http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/fat-cats-on-a-diet-will-they-still-love-you/?_r=0

Pet Obesity Rates Continue To Climb: Is Your Pet Looking Chubby? : Health : Headlines & Global News

http://www.hngn.com/articles/169322/20160113/pet-obesity-rise-looking-chubby.htm

Preventing obesity in pets

http://www.scnews.com/theme_pages/pet_and_equestrian/article_36140af4-b3d5-11e5-8227-5bb6cd232513.html

Yet again, a veterinarian recommends that obese cats should “get more exercise”.

How exactly is this supposed to happen? Whether you live in a tiny apartment or on a huge ranch, cats will get precisely the amount of “exercise” that they need.

My neighbor’s cat Jerry is obese, yet he climbs and explores the same as any other cat. His diet is to blame, not his sedentary lifestyle.

Do these vets really think that if Jerry’s owner would play with him more that he (Jerry) would somehow burn a huge amount of calories and thus lose weight? That barely works on humans, and it darn sure doesn’t work for cats.

Sigh…

U.S. Pet Obesity on the Rise for Fifth Straight Year — BREA, Calif., Jan. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ —

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-pet-obesity-on-the-rise-for-fifth-straight-year-300199897.html

Looking Forward in 2016

Well hello there!

Admittedly, I haven’t kept up with this website as much as I should. Hopefully that’ll change in the near future. I had some technical problems which only let me post in a manner in which I wasn’t comfortable (VISUAL versus HTML version, for those of you who use WordPress) and now it’s all resolved.

Since I wrote my book, I’ve been astonished by the abundance of bad advice that licensed veterinarians are giving people about cat health. Considering that I’ve never taken a single veterinary class, much less been licensed as a veterinarian, that’s a rather cheeky thing for me to say. On what do I base such a brazen opinion?

I’ve had cats for years, and followed the same advice, and it never worked. If it did, I’d never have written my book, and there’d be no need for this site (and others like it). Veterinarians mindlessly parrot the same old “knowledge” about cat health, and even if I am the “odd one out” here, I also happen to be the one who is right.

Come back in 20 years and all of this will seem “obvious”, but for now it’s not, sadly enough.

Nonetheless, onwards and upwards!

7 Days on a Desert Island

Hey, let’s imagine something interesting, a gedanken experiment, if you will.

Let’s imagine there is a fat man and a fat cat on board a ship, and a terrible storm arises, and the ship sinks, and somehow the fat man and fat cat are the only survivors, and find themselves cast away on a desert island. On this island there are a few trees for shade, and a tiny spring of fresh water, but the rest is just rocks and sand, so not a scrap of food for man nor beast.

And let’s imagine that this fat man and fat cat have to survive for a week on this island. So a little bit of water, and some shade from the hot tropical sun, but no birds, no coconuts, no food of any kind for either man or cat. What will happen?

After a week, the rescue ship arrives. The man has lost a ton of weight, but otherwise he’s fine. His body converted the stored fat into energy, and kept him alive in conjunction with the water. Maybe his beard has grown out, and his hair is scraggly, and he’s super hungry, but biologically he’s fine.

But what about the cat? The cat would be dead. Even with a similar amount of stored fat in his body, cats aren’t designed to convert fat into energy in times of famine. Obligate carnivore predators, which include cats, simply starve to death when there is no food to eat.

All that extra fat in the cat’s body was there NOT as a biological defense against times of hunger, but as a way to trap a toxin and keep it from poisoning his body. Therefore, a fat cat isn’t responding to ancient biological imperatives to store energy against times of famine, but as a way to process MODERN toxins and wrap them up in a protective layer so as not to overwhelm his digestive system with the poisons of bread, corn, potatoes and other cereals.

There are plenty of fat people who are healthy. There isn’t a single fat cat who is healthy. Please give your cats the diet they deserve and don’t poison them with “foods” that sicken them!

Let’s Talk About Frozen Fish

I don’t live anywhere near the ocean/sea so around here, all of the really tasty fish comes frozen. Yesterday I was down at my local fish market, and I realized there’s a lot of differences between what looks like, at first glance, to all be different kinds of frozen fish.

If you’re buying frozen fish (or other kinds of seafood), whether for yourself or your cat, it’s important to understand how the fish is frozen. If you want to see the process (and differences) for yourself, simply take a non-frozen piece of fish and place it in your freezer. After it’s rock solid, allow it to thaw. You’ll see right away that it is just mush, as the inner cellular walls of the tissues have been exploded. That’s because water entered into the cell walls, and, as water always does, it expanded until it bursts the cell tissue, completely ruining the nutrition (and taste) of the flesh of the animal which died to give us (and our cats) life.

But some frozen fish, such as the kind I bought yesterday, thaws nicely and smells, looks, and tastes exactly like it is fresh-caught. So what is the difference?

The secret is how fast the fish (or anything else) is frozen. Commercial fisheries use special freezers that are far colder than the freezers people have in their homes. The fish is “flash frozen” in a few minutes or less, and the water molecules never have a chance to seep into the cell walls, so they don’t expand and destroy the flesh of the fish.

Commercial fishing boats have these flash freezers onboard. The fish go from being hauled in by a net and deep frozen in five minutes or less. Although nothing is as good as a truly fresh-caught fish, a flash frozen fish retains about 98% of the nutritional value.

It’s really a great deal for your cat (and you!) because frozen fish is easy to handle and store (and has no odor), and you still get (almost) all the nutritional benefit of a fresh fish.

Thawing fish is really simple, and I’ve used a number of methods:

• Microwave on low power (some ovens have a “defrost” setting) until it’s hot, but not boiling hot. Remember, cats like animals to be at the same temperature as if they were freshly hunted and killed.
• Take a (well-wrapped) frozen fish and place it in your
  refrigerator for about 24 hours and allow it to defrost slowly and thoroughly. It’ll be chilled but can be quickly “zapped” in a microwave to bring it up to “tasty” temperature.
• Place the frozen fish in a container and add hot (even boiling) water. Wait about 30-90 seconds and the fish (depending on size) should feel flexible and soft in your hands, just like a fresh fish. The benefit to this method is the fish is also nice and warm, just like kitty likes!
• Put a frozen fish in a pot of cold water on your stovetop. Using low heat, allow it to slowly warm up. You’ll know it’s ready when your puny human nose gets a strong whiff of fish odor. Again, this method is nice because the fish is ready to go at “tasty”
  temperature.

Be sure not to actually cook the fish, as then you’re just destroying the nutritional value, especially the vital proteins that your cat needs. If the flesh of the fish is changing color, this means you’re cooking it.

Two Kinds of Frozen

Flash frozen fish is awesome. But sometimes shops and markets sell fish that’s frozen, but it isn’t flash frozen. So how do you know the difference?

Luckily, it’s really easy to find out. If the fish is whole, and has the head, tail, and all its parts still attached, then it was flash frozen.

If the fish has been filleted, the head/tail removed, or been otherwise “prepared” in some way, then logic tells us that the fish wasn’t frozen when that happened (unless you have a
diamond-tipped saw, it’s impossible to fillet a frozen fish LOL) and then frozen afterwards. Yuk!

So the rule of thumb is: always buy frozen whole fish, and then you’ll know for sure that it is delicious, tasty, and still in possession of all of its awesome nutritional value.

HAPPY FROZEN FISH BUYING!