There have been a lot of news stories recently about how grain-free pet foods may be bad. The stories focus on dogs. What should families with cats know?
How are We Just Hearing About This?
The short answer is, we aren’t. This is one of those things hat has been under discussion in the veterinary community for a while. In June 2017, a letter went out from UC Davis about many golden retrievers being diagnosed with taurine-deficient dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM).
This June, an article was published by Tufts Clinical Nutrition Service blaming heart disease in dogs on grain-free diets and exotic ingredients. While much of the article was informative, the advice in the article, to stop reading the ingredients list and to feed dogs a “made by a well-known reputable company and containing standard ingredients” made some pet owners uncomfortable, especially those who knew that Purina and Hills were donors to Tufts Veterinary School.
So these warnings stayed primarily within the veterinary community until the FDA put out a statement in July that they were investigating a potential connection between diet and cases of canine heart disease. Suddenly, the media took notice, and everything from major newspapers to hometown TV news reporters took were talking about dogs and grain-free diets.
Why are You Talking About Dogs? What About Cats?
The FDA recently issued a frequently asked questions list about the investigation into the connection between diet and canine heart disease. Among the answers was this:
Prior to issuing our public notification on July 12, 2018, the FDA received sporadic reports involving 30 dogs and seven cats.
After the FDA’s previous statement talked exclusively about dogs, they suddenly mention that over 20% of the reports they had received were about cats. Should families with cats worry?
What the FDA Says About Those Cats
It seemed the only thing to do is ask the FDA what was going on and why we were only hearing about dogs. Anne Norris, with the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine explained:
FDA received one feline report in 2015 and two feline report in 2016, and those three cases encompassed seven cats total. Vet-LIRN investigated and was never able to determine the cause of illness for the cats. Diet cannot be ruled out as a factor in the feline cases, but it’s worth noting that the food that five of the cats were eating tested at normal levels for taurine. We do not know the significance of the feline reports as it relates to the canine reports at this time, but it’s something we’re keeping in mind as we investigate.
The focus of the update was on canine DCM due to the proportionally higher number of reports involving dogs. We will review feline DCM cases if they are reported to us. Since posting our public notification on July 12, 2018, we have not received any reports involving cats.
It is understandable that the FDA, like all government agencies, has to make choices about what they can investigate with their limited resources.
The point that that there have been no more reports since the public notification on July 12 is not very persuasive, considering the notification said, “The FDA encourages pet owners and veterinary professionals to report cases of DCM in dogs suspected of having a link to diet by using the electronic Safety Reporting Portal or calling their state’s FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinators.” When you encourage reports about dogs, you get reports about dogs.
The FDA doesn’t think cats are impacted as often as dogs by potential issues from ingredients in grain-free foods. Photo credit: depositphotos/gurinaleksandr
What Should Cat Families Do?
That’s the hard question, and it’s one that families with dogs have been asking a lot recently. No one has any clear answers yet.
One thing we should not do is count on the dog-related research to apply to cats. Early observations in golden retrievers show that this dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is reversible in dogs with taurine supplementation, and dogs synthesize taurine from cysteine and methionine, other amino acids in their diet. Cats can’t use other amino acids as building blocks and need to eat taurine in their diet to avoid dilated cardiomyopathy. So any outcome from the current studies may not apply to cats.
According to Anne Norris at the FDA:
The common thread seems to be legumes and/or potatoes as main ingredients in the food. Currently, it’s a correlative link, not a causative one.
If you want to avoid legumes or potatoes in your cat’s food, you need to avoid food using those as an ingredient. Kibble requires some kind of starch to hold it together, so many pet food manufactures use peas, lentils, chickpeas, or potatoes to hold grain-free kibble together. You may have better luck avoiding or minimizing the ingredients on the canned food aisle. Canned food is good for your cat’s hydration, so including it as a major component of your cat’s diet is a win either way.
You might also consider transitioning your cat to a balanced, raw diet, but keep in mind your cat can’t just eat raw meat from the grocery store. That isn’t balanced, even if it might look tasty!
The warnings about grain-free pet food have made many unsure of what to feed their pets. Photo credit: depositphotos/kuban_girl
The July notification from the FDA also noted:
Early reports from the veterinary cardiology community indicate that the dogs consistently ate these foods as their primary source of nutrition for time periods ranging from months to years.
Rotating your cat’s diet so she doesn’t eat the same food all the time might be a good precaution. It is a good practice anyhow so you have another food your know your cat will eat in case of recall or supply shortage.
This site will bring you an update if this investigation brings information relevant to cats.
Research and further reading
Iowa State University, The role of Taurine in the Feline Well Being
Questions & Answers: FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine’s Investigation into a Possible Connection Between Diet and Canine Heart Disease
This is one of the many reasons why we eat a combination of high quality canned and raw food, and not kibble. My human has known for a long time that kibble is not an optimum diet for us, and she has the means to feed us food that may cost more, but is better for us.
Now, if only we could convince her to improve her own diet! MOL
Could you please specify in detail what you feed your cat?
I’ve been eating grain-free kibble for the last year or so. I also eat some wet food. I suppose Mum will be worried now and will want to switch me back to the normal dry.
Thanks for this, I had been wondering. My three do primarily get canned food, but I’ve tended to supplement with some grain-free dry as ‘entertainment ‘ in treat balls.
There needs to be a whole lot more focus on what is really healthy for pets instead of what might make the most profit for the companies. There really isn’t a group that is overly interested in that, at least we haven’t found them. Thanks for keeping us informed.
Even many grain free canned foods contain potatoes and legumes. This is very frustrating for us cat parents.
Very interesting. We eat grain free though mom would like to transition to at least 1 meal a day canned. Drives us nuts that once again the focus is mostly dogs
“we should not do is count on the dog-related research to apply to cats”
Amen! Cat are not tiny dogs…hello!
Dogs are omnivores…they can eat lots of things and stay healthy.
Cats are obligate carnivores: meat only!
Thank you for this report on food for cats. And showing once again, that cats are not seen as very important. Look how long after the dog clients were given those flea and worm meds i.e. Program & and Front-line flea med back in the day. Several years later, back-of-the-neck flea meds came out for cats. LONG after dogs.
Most ads on TV are dog centric, and waiting rooms at most vet’s offices have no concern for the cat customers who must endure dogs charging up to them, defenseless in their carriers. Barking and so on. It has made a frightened patient out of both Admiral in her day and Katie in this day. I know about Cat centric vets but there is only one 50 miles away. None others are mentioned in East Tn. 50 + miles too far when there is an emergency.
Like Summer says, that’s the reason why we eat high quality canned food and raw food. Purrs
Very interesting. Our local news ran that story about grain free diets and dogs. If only I could convince Mudpie to like wet food, but I just don’t see it happening anytime soon.
TW is running out of ideas what to feed me. First get rid of the grains. Now grain-free is bad. It’s kinda getting like human foods where first eggs were good, then bad and now good again. Same with coffee. Some canned food also contain some of those ingredients like peas.
it is frustrating how grain free is popular but starch free is not. As cats are carnivores they have no need for these things in their foods. I have yet to see a non-biased study that shows me that cats get any benefit from the excess of carbs in their foods.
thank you for delving into the numbers and stats and looking for more info. It is frustrating because we can’t even get vets to report medication side effects to the FDA, they aren’t going to be thinking food..
but maybe, just maybe there will be some vets that make that connection
This is an excellent article- and I am so glad I found it.
We have been feeding grain-free wet cat food to our kitties for many, many years. We stopped feeding any dry food in 2004 since dry food is just that… dry.. and in our opinion, wet food is far more appropriate for felines, since many cats don’t drink sufficient amounts of water to keep appropriately hydrated which can cause kidney problems. In fact, some cats don’t drink any water at all. Most wet food is between 75-85% fluid.
Thanks for mentioning raw food- and its value. I do wish, however, that you had expounded on the dangers and more about how to safely feed a raw diet to our cats. Recently one of the top raw food companies had several recalls due to salmonella contamination. Again, thanks for a sensible and SANE article.
I need to feed my cat grain free food because I have celiac disease, I’m very sensitive and if she eats normal food it can make me very sick. I was happy to see there were so many grain free foods and they were supposed to be the best anyway. But now I see news that it’s bad for dogs. And maybe cats?? It was either grain free or get rid of her which I do not want. She is very picky about what she eats and will not eat wet food. Only tuna lickable sensations treats and her dry food. She won’t eat plain tuna, won’t eat wet food… She won’t eat plain meat at all either. I hope that grain free food isn’t harmful because it’s our only option.
I’ve been battling the cat food dilemma for some time now. Grocery store foods, pet store foods, specialty foods, grain free foods, holistic foods. It’s enough to make you crazy! Cats don’t need grains and they certainly don’t need “plant based” ingredients. One ingredient that I detest in my cat’s food is brewers rice. It seems like just an empty filler to me, and some cat food brands have it as their second ingredient.
My older cat developed a weight problem from stealing kitten food from our younger cat. It’s taken some time, but he’s lost most of the weight. Sadly partly due to a reaction to his annual vaccines wherein he became gravely ill and completely stopped eating. Thank God he made it through with the help of our veterinarian. They had changed the vaccines they were using and my cat was one of several who had a reaction to it.
I just want to ensure my cats get the right nutrition. I became a serious cat food label/ingredient reader several years ago.
My cats eat dry food supplemented with some canned food. My younger cat gets finicky with canned food, though. I actually had both of them off canned food at one point because the younger cat stopped eating it, but when my older cat was recovering from the reaction to his vaccines, our veterinarian said to feed him whatever he will eat, so I started buying canned good again. It’s what made him start eating, well that and the appetite stimulants he was given.
Growing up our cats ate Cat Chow or Meow Mix and they seemed to do fine. Our dogs ate Dog Chow. They did fine.
This idea of peas and potatoes in cat food just makes no sense to me. The dry food mine eat currently has peas in it. But it is a weight management food that seems to work best for my cats. I am researching more foods, though, just in case. I did try Halo healthy weight dry food, but the calories were significantly higher than other weight management foods and my cat gained weight while on it.
I’ll keep doing my research. I do like the idea of rotating foods mentioned above, I may give that a try.
Thank you for writing this article. Seeing many reports about dogs and grain free foods, I was concerned about my cats, too.