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Cocktails & Cat Food Lies · Back In The Closet - Two Crazy Cat Ladies

• 0:01
  I'm Jay, I'm Adrian, and together we are there's two
• 0:04
  crazy ladies. I'm going to cut you I.
• 0:09
  Think I just peed. Buckle up.
• 0:11
  We're back in the closet. Welcome to another episode of
• 0:18
  Back in the Closet with the 2 Crazy Cat Ladies.
• 0:21
  Guys, we have a treat for you tonight.
• 0:23
  Oh my God, we have such a treat and we are just to like warn you
• 0:27
  we might be a little bit on a rant tonight.
• 0:30
  Very excited about it though. It's going to be very exciting
• 0:34
  because we are joined by For the One.
• 0:38
  And only the one and only. And a lot of you guys don't even
• 0:40
  know who this beautiful woman is yet.
• 0:43
  Yet the incredible Melissa Natanson come.
• 0:49
  Start it you 2. Wait, did I at least find out
• 0:53
  your name? Knievel.
• 0:55
  Knievel. It's actually Knievel.
• 0:57
  Hyphen. Hyphen.
• 0:58
  Natanson. Natanson.
• 1:00
  It's a mouthful, so no biggie. No biggie, but Knievel is way
• 1:04
  more fun because it's like we were talking earlier.
• 1:08
  I got all the crazy talk when I was growing up because I was a
• 1:12
  crazy Knievel and you're the crazy cat ladies.
• 1:15
  It was meant to be. Isn't it?
• 1:17
  But you're a bonafide Knievel. You are literally Jake Jay
• 1:21
  thought evil Knievel was a saying that because you watched
• 1:24
  my girl and and she thought like, oh, you're a real evil and
• 1:28
  evil. It was like a it was like a
• 1:30
  little thing that you said she didn't know Evil Knievel.
• 1:33
  Knievel was, it was a real dude. And happens to you like.
• 1:37
  Our real. Uncle, Yeah.
• 1:40
  Yeah, he's my like, I think he's my great, great, my dad's great
• 1:43
  uncle. I guess that makes him my great,
• 1:46
  great. And it was like I was telling
• 1:47
  you earlier, so when I was a kid, we had little dirt bikes.
• 1:51
  And then one day I was riding around, riding around and I
• 1:55
  crashed and I fell off and I hit my head, my helmet cracked.
• 2:00
  And my mom was like, that's it. We're done with the motorbikes.
• 2:05
  Let's get out of here. So and you stayed up.
• 2:08
  And then I'm a pay health coach. So I guess it was not my my vein
• 2:12
  in life to be jumping motorcycles, but I am, I am a
• 2:16
  little crazy. I've got this like, I don't
• 2:18
  know, isn't it adrenaline junkie?
• 2:20
  Is that what it is? Yeah.
• 2:23
  You don't have the like, the little adrenaline to like break
• 2:26
  every bone in your body that's not in you.
• 2:28
  Not anymore. I did.
• 2:30
  I used to. But you know, I mean, maybe it's
• 2:33
  crazy to be in the animal industry now because it's, it's,
• 2:37
  it's no joke. I mean, we're knocking away
• 2:39
  every day. We're breaking down walls.
• 2:42
  That's true. Haunting through paradigms.
• 2:44
  I mean, maybe that's the adrenaline rush now.
• 2:47
  OK girl, let's paradigm. Let's go there.
• 2:50
  So what Rod like? Hold on, hold on.
• 2:52
  You have such an extraordinary background.
• 2:54
  I love you gave us a little a little peek into your into your
• 2:58
  childhood, but you grew up on a farm.
• 3:01
  You had an incredible career as a as a journalist.
• 3:04
  Then you be a pet health coach. Yeah.
• 3:07
  With legacy Biome, can you kind of explain how this all came to
• 3:11
  be? Yeah, sure.
• 3:13
  Well, I mean, little farm girl from northeastern Colorado and
• 3:18
  loved growing up on a big farm and ranch, but I didn't know at
• 3:21
  the time how wonderful and nurturing it was to grow up that
• 3:26
  way. And all I wanted to do was get
• 3:28
  out and see the world, and I needed to go somewhere else.
• 3:31
  So in the middle of college, I took off and I moved to Germany.
• 3:36
  I was in international relations and I went to school with some
• 3:41
  pretty crazy people, like the Prince of Saudi Arabia and all
• 3:44
  sorts of crazy stuff. And I thought I wanted to do
• 3:47
  international journalism until I realized I didn't want to come
• 3:51
  to work every day with a suitcase ready to go somewhere
• 3:55
  in a war zone. So I changed it and started
• 3:59
  doing things locally. I worked for several NBC
• 4:04
  affiliates. And in the midst of all that, my
• 4:07
  mom got diagnosed with a rare GI cancer.
• 4:09
  And it was really, really brutal.
• 4:11
  So it was one of those life moments when you're like, does
• 4:15
  talking about what's going on in the world, do everybody else
• 4:18
  really matter? Or do I need to concentrate on
• 4:20
  what matters most? And there's a reason I'm talking
• 4:22
  about this because it was that it was that was the Canon event
• 4:26
  where I started realizing there's got to be more to
• 4:31
  medicine and there's got to be more to vet Med too.
• 4:34
  It it eventually translated. So really started looking into
• 4:38
  the microbiome, really started studying human holistic health.
• 4:41
  And that's kind of where I started out.
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  So when my little creatures got sick, I started applying what I
• 4:48
  learned in human holistic health to them.
• 4:51
  And lo and behold, a lot of it worked after I had gotten the,
• 4:55
  like, constant. We got to do steroids and
• 4:58
  antibiotics, and they're going to be on medications for the
• 5:00
  rest of their life. And I just couldn't accept it.
• 5:02
  So I found a better way. So I've kind of been at this
• 5:06
  chipping away for about 10 years.
• 5:10
  And yeah, a year and a half ago, it became certified as a
• 5:13
  holistic pet health coach officially.
• 5:17
  Thank you. Even though I've been doing it.
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  And now even though this is kitties, I have had kitties my
• 5:23
  literally my entire life. I was the farm girl that was
• 5:26
  like plucking all the little kittens.
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  I mean, we had so many cats running around and you know,
• 5:33
  Mama would like abandoned 1 and I'd go pick it up and bottle
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  feed it and all the things, I mean, all the things.
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  I had so many kittens in the house and I was a kid.
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  I drove my parents crazy. I love it.
• 5:44
  You're a crazy cat lady before you even knew it.
• 5:46
  Yeah. It was.
• 5:47
  I was a crazy cat lady long before I was a dog mom too.
• 5:51
  I mean, I love them both and but so often the story is with me
• 5:56
  and Darla. That's that's my doggie who has
• 5:59
  a spectacular story. But I am at heart a cat lady.
• 6:04
  Yes. I love it, I love it, and
• 6:06
  tonight is going to be really fun.
• 6:07
  I mean, this is a, this is an episode that we're really
• 6:08
  excited to do specifically with you because your brain is
• 6:12
  incredibly beautiful. And you're so articulate and
• 6:15
  that's, and that's wonderful. And just to say off the bat, 6
• 6:19
  minutes in that our our subject is cocktails and cat food.
• 6:22
  Lies, mocktails and cat food. Whatever.
• 6:27
  Because we're all drinking mocktails.
• 6:30
  Cheers. Cheers.
• 6:32
  Meowhito. Tell us a little bit before we
• 6:38
  jump into or go ahead. Well, I was going to say so at
• 6:42
  what point of this journey? So you're learning holistic
• 6:45
  health because of the human industry, right?
• 6:49
  Because of of human, you're learning a lot about medicine
• 6:52
  and what you don't want and don't need apply it to your dogs
• 6:55
  and cats. But at what point did you learn
• 6:58
  about the pet food industry specifically?
• 7:03
  Here we go. Here we go.
• 7:07
  Since this is about cats today we're going to talk.
• 7:09
  We're going to talk about one of my kitties named Whip.
• 7:12
  He's not in here right now and I might have to let her out
• 7:15
  because I warned you. I'm like, she's going to be in
• 7:17
  or be out. My other cat's in here and she's
• 7:18
  calling at the door. Come here.
• 7:20
  Hey, hush. Like let's just be part of this
• 7:23
  and so we can talk about it. So my cat Whip was a rescue.
• 7:29
  All of my animals were rescues and got him and I did what
• 7:34
  everybody does because you don't know what you don't know until
• 7:37
  you know different. And I thought I was, I was
• 7:39
  feeding him a, a quality kibble diet and he was pretty sick when
• 7:46
  he was in the shelter. So we did the standard protocol,
• 7:50
  which is let's do steroids, let's do antibiotics, let's do
• 7:54
  all of the things. And all of that led to an
• 7:58
  absolute IBD intestinal microbiome nightmare meltdown,
• 8:04
  to put it nicely. And what I was feeding him just
• 8:10
  wasn't it was it was adding to his inflammation.
• 8:13
  So one day I came home and Whippy's literally laying on the
• 8:17
  ground. And you 2 know better than
• 8:18
  anyone it takes a lot to take a cat to just lay there and really
• 8:23
  not want to move or eat or anything.
• 8:25
  I rushed him to the ER and he had a massively inflamed bowel
• 8:30
  and the vet actually said I've never seen one quite so bad.
• 8:35
  I don't know if he's going to make it.
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  Wait, what? He, he, he's not going to make
• 8:41
  it because his bowel is that inflamed because he's just been
• 8:45
  eating normal cat food and doing the things, you know, these
• 8:48
  things build up. I think this is what the purpose
• 8:50
  of our conversation. So many people don't know these
• 8:53
  things accumulate over the years and then bam, it can hit you
• 8:57
  like a lead balloon. So right then I thought, OK,
• 9:04
  what am I missing here? There's got to be more than just
• 9:07
  the bags in the cat food store or the pet food store for me to
• 9:11
  choose from. And I really started looking in
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  for it and into it. Changed his diet.
• 9:16
  I had to fight with them, you know, for a little while, as you
• 9:20
  also understand with your transition with food, because
• 9:23
  they were addicted to the crunchies.
• 9:25
  And we had to make peace with the fresh food because we've
• 9:29
  switched them over to fresh and eventually switched to raw and
• 9:33
  they made peace with it. And is the piece worth it?
• 9:38
  Yes, it is. It took a little while to broker
• 9:42
  that treaty with them, but. Doesn't it?
• 9:45
  Yeah, that's like that's like our theme for 2025 is like go
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  easing yourself, but be patient and persistent because it it you
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  will be able to, if you are patient and persistent, then you
• 9:58
  will be able to transition your cat to a better diet.
• 10:01
  But it takes it takes a lot longer than our dogs right like
• 10:05
  it. Can I mean?
• 10:06
  Everyone here thinking that it's going to be a terrible
• 10:08
  challenge, you know, like when we transition Scotch, it took
• 10:10
  like it took like a week, a week and 1/2.
• 10:12
  Probably wouldn't have taken one meal, but we did it.
• 10:16
  But with many cats, especially our kibble addicts, you, you
• 10:19
  understand the challenge. Yeah, yeah.
• 10:21
  I mean, it can be a challenge. And Jay, I love your tidbit of
• 10:26
  information on this because I think it's so important for
• 10:28
  people to know that some of the additives in those big
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  prescription diets, what do they do?
• 10:38
  Physically, make them addicted. Physically, yeah, it's.
• 10:41
  Like it's like the MSG that they put in human food.
• 10:44
  It has this, it has that same. It is, it's, it's a multi
• 10:49
  million, if not billion dollar industry that is created to
• 10:52
  create chemical to, to put together chemicals that make
• 10:56
  cats and dogs. But it works best with cats
• 11:00
  addicted to their dry kibble. And then they spray that stuff
• 11:04
  on it and it's chemicals, guys. It's chemicals.
• 11:06
  We're not talking like we're not talking.
• 11:09
  Oh well, they're just spraying something that smells really
• 11:11
  good or that taste, but it's completely safe.
• 11:13
  No, that build up over time of those chemicals and the crap
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  that they put in to the majority, the overwhelming
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  majority of these commercially prepared ultra processed foods
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  are made for your cats to be addicted.
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  Adrian saw a study, she was talking about it this weekend at
• 11:30
  Cat Con that that talked about. You know that that cats brains
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  and humans brains have similar sections, right?
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  And when they, when they give a cat kibble, it lights up the
• 11:43
  same parts of the brain that light up when you give a heroin
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  addict heroin, a human, a human, right?
• 11:52
  It really does help the compassion scale for us humans.
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  You know, it's that your cat's just being a A.
• 11:59
  Asshole. Right, I can't think of another.
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  I mean, the contradiction is real.
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  It's real. It is, yeah.
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  And they like that. I remember one time we had a
• 12:08
  little whippy. Whippy.
• 12:10
  That's the cat I was talking about.
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  He hadn't had kibble in 10 years.
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  And I had a medical foster here and I was trying to be like, OK,
• 12:18
  we're going to get her off this food, but she had kibble with
• 12:20
  her. And I was like, all right, for
• 12:21
  the short time you get this. That cat found that bag and
• 12:26
  ripped it open and was like, yeah, you know, like I'm an
• 12:30
  addict 10 years later. But it's not like he doesn't
• 12:33
  love his food now. Like he chomps down on his raw
• 12:35
  food like the little tiger that he is.
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  And. And it's all good, but I mean,
• 12:40
  there's something that clicked in his brain that.
• 12:44
  Was like, wow, it's that same thing.
• 12:47
  So let me let me ask you real quick because it sounds like
• 12:49
  Whip was one of your greatest teachers.
• 12:51
  Yeah. Whip have a nae nae.
• 12:59
  OK, you too. Oh, I'll drink to that, OK.
• 13:05
  I'll drink nae nae. We need the song now.
• 13:09
  We need the song. No, but I do have a story for
• 13:11
  you. He doesn't have a nae nae, but
• 13:14
  he does know Morse code. Remember how we were talking
• 13:17
  about pika? I'm going to call it pika if
• 13:19
  it's supposed to be pika. I'm sorry y'all come after me
• 13:25
  but I I always, I always say Pika did.
• 13:28
  You hear her. No.
• 13:31
  You said you're going to go with Pika.
• 13:33
  Some people call it pika and she said it's banana.
• 13:35
  Banana. Right, right.
• 13:39
  Tomato, tomato. I'm really good with that
• 13:41
  anyway. So I this is this is TMI, but
• 13:47
  well, not really. I'm just telling personal
• 13:49
  stories. So I changed my shower curtain a
• 13:53
  lot. It's just weird about that.
• 13:54
  Like I want the shower curtain to be fresh and it's usually
• 13:57
  like a a fabric one that I can wash if I need to because heaven
• 14:00
  forbid I have a plastic shower curtain liner because y'all know
• 14:05
  what happens, you know, and if you know, you know.
• 14:08
  And we years ago I learned I couldn't have a plastic shower
• 14:13
  curtain with a peek a cat while I was switching it.
• 14:16
  Oh oh good Lord, that was that was almost catastrophe.
• 14:21
  OK, for that was great. That was great.
• 14:25
  So so yeah, for those that are just listening and not watching
• 14:30
  our cat, we just once again, this has happened several times
• 14:33
  in this podcast, but once again, we had a cat jump on our heads,
• 14:36
  huh? Yeah, there you go.
• 14:39
  OK, continue. Anyways, had to put the plastic
• 14:43
  shower curtain up and he we haven't had a plastic shower
• 14:46
  curtain in like 10 years. So I thought again, he's
• 14:48
  forgotten that he has an addiction to shower curtains
• 14:51
  because he's a pika cat. And no, I wake up in the middle
• 14:54
  of night. I'm like, what the hell is that
• 14:56
  sound? I had gone in there.
• 14:59
  He had chomped Morse code across the entire shower curtain.
• 15:05
  I mean in a straight line just. All.
• 15:08
  The way down? Don't, don't, don't.
• 15:10
  Like what are we trying to communicate little Morse code
• 15:12
  Kitty teeth across the whole thing?
• 15:15
  Zorro does that with concrete or not concrete cardboard boxes.
• 15:20
  Yeah, he's like a whole stapler. He just goes all the way, all
• 15:23
  the way down, all the way around.
• 15:24
  Or concrete. What's wrong with this?
• 15:28
  It's he's mocking. Someday we're going to solve
• 15:30
  this. I mean, there's, there's a
• 15:32
  microbiome thing, but we're going to solve this.
• 15:36
  There's someone here maybe? We should tease that.
• 15:38
  Well, yeah, Melissa will be back because there is some really
• 15:41
  exciting news coming to the cat world.
• 15:45
  Yes, and we're going. To be doing as much research as
• 15:48
  possible. As am I it's it's like my thing
• 15:52
  I dig into every day it's pretty it's pretty remarkable the more
• 15:56
  we learn about how much the microbiome matters.
• 16:00
  I'm going to say it that way. That's like my new slogan, The
• 16:02
  microbiome matters because especially in cats, it makes
• 16:07
  such a big difference in everything we're doing.
• 16:08
  And I mean, we're here here to have fun today.
• 16:11
  But we can have fun and talk about the statistics at the same
• 16:14
  time. Because I mean, chronic IBD in
• 16:17
  cats with 50% of cats having chronic IBD and diarrhea.
• 16:21
  I mean, that's, that's insane. Obesity and diabetes.
• 16:25
  That's a link to the food what we're talking about today.
• 16:27
  I mean, what was it? 60% of cats are overweight.
• 16:31
  Yeah, right. Yeah.
• 16:33
  Wait, wait. But there's a brand that just
• 16:34
  came out. I saw the, I saw the commercial
• 16:36
  for this. I thought it was so great they
• 16:40
  now make a healthy weight kibble.
• 16:44
  Not going to say the brand. But.
• 16:46
  I'm sure. I'm sure there's, I'm sure every
• 16:48
  brand is jumped on board or will at least for a healthy way, I
• 16:52
  mean. Such an oxymoron.
• 16:54
  It really is right. Let's, let's, let's talk more
• 16:57
  about that and the like these buzzwords, right, like the, the
• 17:01
  marketing, the, the, the, the deceptive, very deceptive
• 17:06
  marketing that the pet food companies do.
• 17:08
  And this is for cats and dogs, but like specifically for cats,
• 17:12
  like the, when you walk into a pet store, like a big box pet
• 17:15
  store and you go through, we've done this several times and
• 17:18
  filmed ourselves. People want to kick us out, but
• 17:20
  we're like. So this one's in, this one's the
• 17:24
  hairball formula, this one's the senior cat formula, this one's
• 17:27
  the indoor cat formula, this one's the right.
• 17:32
  Like there are so many different formulas.
• 17:34
  I'm sure there's. There's a urinary formula,
• 17:36
  there's a kitten formula, there's AI mean like.
• 17:38
  Literally you flip the back over and you look at the ingredients.
• 17:42
  Let's let's dive into what are your.
• 17:44
  What are your? Yeah, what are your some of your
• 17:47
  like top red flag, biggest lies or misleading tactics that are
• 17:54
  used for our cats food? Well, I mean those are the other
• 17:59
  you listed, the big ones. My other one is KD formulas,
• 18:03
  which is kidney disease formulas.
• 18:05
  That is probably, that's one of my biggest things because I
• 18:09
  specialize in GI health and kidney health in both cats and
• 18:12
  dogs. So probably one of my biggest
• 18:15
  things is when it comes to kidney disease and cat food
• 18:22
  because the automatic recommendation is feed low
• 18:27
  protein. And I know I'll probably have
• 18:29
  the vets come after me, but let me tell you why we don't do that
• 18:33
  until the very, very end. Because there's there's actually
• 18:36
  a good chance that your Kitty with the right food and the
• 18:39
  right support, can live a really long time with a kidney disease
• 18:43
  diagnosis. Because it may not even be
• 18:46
  kidney disease. It may be kidney stress as a
• 18:48
  result of there being gut dysbiosis.
• 18:50
  We can go into that more later, which is also linked back to
• 18:54
  what is it the. Food that they need.
• 18:58
  So Oh my God, I almost smelled my cocktail OK, and I didn't
• 19:00
  even have a cat involved. So you know these low protein
• 19:07
  prescription that shall not be named kibble.
• 19:13
  I will give the hints if you want are lower protein, but what
• 19:19
  did they make up the calories for?
• 19:20
  So yes, generally they are, you know, they're AFCO approved that
• 19:25
  that's the that's the veterinary board or the food board for the
• 19:29
  animals. But they're severely lacking in
• 19:31
  protein. And we have to go back to the
• 19:33
  fact that cats are obligate carnivores.
• 19:36
  They have 0 necessity for carbohydrates.
• 19:40
  So if you think about what a Kitty would eat in the wild if
• 19:43
  they were going to catch a mouse or a squirrel or whatever, are
• 19:46
  they going to have some plant matter?
• 19:48
  Yeah, absolutely. They're going to get the pre
• 19:50
  digestive contents of the stomach of the prey that they're
• 19:52
  eating. So we don't want the diet to be
• 19:55
  completely devoid of plant matter.
• 19:57
  They need some things. And because also the microbes in
• 20:00
  the gut love plant a little plant matter.
• 20:04
  But if we are, if we're feeding a low protein diet, then the cat
• 20:09
  is not getting the amino acids that it needs to have a chance
• 20:12
  to repair the kidney damage. Or have a chance for their gut
• 20:16
  to repair and why this is so important is so many kitties
• 20:20
  have IBD. So many kitties have small in
• 20:23
  small bowel inflammation. And guess what this can lead to
• 20:26
  a couple of things. Kidney disease.
• 20:28
  That's one of them. I mean other than the dehydrated
• 20:30
  food. We can talk about that next
• 20:33
  because the small bowel is, is what's absorbing all the
• 20:37
  nutrients. And if the small bowel is not
• 20:38
  working right, then there's extra uremic toxins.
• 20:41
  There's all sorts of things that the kidney bears the brunt of
• 20:45
  because a small bowel is not doing its job.
• 20:48
  So then the small bowel can't repair if we don't have enough
• 20:51
  protein and amino acids in the diet to keep the GI system going
• 20:56
  good. So, you know, it's just it's 6
• 20:59
  1/2 a dozen of the other that are hitting back and forth on
• 21:02
  each other. And so, well, I mean, high
• 21:06
  protein, maybe not necessarily, but a fresh food diet with
• 21:10
  normal protein is going to give your Kitty the best chance at
• 21:15
  not having GI issues and not having kidney issues.
• 21:18
  Well, and let's talk about the the quality of ingredients in
• 21:21
  the majority of these these ultra processed kill diets to KD
• 21:26
  diets, prescription diets just as a whole or or like even their
• 21:31
  non prescription diets, right? Sure.
• 21:33
  If you are picking, if you are literally taking roadkill off
• 21:38
  the street and putting it through 40 meets, which is we'll
• 21:42
  just say 40 meets, right? And I mean, my dad worked in a
• 21:46
  rendering plant and we got, and they got there, they got
• 21:49
  everything from the roadkill on the streets of Tennessee.
• 21:52
  We all knew that. Everybody in our town knew that.
• 21:55
  But they, you put it through this processing thing, which who
• 21:59
  knows what all went through that.
• 22:01
  My dad has some stories of the things that went through that,
• 22:04
  including plastic tarps, scissors, things like that.
• 22:07
  It is processed. It is, you know, powdered up
• 22:10
  processed at at like this extraordinarily at least 400°
• 22:14
  and then put into the food. Sure, none of us would have a
• 22:18
  our kidneys, our kidneys as a whole or will not any mammal
• 22:24
  will not have a an easy time flushing through low quality
• 22:29
  ingredients, but but a high quality protein.
• 22:33
  The body is going to take so much better as obligate
• 22:36
  carnivores for our cats. The body is going to be able to
• 22:38
  process so much better. It's going to be able to flush
• 22:40
  through things so much better. And those kidneys are going to
• 22:43
  be protected if we can switch them to a, or when we can switch
• 22:49
  them to a, a, a fresh food diet. You're so you're so right, Jay
• 22:52
  and pet parents. When you see meat meal on one of
• 22:58
  your cat food bags, it could have come from any of those 4D
• 23:02
  part components that Jay was just talking about.
• 23:06
  It needs to specifically state the actual protein.
• 23:09
  So it will say chicken heart, chicken thigh, you know, Turkey
• 23:14
  heart, Turkey livers, not meat meal.
• 23:17
  Meat meal equals mystery meat. Just remember that right equals
• 23:22
  mystery meat and we don't know what the heck it is in it.
• 23:24
  And I think we were starting to get into it before and then I
• 23:27
  went off on my kidney disease diatribe because I do that thing
• 23:29
  like I got to get back on track here, but it's with kidney
• 23:37
  disease. They're adding the grains and
• 23:40
  they're adding the potatoes. The stomach in a Kitty is like,
• 23:46
  what's this? Who are you?
• 23:48
  I don't know what to do with you.
• 23:49
  The GI system is like, oh, these are some carbohydrates, but this
• 23:53
  is not, I'm not getting what I need.
• 23:55
  I don't know what to do with this.
• 23:57
  Because here's another thing that we don't talk about a lot
• 24:01
  is now cats were biologically designed to digest food.
• 24:07
  They don't make amylase. Amylase is needed to break down
• 24:11
  carbohydrates. They don't make it.
• 24:14
  They don't make it in their mouths.
• 24:15
  And so they do have some, they do have some ability via the
• 24:19
  pancreas now, but that just that adds to the diabetes load and
• 24:26
  adds to inflammation in the GI system because it can lead to
• 24:29
  leaky gut because the gut doesn't know what to do with it.
• 24:32
  So when we replace the amino acids in meat with something
• 24:36
  like corn or a grain or a potato, a cat's body can't
• 24:41
  assimilate it. So they can be overfed and under
• 24:45
  nutrients all the time. I see it all the time.
• 24:49
  These fat kitties, these are little carb addict kitties.
• 24:53
  These are little diabetes kitties.
• 24:56
  I used to say, you know, lean kitties are healthy kitties.
• 25:00
  Chunky kitties are diabetes kitties.
• 25:02
  Diabetes waiting to happen. I'm not saying that to scare
• 25:04
  everybody, but if you got a little chunk.
• 25:07
  Yeah. It's time to cut the carbs.
• 25:09
  It has nothing to do with the amount they eat in my opinion.
• 25:12
  Because my cats eat a ton, but they don't have any carbs and
• 25:17
  they're perfect weight. They're perfect weight.
• 25:19
  Right. Yeah, exactly.
• 25:20
  Yeah. And then, and then here we are.
• 25:23
  We're all sitting here as cat parents making fun.
• 25:26
  There's memes everywhere. Just like it's just a thing.
• 25:29
  Your cat's going to throw up. Your cat's going to get
• 25:31
  hairballs. Your cat is like it, it happens
• 25:34
  all the time. You step in it on a daily basis
• 25:36
  like it is a it's a thing, right?
• 25:38
  Like that's what that's what everybody says is you just
• 25:41
  expect if you're going to have a cat that that's what happens.
• 25:44
  And we get it because back when we fed kibble, low quality,
• 25:49
  whatever kibble, that is what we saw every day too.
• 25:52
  So if it were, you know, if we had social media back in that
• 25:55
  day and we would see these memes, we would be like, oh,
• 25:57
  totally, totally, totally. This is it, right?
• 26:00
  But it's not a thing. The thing is, is exactly what
• 26:02
  you said we're putting in in we're we're feeding them
• 26:05
  ingredients that their bodies are not created to digest.
• 26:08
  And since it's not created to digest, what does it do?
• 26:10
  It's basically going to get stuck in there.
• 26:12
  And then when, when they're grooming themselves or when
• 26:15
  their body just says, can you please clean me out?
• 26:18
  They're they're throwing up, they're throwing up a hairball
• 26:21
  or they're throwing up their food because the body isn't made
• 26:25
  to digest these types of ingredients.
• 26:27
  So we have to do better. So in the bad food industry,
• 26:31
  though, there's a lot of like buzzwords, especially that, you
• 26:33
  know, grain free. That's the big one, right?
• 26:36
  Grain free, all natural, premium, real.
• 26:40
  Meat. Yeah, real meat.
• 26:42
  What do those words mean to you? And what should we as cat
• 26:46
  parents be looking for? What?
• 26:49
  What are the red flags for you on those?
• 26:51
  What does grain free mean to you?
• 26:53
  So grain free just means that they've replaced the grains and
• 26:56
  added a different carbohydrate, like a potato or a sweet potato.
• 27:00
  Unfortunately, that is the overwhelming majority of the
• 27:03
  case, yes. Meat should always be the number
• 27:05
  one ingredient, Yes. And let let me tell you my other
• 27:08
  red flag if you were to Google, if you get on what do I feed my
• 27:12
  cat? What's the best cat food?
• 27:15
  I can almost guarantee you that the top five things that come
• 27:18
  up, they're not the highest quality food.
• 27:21
  They're the ones that spent the most money on their marketing.
• 27:25
  They got the top slot, not the top food and two crazy cat
• 27:30
  ladies having great suggestions. I do as well.
• 27:33
  It's not as hard to feed fresh food as you think.
• 27:36
  But so often like, like you would say it's a billion dollar
• 27:41
  industry, these foods. But when you see these big
• 27:47
  marketing things like the all natural and grain free blah,
• 27:52
  blah, these are they're the buzzwords.
• 27:55
  They're exactly what you're saying that they're the
• 27:57
  buzzwords. And so here's the bottom line.
• 28:01
  We got to breakthrough the buzz and we got to get to the actual
• 28:05
  ingredients. And I feel like if there's more
• 28:08
  than seven ingredients in there, it's a no go.
• 28:10
  It's a rule of thumb for me. Ingredients.
• 28:13
  In the food. Yeah.
• 28:15
  Yeah. But well, let's get back to,
• 28:18
  let's get back to though the meat as the first ingredient,
• 28:21
  right? Because wasn't that a thing so
• 28:24
  many years ago, like when we started as cat parents 20 years
• 28:27
  ago or something? You, you would never see a, a
• 28:31
  bag of cat food if you read the ingredients, which we did not at
• 28:34
  that time. But when, when we, we went back
• 28:37
  and started, when we knew better and started reading them, You
• 28:40
  didn't see meat as the first ingredient of any of those, of
• 28:43
  any of those foods, right? Chicken.
• 28:45
  Byproduct. When it became a thing, then it
• 28:47
  became a thing, right? So, so consumers started
• 28:50
  demanding this education started happening little by little.
• 28:53
  Trickling, trickling, trickling like it is today, still
• 28:56
  trickling. But then it was like, meat needs
• 28:59
  to be the first ingredient. And now you hear all of these
• 29:02
  pet food companies. Meat is the first ingredient,
• 29:03
  meat is the first ingredient, Meat is the first ingredient.
• 29:06
  But what they don't tell you. And there's just, it's just like
• 29:09
  it's, it's, it's an industry that perturbs me in so many
• 29:13
  ways. But what they don't tell you is
• 29:16
  that you can have, say you have chicken as the first ingredient,
• 29:19
  right? Say you have beef as the first
• 29:22
  ingredient, but the 3rd, 4th and 5th and 6th ingredient are carb,
• 29:25
  starch, sugar, you know, like potatoes, white rice, what you
• 29:29
  know, like, and grains, whatever.
• 29:31
  What they tell you is that when a manufacturer is creating a pet
• 29:36
  food, they are able to list those ingredients based on
• 29:39
  weight of the wet raw material. So they have a whole chicken and
• 29:44
  they weigh it and it weighs more than that dried rice or that,
• 29:49
  you know, dried grains, it weighs more.
• 29:51
  So they're able to put it as that first ingredient.
• 29:53
  But once they cook it to 400 plus degrees, that chicken is
• 29:58
  dehydrated so much that there is there.
• 30:01
  It's not like they're weighing the powder after they create
• 30:03
  this stupid meat powder, right? They're they're weighing the
• 30:07
  wet, the wet meat, the dead animal and then putting it in
• 30:11
  there and then, and then it is actually way less on the list.
• 30:15
  And you're really, if your second ingredient is potatoes,
• 30:18
  rice, grain, any kind of carb or starch, that's the main thing
• 30:23
  that you're feeding in a dry kibble.
• 30:24
  Yeah, such a good point. I'm glad you brought that up
• 30:27
  because they can, they can cut and splice those ingredients to
• 30:30
  make it look better on the label.
• 30:32
  So, but I would also, I would also venture to say that I think
• 30:36
  that happened the majority of the time that happens is in
• 30:40
  kibble. I think when you, when we're
• 30:42
  finding a reputable fresh food company, when it's coming fresh,
• 30:48
  they've got to stick to what it's all, it's all fresh.
• 30:50
  So they're not going through the process.
• 30:52
  Right. They're not processing it.
• 30:54
  So it's, yeah, so big. Which is the big deal.
• 30:57
  I mean the, the processing is really, you know, what gets
• 31:00
  these kitties at the end of the day.
• 31:02
  And I was just thinking about like when I was growing up, like
• 31:05
  my kibble fed cats, none of them live past eight.
• 31:08
  I mean, I did grow up on a farm and there was usually something
• 31:11
  natural that took them out. But I remember the vets telling
• 31:15
  me then like I, I had it, my 7 year old Kitty.
• 31:19
  Then he something happened when he got in a fire accident and he
• 31:23
  ruptured his diaphragm. And I had to like beg and plead
• 31:26
  with my dad to like get the surgery, which was a big deal a
• 31:30
  really long time ago. And the vet was pretty much
• 31:35
  like, well, he's 8, he's seven years old.
• 31:38
  Like he's nearing the end of his life.
• 31:40
  And now I've got 216 year old cats that run around like
• 31:44
  kittens whip the Morse code Kitty is running up and down his
• 31:49
  new cat tree and jumps and plays around like 0 issues.
• 31:53
  He's going to live till he's 30. And so I love it that we're
• 31:57
  talking about these cat food lies.
• 31:58
  I'm glad that we're getting it out there.
• 32:00
  I wish I would have known it sooner because there is absolute
• 32:05
  power in feeding them a real food diet and breaking through
• 32:10
  some of these myths and seeing this and I think another one
• 32:14
  that I hear all the time is but my vet said, and I know that we
• 32:20
  feel the same about vets. We love them, they're amazing,
• 32:24
  We need them. But all day long, you 2 and me,
• 32:29
  we're looking at these pet food labels.
• 32:31
  We're dealing with these kitties, we're figuring out what
• 32:33
  they need to be eating, and it's not what's in the Dang bag at
• 32:37
  the vet's office. Right, true.
• 32:40
  I and that's I think that's a bigger that's a big hurdle for a
• 32:43
  lot of people. I see a comment here and I want
• 32:45
  to ask you your opinion on this. What's in all saying should Dan
• 32:50
  should Don, I'm spotting your name, I apologize.
• 32:53
  What is an alternative? Dehydrolyzed diet, prescribed
• 32:57
  hydrolyzed proteins, hydrolyzed protein prescription diet for a
• 33:01
  cat with food allergies? Yeah.
• 33:03
  I mean, if you want to talk about gut issues, this is, you
• 33:06
  know, this is where, you know, cat parents really find
• 33:09
  themselves between a rock and a hard place, right?
• 33:11
  They say, well this is a food allergy, so.
• 33:14
  Let's take them off of. Let's use hydrolyzed proteins.
• 33:18
  Yeah. What say you?
• 33:19
  What would you? Oh boy.
• 33:22
  Are we ready for this? Let's go.
• 33:26
  OK, strapping, here we go. OK, so this is my favorite thing
• 33:31
  to talk about. All right, so I can you tell us
• 33:35
  how to say your name in the chat because I don't want to mess it
• 33:37
  up because it really. Oh, Chadon, Chadon, is that
• 33:42
  right? OK, Chadon, great question.
• 33:46
  Thank you so much for asking. Because this is a big deal more
• 33:50
  often than not when we have a cat that has food allergies,
• 33:54
  then the vets are like, OK, hydrolyzed diet because what the
• 33:57
  hydrolyzed protein does is it basically is like it's like in
• 34:02
  Harry Potter and you can put it on the invisibility cloak.
• 34:05
  It makes the food invisible to the immune system, but it only
• 34:10
  works in the short term. I mean, it's only really kicking
• 34:13
  the can down the road because behind making that protein
• 34:17
  invisible so that if there is a food allergy, the immune system
• 34:21
  can't recognize it, the inflammation is growing.
• 34:24
  So here's how that works. When a cat has food allergies,
• 34:28
  it is almost always linked to gut dysbiosis.
• 34:32
  And dysbiosis is just a fancy way of saying a microbiome
• 34:36
  imbalance. And so we really have to see
• 34:38
  what's at the at the basis of that hydrolyzed food does
• 34:42
  nothing to feed the microbiome. So the microbiome selects for
• 34:47
  the type of food that your cat's eating.
• 34:48
  And we found through studies that when a cat is on a whole
• 34:53
  fresh food diet, there are more diversity present.
• 34:56
  So there's more diversity in the microbe.
• 34:59
  And it's not necessarily about having one bacteria in the gut
• 35:03
  that's better than others. It's about the diversity and how
• 35:06
  they work together. So when we have that diversity
• 35:09
  present and the microbiome is happy, then it prevents
• 35:13
  something that we call leaky gut.
• 35:16
  So when a cat is on a diet that the gut doesn't recognize and
• 35:20
  the body doesn't recognize, like we were talking about earlier
• 35:23
  than the tight junctions and the intestinal wall, there's these
• 35:27
  tight junctions in there. They can start to loosen up, and
• 35:30
  then all of the sudden, food particles can start to slip
• 35:34
  through the intestinal wall undigested.
• 35:37
  They go into the bloodstream, and then the immune system is
• 35:40
  like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. I don't know what this is.
• 35:42
  This is I don't, I don't recognize this.
• 35:45
  And then the body mounts an immune response against that
• 35:49
  particular food. So that's how food allergies
• 35:51
  work. It's really interesting.
• 35:53
  They say that 70 to 90% of the immune system lies in the gut.
• 35:57
  Here's why. It's because of something called
• 35:59
  gut, and that's short for gut associated lymphoid tissue.
• 36:04
  And there's all these immune cells that lie on the inside of
• 36:08
  your kitty's intestines that are kind of like constantly
• 36:13
  surveying what's coming in. So it's like chicken, good
• 36:17
  pathogen. Nope, you're out.
• 36:20
  We can't have you getting through.
• 36:22
  But what starts to happen when we have leaky gut is it confuses
• 36:25
  Galt. Galt gets totally overwhelmed.
• 36:27
  So again, think of Galt like the security system.
• 36:31
  Sorry, the drink is no, I'm kidding, it's a mocktail.
• 36:39
  See how excited I get about this I think it's actually the the
• 36:43
  smoke. I can see it starting to come
• 36:45
  in, but it's OK I'll. Get back to.
• 36:49
  Send saying good vibes. The fire is about 15 miles away
• 36:52
  from her, so it's like good vibes, but it's very smoky.
• 36:54
  In California. Sorry about that now now I'm
• 36:57
  back after my thing. So getting back to that, talking
• 37:01
  about the Galt and the and the immune system.
• 37:05
  So what happens in food allergies is the immune system
• 37:10
  gets confused. It's not necessarily that your
• 37:13
  cat has a food allergy. A true food allergy is really
• 37:18
  rare actually, like, and that's that's something totally
• 37:21
  different. But what happens is what we call
• 37:24
  food intolerances. And that's because the immune
• 37:27
  system gets confused and starts firing away at things that
• 37:31
  normally shouldn't be a problem, like a salmon or a chicken or a
• 37:35
  Turkey or a beef. And then what can happen is say
• 37:40
  the immune system starts firing off at chicken.
• 37:43
  Well, if the kid eats beef with it, lots of times the immune
• 37:46
  system will be like, oh, bad beef, you're bad too.
• 37:49
  So there's where these, you know, hydrolyzed diets come in
• 37:54
  because if we just hide the type of protein from the immune
• 37:57
  system all the way around, we think we've solved the problem.
• 38:01
  But it's only temporary because behind that, another layer
• 38:06
  behind that, the immune system, the gut, the cells, we're
• 38:10
  talking about cellular energy metabolites in the gut, how ATP
• 38:15
  is being produced so that your cat can continue living.
• 38:19
  We're not getting anywhere with that.
• 38:20
  It's just continuing to build the inflammation and it just
• 38:23
  kicks the can down the road. So I hope that was a good
• 38:26
  explanation. Did that did that help you?
• 38:30
  Yeah, but what what does that actually do as it for an
• 38:32
  obligate carnivore? Because you did say something
• 38:34
  like this and like, you'll stop, but you'll stop and you'll see,
• 38:39
  you'll, you'll see like short term, right?
• 38:41
  Short term. So we've talked to so many
• 38:43
  holistic veterinarians or integrated veterinarians who
• 38:46
  have said live here on our podcast that a prescription diet
• 38:51
  should be a prescription, right? You don't, you're not prescribed
• 38:53
  something long term. You're prescribed something that
• 38:57
  if it works, then it should work.
• 39:00
  And then you stop it and you move on to something else.
• 39:02
  Whereas we in the vet field, because they're not
• 39:05
  nutritionists. And I really wish so we would
• 39:07
  just stop relying on our veterinarians to give us
• 39:09
  nutritional advice because they don't have good nutritional
• 39:12
  advice or they just, they're, that's not who most, the most,
• 39:15
  right? But but they're giving us,
• 39:19
  they're, they're prescribing these cats something that
• 39:23
  they're saying they need to be on for the rest of their lives.
• 39:26
  A urinary diet. A we see it all the time,
• 39:28
  kidney, a kidney diet, these hydrolyzed protein diets.
• 39:33
  And then, and then because Melissa, this weekend we were
• 39:36
  bombarded with, we were at cat Con, which is the biggest cat
• 39:39
  convention in the world. There was 15,000 people there
• 39:42
  and our booth was saturated every second, every day.
• 39:45
  Talk, talk, talk, talk. Everybody's saying, and I can't
• 39:47
  tell you how many people I talked to that said, well, my 1
• 39:50
  cat has to be on a prescription diet, but I have 6.
• 39:52
  So they of course, now they all have to be on a prescription
• 39:54
  diet or they're all going to, right.
• 39:55
  So now all the cats are eating this food that's not even
• 39:58
  healthy for the cat that had the problem and they should not be
• 40:01
  on it long term. Oh yeah.
• 40:04
  I mean, you're right and such a good point.
• 40:06
  I didn't really answer the question.
• 40:07
  So that the question is what should I do?
• 40:11
  You know you're saying prescribed there, there's
• 40:13
  nothing prescription in them. That's just what they like to
• 40:15
  say, but really at the at the that the core of it is a
• 40:21
  microbiome imbalance. So we want to get this
• 40:24
  microbiome back on track with two things.
• 40:28
  We want FMT. I'm with legacy Biome.
• 40:31
  FMT is something that we're coming out with for cats.
• 40:35
  It's really pretty amazing because it's taking the optimal
• 40:38
  microbiome from a donor Kitty and putting it in a happy little
• 40:42
  capsule that you can pop into your Kitty.
• 40:45
  It goes down, opens in the small bell, and it is like a reset for
• 40:50
  the entire microbiome. And really we are finding
• 40:53
  fantastic results with that because that is a fast track and
• 40:57
  to getting the microbiome on balance, healing that leaky gut,
• 41:01
  getting those junctions to hook back together.
• 41:03
  And with that new microbiome come all of the perks that are
• 41:08
  with it. So we've got short chain fatty
• 41:10
  acid producing bacteria. What is short chain fatty acids?
• 41:13
  Do they lower information? They help the gut repair, they
• 41:17
  help the entire immune system get back on track and not be
• 41:22
  confused anymore so that if the cat eats the food that it was
• 41:26
  previously allergic to, that no longer happens.
• 41:30
  That's why it's so exciting to have something like FMT that's
• 41:33
  really a fast track. There are some spore forming
• 41:36
  probiotics that can be great as well.
• 41:38
  There's one of the like called Megaspore.
• 41:41
  We can drop that in the comments that help your Kitty start
• 41:45
  rebuilding their own microbiome. Does it take a little more time?
• 41:48
  Yes. But then after that, I would
• 41:51
  recommend starting with single protein, fresh food diets and
• 41:56
  getting novel protein. Rabbit and duck have been two of
• 42:00
  my favorites that I really go to a lot.
• 42:01
  I know a lot of people are like poultry.
• 42:04
  I've never had an issue with duck.
• 42:05
  I have to say that I think, I think the poultry thing has been
• 42:11
  something from the vet industry for a long time because chicken
• 42:14
  can be, can't, can be problematic depending on how it
• 42:18
  is. But rabbit, duck, venison, I
• 42:21
  pulled out some venison for my cats couple weeks ago.
• 42:24
  They loved it. I was so surprised.
• 42:27
  I had it for Darla and I was like here, you want to try some?
• 42:30
  Yeah. Venison.
• 42:31
  They're famous. I mean, they hogged it down.
• 42:35
  So I would start with that and it doesn't have to be hard.
• 42:37
  It just needs to be really, really a simple diet.
• 42:40
  The fewer ingredients the better.
• 42:44
  I think when there is allergies going on and start working on
• 42:50
  getting the microbiome rebuilt because that's really important
• 42:54
  and that's the way through it there.
• 42:55
  There is a way through. So I hope that helps.
• 42:57
  Yeah, absolutely. That is excellent.
• 42:59
  Also a reminder that she is a a host of pet health coach.
• 43:03
  Link is in the description if you wanted to reach out and help
• 43:07
  your friend. I see that it's a friend that's
• 43:08
  got that's going through that. Yes, Laura, you're right.
• 43:12
  Robert and Duck are cooling proteins and TCBM so they can
• 43:15
  help get rid of those allergies. I love that.
• 43:19
  So back to some of the bigger, the bigger lies in the in the
• 43:22
  cat food industry. I think what are what are some
• 43:26
  what are some red flag ingredients for the for the one
• 43:29
  O 1 are here. That's just like I haven't even
• 43:31
  looked at the ingredients on this bag.
• 43:33
  What are some big ones that you're like, Oh, this is out and
• 43:36
  I'm talking dry food, wet food, processed food?
• 43:39
  Processed food in general. What are some What are some red
• 43:42
  flag ingredients? Well, I mean, without getting
• 43:46
  too specific to make it hard on pet parents, here's a red flag
• 43:50
  for me when they have a list that's two inches long of all
• 43:54
  the vitamins in it with the parents.
• 43:58
  I mean, they'll be methionine, they'll be synthetic forms of
• 44:01
  zinc, they'll be synthetic forms of carnitine, they'll be
• 44:03
  synthetic forms of B vitamins. You'll see it all on there.
• 44:09
  Those may be in there and they could have been just fine going
• 44:12
  in there, but they're synthetic and once they get high pressure
• 44:16
  processed, the body doesn't really know what to do with
• 44:18
  them. And again, the immune system,
• 44:21
  the gut, the synthetic vitamins are one of these things that can
• 44:25
  confuse the immune system. Once again, that can lead to
• 44:29
  some of these allergies. So if the vitamin list is an
• 44:33
  inch long, that would be a red flag to double check.
• 44:37
  Another thing which we talked about before the meat meal, any
• 44:42
  kind of by product, any kind of bone by product or a rendered
• 44:48
  anything, they I think they can't use that word anymore.
• 44:51
  So they don't, they don't say that.
• 44:53
  So they just say by product on there.
• 44:57
  But the, the grains are, the grains are a big one.
• 45:01
  And what, what do I, what am I else am I missing here?
• 45:05
  I'm trying to think. Those are always my big ones.
• 45:07
  And mostly 'cause I stick to my, I stick to my standard of it's,
• 45:10
  if it's got more than seven ingredients, it's probably not
• 45:14
  an appropriate food because all of those synthetic vitamins they
• 45:20
  should be able to get from meat or organs that are added to high
• 45:25
  quality cat food diets. Because guess what, everyone
• 45:29
  organs are like multivitamins for cats, has all the taurine
• 45:33
  that they need and the carnitine, all those great stuff
• 45:36
  the liver's got, all the vitamin A, all the good stuff the B
• 45:39
  vitamin come from, once again, organs.
• 45:43
  And if those are in there, they are in a biologically
• 45:47
  appropriate, bioavailable form that your cat can actually use
• 45:51
  and their cells will love you for it.
• 45:53
  Yes, I love that you brought up Oregon meats because this is
• 45:57
  something that we haven't talked about in a while, but it but I
• 45:59
  think for the one O 1 or the, you know, the the people that
• 46:02
  are like I have a lot of cats. I'm on a strict budget.
• 46:05
  Dry food is all they'll eat or dry food is all I can afford
• 46:09
  right now. And so that's what I'm feeding.
• 46:11
  But I still, I still love them and I still want them to live as
• 46:14
  long as possible. Organ meat is a great treat,
• 46:19
  right? Like, like get rid of those
• 46:20
  temptations. Now you're really feeding death,
• 46:22
  right, right. Like get rid of the treats and,
• 46:26
  and, and replace that with some organ meat.
• 46:28
  Like give them in addition to their, their process, whatever
• 46:33
  it is that you can afford, give them some organ meat.
• 46:35
  Try giving your cat some, even if it's a freeze dried or you
• 46:39
  have to cook it a little bit or you have to dehydrate it or
• 46:41
  whatever you have to do to get them to eat it.
• 46:44
  Those are super foods for our cats, right?
• 46:47
  Like it's, it's what they're made to eat.
• 46:49
  So Oregon meat is a great addition for like, I want to get
• 46:52
  my cat on a better diet. I don't know where to start or
• 46:55
  I'm not there yet or I don't have the budget and I'm going to
• 46:57
  do it one day, but I don't know where to start.
• 46:59
  Start with some Oregon meat like.
• 47:01
  Use that as a treat. Yeah, or a Sorry, this is my
• 47:05
  hack. This is like my little hack that
• 47:08
  I tell all the Kitty parents because my cats love them.
• 47:12
  Maybe they don't all, but I I've not had very many cats that have
• 47:15
  turned down a sardine and no salt added sardines like here in
• 47:20
  California, we can get them at Trader Joe's or no salt added.
• 47:23
  They're the entire sardine. Is there bones in them?
• 47:26
  Yes. Are they soft?
• 47:27
  Yes. Can your cat crunch them?
• 47:30
  Absolutely. And guess what?
• 47:31
  That is the complete nutritional profile that your cat needs.
• 47:37
  It includes the organs, it includes the bones, includes the
• 47:39
  Omega threes, it includes the propane, it includes the amino
• 47:42
  acids. Little sardine.
• 47:44
  You know, we, I do that a couple days a week here at our at our
• 47:47
  house. Get the sardine as the omega-3.
• 47:49
  As much as I love Omega threes, when we're getting them right
• 47:52
  from the source, it's always the best option.
• 47:55
  Yes, yes. Food is always a good idea.
• 47:58
  I know there's a lot of like talk about don't do tuna and it
• 48:02
  changes the pH and I yeah, yeah, well.
• 48:05
  You think about fish, you think about like the bigger fish, the
• 48:07
  more contaminated they are, right?
• 48:09
  So we're looking at a tuna and a salmon and those things, they're
• 48:11
  going to have more of those heavy metals in them because
• 48:14
  they're eating the smaller fish and eating the right.
• 48:16
  But when we get to these smaller fish like sardines, you're
• 48:19
  right. That's like a it's a great super
• 48:21
  food and it's a win for every cat, right?
• 48:23
  Like, I mean, I want to say every cat, I'm sure there's a
• 48:25
  cat out there that there's always an exception to the rule
• 48:28
  when it comes to the cat world. But the majority of cats, you
• 48:32
  give them a sardine and they're going to be like, Oh my God,
• 48:35
  thank you. Sardines in water, we say.
• 48:37
  Sardines in water? Yeah, not oil.
• 48:40
  I know my little my little pumpkins love them.
• 48:43
  So that's like their special treat.
• 48:44
  And I do the same thing, you know, I, because sometimes they,
• 48:48
  I can tell like they still really like want a little
• 48:51
  crunchy. I'll take the freeze dried organ
• 48:53
  meat and I'll sprinkle a little bit that of that on top of the
• 48:56
  raw. And like when I, I, I call it
• 48:59
  the sprinkles. And sometimes if I put the food
• 49:01
  down without the sprinkles, they'll just go wait.
• 49:05
  And so, you know, like if my husband feeds or something, I'm
• 49:09
  like, did you put sprinkles on it like they're little kids did?
• 49:12
  Did you put the sprinkles on it? And no, get the Ding sprinkles
• 49:16
  on there and then, you know, they like it.
• 49:18
  They like it. Our cats are in love with green
• 49:21
  juju so. Oh yeah, mine, mine are too.
• 49:24
  We've got 5 cats and five different flavors and some of
• 49:29
  them, some of them switch up like, like Zorro is bison
• 49:33
  through and through. He wants it on his meal every
• 49:35
  meal, every day. Yeah.
• 49:36
  But then we've got the one that like she usually likes beef, but
• 49:40
  then sometimes she'll turn her nose up because she wants bison
• 49:43
  or she wants duck or she wants rabbit or, you know, so we all
• 49:46
  have like, wait, we have every meal time.
• 49:48
  We should film this sometime and just show we have like all the
• 49:51
  green juju bags out and then we're getting our, we're getting
• 49:54
  our crunchies. We'll put the little sprinkles
• 49:56
  on top for each meal. Yeah.
• 49:59
  Oh, so you do the sprinkles too? Yes.
• 50:01
  Oh my God, we were really meant to do this together.
• 50:05
  We really will. Like we already think alike all
• 50:07
  the crazies together. Yes, we have to, but in the.
• 50:10
  But in the best way. See, I thought, I'm like, oh
• 50:12
  gosh, my cats are so split. I put crunchies on there and the
• 50:15
  sprinkles. No, and they I do agree.
• 50:18
  I rotate through the green juju too.
• 50:19
  So that's funny. I just tried with I switched
• 50:24
  into what I get. I think I got goodness gracious.
• 50:28
  Now that's got a decent amount of plant matter in it, but
• 50:30
  again, feeding his microbiome. There's no grains in it.
• 50:34
  It's it's some green leafies and a little bit of pumpkin.
• 50:37
  Pumpkin is just fine for kitties.
• 50:39
  It can be great for hairballs, especially if you add a little
• 50:41
  coconut oil to that and then slicker on down.
• 50:46
  And he is the picky pants. He this is the best thing sled
• 50:52
  sliced bread for humans for him. He devoured it.
• 50:54
  He thought it was great. And the other little one that
• 50:56
  was in here, she stuck her nose up, turn around about face and
• 50:59
  didn't look at it again now. And she's like, I want 'cause
• 51:03
  she's a rabbit, she's a rabbit gal.
• 51:05
  She loves her rabbit. So I also get rabbit from Viva
• 51:08
  raw. If anybody needs a few
• 51:10
  suggestions. I know I I see some people
• 51:12
  asking what are the suggestions? I want to put, I want to shout
• 51:17
  out to people and, and to people that don't realize this is
• 51:20
  something that exists. The Truth About petfood.com not
• 51:24
  only is an incredible resource for, you know, keeping up with
• 51:27
  recalls, for keeping up with regulatory terms, for realizing,
• 51:32
  you know. Showing up at every AFCO
• 51:33
  meeting. So yeah, really, really exposing
• 51:36
  the truth about pet food. She also comes out with a list.
• 51:39
  Susan Thixon is the creator of Truth About petfood.com.
• 51:42
  She comes up with a list every year.
• 51:45
  We know some good brands that don't that may not be on the
• 51:48
  list. You know that that we have done
• 51:50
  our own betting with but Susan Fixins.
• 51:53
  She does all. She does all kinds of.
• 51:55
  Bets. Ordinary and accepts no money.
• 51:59
  Like they don't get to buy their way into her list.
• 52:02
  They don't. They don't get to buy anything.
• 52:03
  They have to do a lot of work. To get on her list, to show
• 52:06
  their sourcing, to show the quality, to show their
• 52:08
  manufacturers. She does all that work because
• 52:10
  she realizes that us as cap parents, like how could we even
• 52:13
  know these things? You know?
• 52:15
  If chickens the first ingredient then that's good, but I had no
• 52:18
  idea that I should have read the second, third, 4th, 5th, or that
• 52:21
  there might be something fairly toxic like carrageenan later on
• 52:26
  in the list. Here and like the gwar gums and
• 52:29
  I guess we didn't get into all those things.
• 52:31
  Yeah, but same, right. So it's like it's, it's, it can
• 52:35
  be a difficult thing. She she does that research for
• 52:37
  us and then we she accepts donations for her list every
• 52:40
  year. Yeah, it's a very small
• 52:42
  donation. It's worth it.
• 52:43
  I think it's. Totally worth it.
• 52:45
  Yeah, Sissy, I just dropped the link here on YouTube for you
• 52:49
  guys. Check it out.
• 52:51
  Because if nothing else, if you're starting from zero and
• 52:54
  you just you don't have the time to go and really DTI into, you
• 53:00
  know, is this a good brand? Is that a good brand?
• 53:02
  You can have a lot of trust in this list.
• 53:06
  You know, even when Jay and I would be doing our own research
• 53:08
  on is this good or they, you know, seems like something
• 53:11
  different. We've called and then like we
• 53:14
  were just wondering, you know, like about a sourcing thing or
• 53:17
  what about this protein or just asking questions.
• 53:21
  We were referred to their media department.
• 53:25
  Right. Like I'm asking questions about
• 53:27
  the ingredients of their food there and they send us to the
• 53:29
  marketing department. Right, that right that they're
• 53:31
  just trying to look good instead of be good.
• 53:33
  Yeah, that that was enough to be like, I'm not waiting on hold.
• 53:37
  That was long. That was when 2 Crazy Cat Ladies
• 53:39
  had four followers on Facebook. It wasn't like they were sending
• 53:42
  us to the media department. Yeah.
• 53:43
  But now, I mean, even today, right, like, I mean, we see,
• 53:46
  we've been in this industry for 20 years, the pet nutrition
• 53:48
  industry, we have seen so many really good hearted brands that
• 53:52
  have come in to do the right thing and they have created good
• 53:56
  quality foods. And I've personally watched a
• 54:00
  couple of them where they got to the age of like, I can't do this
• 54:03
  anymore. And they never set it up for
• 54:06
  like, or the kids didn't care about it.
• 54:08
  They didn't have anybody to give it over to.
• 54:10
  And the only option they have, you know, Mars pet care, they'll
• 54:12
  buy them out or, you know, something, you know, like, and
• 54:15
  then they sell, they end up selling their.
• 54:17
  So it's not always like it's always like a deceptive thing.
• 54:20
  Some of them are, some of them are those dollar signs.
• 54:23
  Everybody's got a price they say, right.
• 54:25
  So, so some of them just do that.
• 54:27
  But but then you have to, you have to keep up with this
• 54:30
  because you can't feed the same food forever and expect it to
• 54:34
  always be exactly the same quality, right?
• 54:37
  I mean, hopefully there's some, but.
• 54:39
  Yeah, yeah. And that's such a good point.
• 54:41
  Who owns the company, right? Is it Mars?
• 54:44
  Is it Nestle? Who owns it because when they
• 54:49
  care, right when they care about dollar and the marketing than
• 54:54
  they do about than your your pet.
• 54:56
  And that's another thing. But I mean, you 2 are the Queens
• 54:59
  of you know, transitioning cats over.
• 55:02
  I love your guide. I've I've sent it out myself,
• 55:05
  the transitioning cat food. But this is my other little tip
• 55:09
  that I don't think we think about a lot is how energetic
• 55:12
  cats are and they can read your energy.
• 55:15
  So if you're going at them with a new food with the energy of
• 55:20
  like, oh, I hope you like this. They're gonna know this.
• 55:27
  This is like me going up to if you guys were over for dinner.
• 55:31
  I'm like, I made you a casserole.
• 55:35
  I hope you like it. I don't know.
• 55:37
  I mean, you would be like, I'm not sure about this.
• 55:40
  Like what did you I I don't know.
• 55:43
  I'm gonna be. But if I'm like, Oh my God,
• 55:46
  you're going to love it. You would have a lot, you know,
• 55:49
  like you're the alpha of the house.
• 55:51
  And so think about that with your cats when you feed them, be
• 55:54
  like this, your food, you're going to like it, you're going
• 55:57
  to eat it. It's changing things.
• 55:59
  Sometimes I think that in my head when I give my cats their
• 56:03
  new food, I'm like this a food. You didn't like it.
• 56:06
  And they're like, aye, aye, you know.
• 56:09
  And then they, you know, they're they, they need an alpha in the
• 56:12
  house. I mean, they're not like dogs in
• 56:14
  that way. But having that energy of you're
• 56:17
  gonna love this. Then they trust you because cats
• 56:20
  are not very trusting sometimes because they always think you're
• 56:23
  gonna, you know, they get different tastes and textures
• 56:26
  and things in the food and they're always kind of like on
• 56:28
  edge, like what are you gonna what are you gonna give?
• 56:30
  I don't know what's gonna be in here.
• 56:32
  And cats can become a huge skeptics.
• 56:34
  And this is how we get picky kitties.
• 56:36
  But you don't be the skeptic, and then they won't be.
• 56:39
  Yeah, that's my. Comments from the peanut
• 56:41
  gallery. It's so true because energy
• 56:44
  means it matters so much. And I know we, we talk with a
• 56:47
  lot of like, and we call them woo woos, but they're like some
• 56:50
  of our best friends, right? Like people that are like they,
• 56:52
  they, they, they do, they do energy work with, yeah, they do
• 56:59
  all the stuff. But it's so true.
• 57:00
  Like, I mean, I can't tell you how many times and I've said the
• 57:02
  story, I know a million times here, but so many times that I
• 57:06
  have gone to make the food and I wake up like, because I do it as
• 57:09
  soon as I get up in the morning, I'm making breakfast right for
• 57:11
  the cat. And when I get up, like
• 57:15
  hopefully I'm in a good mood. I usually, I'm a morning person.
• 57:18
  So usually I am, but sometimes I'm not.
• 57:21
  I did that stub your toe thing and you know, like something,
• 57:24
  something happened or I got a bad e-mail or text and you're
• 57:27
  just like bad energy. And then I'm making their food
• 57:30
  and all of a sudden nobody eats and I'm just like, God, you
• 57:33
  know, the day just keeps getting worse and blah, blah, blah,
• 57:35
  blah, blah. But then then at some point, I'm
• 57:37
  like, that's why they didn't eat because I was like so negative
• 57:43
  while I was making their food. Yeah.
• 57:48
  I mean, you're, that's such a good example because they really
• 57:51
  are looking to you for that energetic reassurance that this
• 57:55
  is OK to eat because it's not you're, they're not out catching
• 57:59
  something. Their instincts, every instinct
• 58:01
  they have is for them to catch their own food.
• 58:04
  And they have had to rely, as you guys talk about so much,
• 58:08
  entirely on us for our food. So we have to be confident in
• 58:13
  it. Yes, OK, I know I can't believe
• 58:16
  in hours gone by I feel like. Holy holy smokes, you 2 This is
• 58:19
  like the fastest live I've ever done in my life and I used to do
• 58:22
  a lot like time flies when you're having fun and you're
• 58:25
  drinking and or coughman I think.
• 58:27
  I think it was my basil leaf that got stuck in my throat so.
• 58:33
  I. Mean I'm my first time with you
• 58:35
  guys and I cough up a storm and embarrass myself but.
• 58:39
  No, there's usually. US.
• 58:41
  There's no such thing on. This we had a cat jump on our
• 58:43
  head. That's part of the process.
• 58:45
  That's why people love these things is because they're live,
• 58:47
  they're real, they're raw. And that's, you know, that's,
• 58:49
  that's what we, that's what we bring live, real and raw.
• 58:53
  OK, so what's what's one thing top of mind that you wish or
• 58:57
  that you want every cat parent to take from this conversation?
• 59:00
  What's one thing you want them to remember?
• 59:02
  What's that? What's your?
• 59:07
  I mean, you got to be your cat's own best advocate.
• 59:11
  That would be my top thing. Do just look through, look past
• 59:19
  the marketing. If there's a prescription
• 59:22
  involved, double check the ingredients because there's
• 59:25
  usually nothing prescription about them.
• 59:27
  And you doing that is being your cat's best advocate because
• 59:31
  going back again, this is something you 2 say all the
• 59:34
  time, they don't have a choice. They can't go out and hunt
• 59:37
  unless they go outside and they're out indoor outdoor
• 59:40
  kitties. They don't have a choice.
• 59:41
  They are relying their cellular health, their GI health, their
• 59:45
  kidney health is they're relying solely on what we put on their
• 59:50
  plate. And so because of that, be their
• 59:54
  advocate. That would be my advice is to be
• 59:56
  their advocate. And I know so many of you are
• 59:58
  here today because you're trying to that to do that.
• 1:00:01
  And you don't know what you don't know until you know
• 1:00:03
  different. We busted through a whole lot of
• 1:00:06
  these myths today while we were having those cocktails and let
• 1:00:10
  this be a foundation and a starting place for you to dig
• 1:00:14
  into what your cat's eating. Because if you've got a cat
• 1:00:17
  that's between, you know, three and seven, they're not
• 1:00:19
  developing those issues yet. You don't want to get to the
• 1:00:21
  point where you have to do something drastic as a last
• 1:00:24
  resort because we've had years of health issues that have been
• 1:00:28
  building behind the scenes because we're not feeding our
• 1:00:33
  kitties biologically appropriate diet.
• 1:00:35
  We're not. No, no, not at all.
• 1:00:39
  And and everybody, I think everybody knows that that that
• 1:00:41
  follows us at least that we're we're definitely not kibble
• 1:00:45
  shaming, but but yes, biologically appropriate is so
• 1:00:49
  important. And I'll give you a little bit
• 1:00:50
  of a teaser, Melissa, because we recently, so we we're preparing
• 1:00:55
  a really a really awesome presentation for Kansas City
• 1:00:59
  next month that we're going to be speaking at Doctor Ruth
• 1:01:02
  Roberts and we get to meet you in person.
• 1:01:04
  Very excited. Now I'm joking.
• 1:01:08
  Now I'm joking. Yeah.
• 1:01:10
  One of the things that we did in our research is we reached out
• 1:01:13
  to someone who works with these zoologists and we got a massive
• 1:01:19
  amount of information on what the, the, the, the cats in the
• 1:01:24
  wild are eating, what they're, what they are required to eat
• 1:01:30
  and what they are fed at the zoos.
• 1:01:33
  So that we could get at some, some good, some good science
• 1:01:39
  facts right for this presentation.
• 1:01:42
  So. Can they?
• 1:01:43
  Can you ask them to test their microbiomes too?
• 1:01:45
  I was just thinking about that today.
• 1:01:47
  This is the things I think about y'all.
• 1:01:49
  I was like, where can I find a microdiome breakdown of like the
• 1:01:54
  the domestics cat's closest wild relative?
• 1:01:58
  Do we even know? I know you said of 96% tiger,
• 1:02:02
  but do we know like what the closest wild relative like a
• 1:02:08
  smaller wild cat? Probably the African Wildcat.
• 1:02:12
  I think it is the African Wildcat.
• 1:02:14
  I mean, I will track that we. Will.
• 1:02:15
  Look that up. Information.
• 1:02:16
  Yeah, yeah. We're gonna, we're gonna find
• 1:02:18
  that, 'cause I'm like, Ding, I need to know what's in that gut.
• 1:02:21
  I need to know. Yes.
• 1:02:23
  Oh, my. It's gonna be so fun.
• 1:02:25
  Oh, my God, Melissa, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:02:27
  Thank. You here in the description I.
• 1:02:30
  You guys just wait because. Yeah, we're definitely gonna do
• 1:02:34
  a Part 2. And and I don't think we'll have
• 1:02:35
  to wait very long because they are actively working on
• 1:02:39
  something really, really, really big.
• 1:02:41
  And we will have you back when that is live so that we can
• 1:02:45
  discuss it together that because we're very excited about what
• 1:02:49
  you guys are doing for the cat world specifically because it's
• 1:02:53
  going to be a game changer for so many of us.
• 1:02:55
  So thank. You, you are just my favorite in
• 1:02:57
  the whole world, in the whole Kitty world.
• 1:02:59
  And thank you so much for having me on.
• 1:03:02
  I love you guys and I love your products.
• 1:03:04
  I've been, you know, I don't do anything that I don't believe
• 1:03:06
  in. I've been using your stuff on my
• 1:03:07
  kitties for years. So it's an honor to be here.
• 1:03:10
  Thank you. We love you to hug your face up
• 1:03:13
  in Kansas City. I know a month away.
• 1:03:16
  All right, we love you and we love you all for joining us.
• 1:03:20
  Thank you so much and we will see you all very soon, dude.
• 1:03:23
  Bye, guys. Goodnight guys.