After reading this, I’ll make sure little dude gets his sniffing tour more regularly.

Oh Oh Oh Ozempic For Our Oh Oh Oh Obese Cats? It’s Close To Reality

In apocalyptic news for house cats everywhere, a pharmaceutical company is kicking off a trial of a GLP-1 drug for felines.

If cats could read newspapers, chances are they’d be gripped by a cold terror right about now, wondering if they’re among the unfortunates to have their yums curtailed by the same weight loss drugs their humans have been gobbling.

As the New York Times reports, a biopharma company headquartered in San Francisco, Okava Pharmaceuticals, is about to begin a trial to determine if GLP-1 drugs can help our chonksters slim down. More than 60 percent of American pets are packing extra pounds, the Times notes, while consequences like diabetes are shortening the lifespans and reducing quality of life for felines and canines.

“It is our belief that the condition of obesity, the condition of being overweight, is by far the number one most significant preventative health challenge in all of veterinary medicine,” Okava founder and CEO Michael Klotsman told the paper.

The upcoming study will include 50 cats. Most will receive a GPL-1 medication while a control group — about one third of the cats — will be given a placebo.

Since cats aren’t exactly known for being cooperative when it comes to taking oral medicine and weekly injections at a veterinary office are impractical, Okava has developed a system with a patch about the size of a microchip that will dispense the weight loss drugs over six months before a tiny cartridge needs to be replaced.

If all goes well with the trial, Okava will seek FDA approval and address other obstacles like convincing caretakers that their little pals can benefit from the feline version of Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy.

That may be easier said than done considering our relationships with our furry friends and the role food plays in things like training, bonding and every day life

For lots of cat caretakers “their main way that they interact with and show their love to their pet often revolves around food,” Dr. Maryanne Murphy, a veterinary nutritionist at the University of Tennessee, told the Times.

How could the dynamic between cat and human change if the flow of yums is reduced to meals only? Will training — for everything from walking on a harness, to entering a carrier and fun tricks like high fives — still work if the reward is just a bit of encouragement or a scratch behind the ear?

An earlier weight loss drug developed for dogs, Slentrol, did not catch on because, as one veterinarian noted, “the main way [people] interacted with their pet was by feeding them, and seeing their excitement and happiness when they were eating the food.”

There’s also the not-so-small matter of cost. GLP-1 drugs are in high demand, and they’re expensive. One in eight Americans has taken Ozempic or one of its competitors. At times, the demand has threatened availability for diabetics, for whom the drugs were developed in the first place.

If the trials are successful and the GLP-1 drugs for pets gain FDA approval — which would require a series of much larger scale, more rigorous studies — the company hopes to offer them to consumers at a cost of about $100 per month per pet.

Even if this iteration of the drug fails, it’s unlikely to derail the larger effort. Vets have been prescribing tiny doses of the human version to cats with diabetes, and perhaps most telling of all, pet obesity continues to rise despite years of efforts by the veterinarian community to get people to play with their pets more and feed them less.

As Dr. Ernie Ward, a veterarian and founder of the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, told the paper: “We haven’t moved the needle.”

And now we check in with our correspondent, Buddy the Cat. Buddy, what do you think about the possibility of GLP-1 for your species and the end of the proverbial gravy train?

Buddy? Bud? Are we having technical difficulties?

I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, we can’t find Buddy the Cat. We’ll resume this segment if and when we manage to locate him.