Food intolerances in cats is quite common. Veterinarians will go to great lengths to tell you what the causes might be and what you should do about it. Often these sound complicated. Too complicated for some to understand enough to do anything, but accept the recommended (often expensive) replacement food. For me, the cause (and the solution) is much simpler.
I have had a multi-cat household most of my life. For the past 19 odd years, the regime has been on whole, fresh, natural food. But even prior to that, I never vaccinated my cats and rarely had to visit a vet. Most trips were for sterilisation.
I have never had any problems with food intolerances.
Food intolerances in cats tends to show up as vomiting, diarrhoea, an itchy skin, a staring coat and/or hair loss. But these symptoms can also indicate 101 other problems, so are by no means exclusive.
To me, they DO show two important things – the digestive system is involved and there is a toxic overload. A toxic overload will always show up in the skin and the hair first. These are the areas of the body that are the least important, that will suffer the least when toxins are expelled this way.
Try to understand the problem.
Commercial cat food is all, I suggest without exception, highly toxic. Low grade ingredients are used; food foreign to cats, but which are cheap, are in high proportion (who said corporations care?); synthetic ‘nutrients’ are added to address the shortfall; topped all by preservatives so toxic they would never be allowed in human food, even when the label professes there are no preservatives.
Veterinarians will convince you that the problem lies with the type of protein in the food. To some extent, they may be right when you consider the common source of protein in commercial cat food is slaughterhouse waste, dead or diseased farm or zoo animals, collections from small laboratories and veterinary clinics (yes, that includes euthanised cats and dogs).
Then they will try to sell you a cat food with specially ‘broken-down’ proteins. Probably from the same sources, but now processed in some way.
There is never a mention of the high carbohydrate content, which is alien to cats, or the chemical load. Maybe the vets are in denial. Or perhaps just blissfully ignorant.
Cats are very sensitive animals. They have to be, to be the successful lone hunters they are. This means they are very much more affected by the increasingly toxic world we find ourselves in. Couple that with their lack of freedom (for exclusively indoor cats) to medicate themselves outside or to absorb the healing powers of the earth, and they can never re-balance themselves.
Apart from commercial cat food, vaccines are another source of toxicity. The chemicals used to make the vaccines can cause anything from a minor reaction all the way to death. Allergies often arise from vaccines.
But vets will never admit this. If they know.
So how do you deal with food intolerances in cats? As in, get rid of the problem, rather than just manage it?
What has always worked for me is to stop the toxin load. Find other ways to manage what they are supposed to do. For example, instead of using vaccines to prevent disease, focus on making sure your cat’s immune system is so strong they will be able to shrug off any passing pathogen.
You can achieve this by feeding them a diet that is close to the one they evolved on. And as a back-up for this, homeopathy is brilliant at stimulating a sluggish immune system.
Then you can have a happy cat who enjoys a long and trouble-free life, with a quick demise at the end. Good for you, your cat and your wallet!