Are dehydrated and freeze-dried foods a healthy option for your cat?
Guest post by Jodi Ziskin
Raw food may seem like a new trend for cats (and dogs), but don’t tell them that; it is what they and their ancestors have eaten for hundreds of thousands of years.
In today’s world of highly processed kibble and canned foods being recalled for a variety of reasons, many cat lovers are discovering the myriad of benefits associated with feeding a raw diet. These include easier and better digestion and assimilation of nutrients, reversal of allergies, disease prevention, better oral health and cleaner teeth, less stool and an improvement in overall health.
Still, some people are freaked out by the idea of preparing raw meat at home. There are many wonderful commerically prepared frozen raw foods on the market. Brands I often recommend include Primal, Bravo, and Nature’s Variety Instinct. But for some people, it is still too foreign. There are many misconceptions about safety and salmonella and other nonsense.
That is why I am super excited about the rise in popularity of dehydrated and freeze-dried raw foods for cats. This option offers many of the same advantages of fresh/frozen raw food, but in a neater, easier format for people to handle.
The act of freeze-drying was created by the pharmaceutical industry. It was a way to transport vital medications to soldiers. For food, the act of dehydrating or freeze-drying helps lock in the freshness of the ingredients, resulting in very little loss of nutrients and enzymes.
To me, the biggest advantage is that it gets folks who are afraid of raw food to actually use raw food!
Small companies, deeply committed to quality, are producing excellent foods for cats. Stella & Chewy’s has a wonderful line of foods available in single serving pouches and in 12-ounce re-sealable bags. Primal Pet Foods also offers a couple of varieties of freeze-dried food for cats. I am a big fan because they use organic vegetables and food-derived vitamins. Companies like The Honest Kitchen (all organic) and Sojos have less variety, but make fantastic foods. At The Honest Kitchen, a human taste-tests every batch of food they produce.
With freeze-dried and dehydrated food, you simply add warm water, let the food rehydrate, mix and serve.
Many of the companies making freeze-dried and dehydrated foods are very committed to quality: they use all human grade ingredients, most are free from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and many use organic ingredients.
Stella & Chewy’s, Primal (poultry only), Nature’s Variety Instinct and some other companies are now using a safety measure called HPP (High Pressure Processing). This is a form of pasteurization that kills pathogens without the use of heat or irradiation. Some ‘purists’ scoff at this, but I’m all for it as it helps ensure the safety of the food.
Can dehydrated and freeze-dried foods be the only source for a cat’s diet? Yes. However, I do recommend a varied diet that includes fresh or frozen raw or home cooked food. But if I can get a client to make the switch from dry food to freeze dried, it is a huge victory for their cat.
Jodi Ziskin is a Certified Pet Nutrition Consultant who also holds a Master of Science degree in Holistic Nutrition with a concentration in companion animal care. Her mission is to help cats and dogs live healthier and happier. Through her company, Holistic Healthy Pets by Jodi Z, she educates pet parents in their home environment, via Skype/Facetime or by telephone on how to make the best holistic diet and lifestyle choices for their animal companions. Jodi has been featured in articles appearing in Animal Wellness Magazine, Cat Fancy Magazine and Urban Animal (Australia). She is also a Cat Health Writer for examiner.com and a Nutrition Consultant for Lap Of Love Veterinary Hospice.
Photo: istockphoto
Freeze-dried raw foods can certainly be a good way to help make the transition to a raw diet. I’ve used Honest Kitchen Prowl, and Stella & Chewy’s chicken dinner for my cats. They’ve loved both brands and eaten those foods with gusto.
The only issue I have is the Prowl is high in carbohydrates compared to other dehydrated raw foods, which makes it a no-go now that I’m caring for a diabetic cat.
That’s good to know that The Honest Kitchen’s Prowl is higher in carbs than some of the others, Janea. I probably wouldn’t choose it even for healthy cats if that’s the case.
Congratulations again on your new family member!
thanks for this post. I have always wondered about this. Cody has severe allergies and one day I need to find another option for him other than the food I am currently feeding him.
It may be worth trying one of these diets for Cody, Caren.
I’ve tried Honest Kitchen and Primal dehydrated food to have something on hand if I run out of or, more likely, forget to thaw their raw food, rather than rely on canned food for that. I’m thrilled with the quality, ease of preparation and price, but so far my felines only seem to eat it because they are too hungry not to. I’ll be trying dehydrated foods next, and we’ll see how that goes.
So far, I’ve only tried Honest Kitchen with Allegra and Ruby. Ruby ate it the first time, but woudn’t touch it the second time. Allegra didn’t care for it at all. I’m going to try the Stella and Chewy next – I like having options other than grain-free canned as an alternative to the frozen raw diets I feed in the event that the power goes out.
I’ve tried Honest Kitchen with my own crew (of seven) and several different sets of fosters, and NO ONE will eat it. it was horribly disappointing because I do like their philosophy.
I am not a fan of pasteurizing raw food. I think once you take the fear out of it (like this) you get lax and you end up with more contaminated food. Even if they do kill the pathogens, they are still on and in the food and I can’t imagine eating dead e-coli and salmonilla is a good thing.. I would much prefer my food manufactures take food safety seriously and prevent contamination in the first place.
I myself am on a journey with food, and one thing I really wanted to try for quite some time was raw milk. We are all taught to fear raw milk.. it must be pasteurized and homogenized to be safe!! well that is not true. You just need to source your milk (and meat, and eggs, and all fresh foods) from a farm that fears the e-coli and takes steps to prevent it in the first place. Farms that care more about quantity over quality feel that killing it is good enough – but they don’t consider the other side effects of unclean conditions… http://www.naturalnews.com/035039_raw_milk_pasteurized_CDC.html (this is a little propogandary, but I’ve read similar reports in other places I just can’t put my mouse on them as quickly right now)
My cat was designed to eat raw animals. intestines and colon and all. They can handle some ‘contamination’. I fear the more ‘safe’ they make it, the less safe it will actually be if there is a problem somewhere at some point – and according to the chaos theory, it is bound to happen.
I mostly agree with you, Connie – raw feeding isn’t as daunting as it seems to so many cat guardians. But I also think it’s important that people don’t go too far outside their comfort zone, and that’s why these freeze-dried or dehydrated diets can be a good starting point (IF the cats will eat them.) It’s also why I have no issue with HPP. If it gets more people feeding these diets rather than inferior processed foods, I’m all for it.
As for your personal journey with regards to raw milk, I applaud you for exploring this. I completely agree that knowing where your food comes from is the most important piece, and it’s especially important with unprocessed or minimally processed food. Raw milk exceeds my personal comfort level.
As for the issue of problems along the way – unfortunately, I think you’re right, it’s unavoidable. Nothing is completely risk-free.
The Stella & Chewy’s freeze- dried seems to be the only option I would try as all the rest have vegetables in them. With 2 diet controlled diabetics, I wouldn’t want to take a chance at what those carbs might do to their blood glucose.
I wonder if you could feed the Stella & Chewy’s as is as a treat? The felines might like some a little different every once in a while.
Stella and Chewy’s is fantastic. One of my little guys literally tore through my pantry door to get to it, he’s seriously addicted. Which is making it fun to clicker train him, he’ll gladly do his tricks if I hold out on of his precious nuggets of Stella and Chewy’s. The big boys like it as is for treats – we just pour it out like catnip sometimes and watch them have fun! Needless to say they love it as a meal too. I don’t use it 100% because I have a cat with constipation issues and too much raw seems to make it worse, I think it is the bones. And don’t use it in a puzzle feeder, it doesn’t seem too cooperate, breaks down too much or something. The single serve pouches aren’t as firmly formed into nuggets so if you want to do it as treats get the big bags.
I truly believe Stella and Chewy’s safety standards are high enough to prevent contamination – they require guarantees of their suppliers, have a federally inspected plant, follow HACCP standards, and they do testing of every batch of ingredients and every batch of product – there’s a code on the bag you can look up the test results for you bag on their website to see results. All their ingredients are US sourced. Check out the food safety section of their website. I think the HPP makes it more tolerable for some people to do raw, but I don’t think Stella and Chewy’s is counting on that for safety, it is one step in a serious process for them.
That’s good to hear that Stella and Chewy’s is taking quality control so seriously, HollyAnne.
No one in my house will eat the Honest Kitchen either – the texture is really weird for them I think.
I just did a training for Honest Kitchen resellers – their meat is “gently steamed to 140-165 degrees” to prevent contamination before dehydrating it. To me that says cooked… They also take food safety incredibly seriously – all their ingredients are human grade and their plant is a human grade facility as well. They source nothing from China.
I did not realize that Honest Kitchen steams their meat before dehydrating. I’d still consider it a good option, but I wouldn’t consider it truly “raw,” either.
When we were at pet extreme yesterday getting Saul’s canned food we also picked up some of the Stella and Chewy single serving packets to try. We also want alternatives around in the unlikely event we run out of food and cannot get to the store (neither of us drive). Our vet is vehemantly against feeding raw, this is unfortunate as we greatly respect and trust his opinions on everything else, so these freeze dried things are a good compromise. We haven’t actually tried them yet but the person at the store said they can either be fed like a treat sort of like the Whole Life dehydrated cat treats or reconstituted for food.
Best,
Tom Mary Beth and the Furries.
Let me know how your cats like the Stella and Chewy’s, Tom. I haven’t ben able to get my two to accept it, but I think it’s a good idea to have alternatives. It’s why I feed my girls raw and occasionally canned – I like to know that they’ll accept both, and it came in handy during a 2-day power outage last summer when all my raw food spoiled.
Hi Ingrid, oh no! That’s terrible to hear about you losing all of your kitties’ food. We don’t get power outages very often at all but that would be one thing I’d worry about if we did decide to make our own kitty food like I mentioned in another post.
I’ll definitely let you know if any of ours will take the Stella and Chewy’s.
Best,
Tom Mary Beth and the furries.