Feline Nutrition: Food Allergy Or Intolerance? A Guest Blog (And Give-Away!) By Jill Gainer From "Nature's Variety"

I’m Jill Gainer, Director of Communications for Nature’s Variety.  A big thanks to Caren and Cody for letting me take over Cat Chat today!  What an honor.

Cody and Caren have given me an opportunity to talk a little about feline nutrition.   In full disclosure, I have a dog, not a cat.  (Gasp!)  But it’s not for lack of love of our feline friends!  (I just have some highly allergic kids in my house.)    But we always had cats growing up.   Delilah, our Himalayan, did me the honor of allowing me to live in HER house for 17 years.   And when I got my first apartment after college, the first thing I did was adopt a kitten, Samantha.  So I am a cat girl.

We fed Delilah what we considered to be a good food- it was a well-known brand name supported with lots of advertising and a catchy jingle.  So when it came time to pick a food for my new kitten,  I took my cue from what we fed Delilah.   Was it a good food? Yes.  Was it the best nutrition for her?  Maybe not.    Pet nutrition knowledge has come a long way since then!  And consumers and pet parents are a lot more educated on what makes a truly healthy meal for their pets.

 It’s a well-known fact that cats are obligate carnivores, which means they really don’t need any grains at all in their diet.  (Think about it- cats were used at granaries to keep the mice out because they WOULDN’T eat the corn, just the mice.)   Additionally, cats can have food intolerances or food allergies to certain ingredients in their food, just like people do.

 So what’s the difference - Food allergy or intolerance?  A food allergy presents itself with physical symptoms such as itching, sneezing, skin problems, hot spots…very physical manifestations of symptoms.  Food intolerances are similar to when a human might eat something that upsets their tummy every time they eat it (like milk, soy, spicy foods, etc.)  Does your cat exhibit any of those symptoms?     In cats, the most common food allergies are caused by just a few ingredients:   seafood (surprise!) beef, dairy, corn, soy or wheat.  It’s interesting, because those were a lot of the ingredients in the food that I fed my cat!

  So what’s a cat lover to do?  Fortunately, both food allergies and food intolerances can be alleviated or even eliminated when certain “culprit” ingredients are eliminated from their diet.  Sometimes veterinarians will recommend an “elimination diet” to pinpoint exactly what the animal is allergic to.  An elimination diet removes all of the commonly known allergens then slowly reintroduces them one at a time. It takes a lot of patience and time (sometimes as long as 12 weeks) to complete the trial.

   Nature's Variety has just introduced a new diet for cats- Instinct Limited Ingredient Diets, which contain none of the common allergens for cats.  It’s a great option to try BEFORE going to a full elimination trial.  First of all, it’s grain-free.  Turkey meal is the first ingredient and tapioca is the only starch.  It provides a complete and balanced meal with simple ingredients, and none of the top allergens for cats.  Additionally, it’s coated in green tea for antioxidant support (and it’s really tasty- cats preferred it to our competitors in our testing).  I would be happy to send out a few bags if anyone would like to try it!  So contact Cody and Caren with your info (how to contact you should you be one of the five winners), by leaving a comment on this post by Monday, May 16th at MIDNIGHT (EST) and on Wednesday, May 18th we’ll draw five names and ship to the winners. Contest is open to the U.S. and Canada.

  For more info, check us out at www.naturesvariety.com.

Thanks again Cody and Caren!

**Caren and Cody here. It was our pleasure to feature Jill as a spokesperson for Nature's Variety. In the interest of full disclosure we have not actually tested Nature's Variety Cat Food.  Jill contacted us for a review and since we do not use this food (and could not test it because Cody is on a special diet that I didn't wish to veer from) I felt I could not properly review it. I offered Jill the opportunity to guest post to further explain her product to all of us. We received no compensation for Jill/Nature's Variety appearing today.  From time to time we will feature products that we may not have tried ourselves but we feel they may be of interest to our readers. When that is the case we will always let you know, as we are today. It is up to you, our valued readers, to form your own conclusions.