HowMuchFish.com

[supernova]

If you eat fish and are wary of how much fish to eat because of contaminants like mercury, here's a website you might find useful. I was looking for something like this for myself and also my cats, since I feed them tuna fairly regularly.

Anyway it's interesting to play around with different fish and amounts based on your weight.

http://www.HowMuchFish.com/

edit: The How Much? is how much you can safely eat in a given week based on current data about different fish populations. For example, it told me I could theoretically eat 15 lbs of calimari in a week before I'd reach the poison danger zone.

[Warpy]

1. You might want to back off on the tuna

if you've got tomcats, especially neutered tomcats. Fish cat food is high in magnesium and that can contribute to urinary tract stones. It's not as much a concern in female kitties, their urethras are huge.

I find myself eating more sustainable stuff like pollock these days mostly because it's cheaper. It's also smaller and lower on the food chain.

[supernova]

2. I feed them human grade canned tuna

about 3x/week. Believe it or not, the store generic brands, like Market Pantry are cheaper, and I hope have better standards, that the ones made expressly as pet food.

I'm trying to get them to enjoy the same in the chicken version the rest of the time. But it's slow going. Cats hate change! :P

[Warpy]

3. The grade doesn't matter

It's all high in magnesium and can be of concern for tomcats.

My cats always preferred the rubbishy stuff made specifically for cats. It was outrageously stinky and that appeals to a cat.

The little beast I have now will only eat salmon, preferably smoked. Her Highness doesn't get it very often.

[hippywife]

4. I'm a little skeptical

of this organization that's put this together. Center for Consumer "Freedom" doesn't sit well with me at all. It sounds and looks like, based on just a scan of their website, that they are out to protect consumer freedom to choose, even if the choices are not healthy, which makes me wonder who is backing this. It seems that those in the corporate food business would pull something like this as blowback to people choosing to eat more locally and more healthy.

It also says that you can eat 4.5 cans of tuna, which contradicts the standard that for ages has been only 2 servings a week, recommended for us and our cats, because of high mercury content.

I'm more apt to trust the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program, just to be safe.

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx

:hi:

[kestrel91316]

5. Ok, here we go again, lol.....

Fish is universally inappropriate in the domestic feline diet. Cats are direct descendants of the desert wildcat of North Africa, Felis libyca. I see large numbers of illnesses directly attributable to fish consumption in my feline patients, particularly skin, urinary, and gastrointestinal disease - sometimes these are fatal.

Most ominously, there is a direct correlation in cats between consumption of TUNA and development of oral squamous cell carcinoma, a virtually untreatable cancer. I saw a case of this less than a month ago, and euthanized the cat less than 2 weeks after initial presentation because of a large SCC involving its tongue. We can also see this tumor type associated with secondhand smoke, and I was puzzled because this cat had no such exposure. But when the owners came with him to put him to sleep, they mentioned tuna and that's when I found out that they had habitually fed their cats tuna their whole lives. I had a responsibility to inform them of the risks, and they then had to feel guilty about probably contributing to their cat's premature death.

PLEASE, people, DO NOT FEED YOUT CATS TUNA, or any other fish. Mercury is the least of our concerns. Biological inappropriateness is what's going on here.

[TygrBright]

6. Thank you. I hadn't thought about that, but it makes sense. Where WOULD they have gotten fish?

I don't feed the kitty fish-based or -flavored food anyway, never have. The few times I've tried it, it's definitely disagreed with his tum, so we stick to grain-free chicken/turkey/duck foods.

The cat food manufacturing industry seems not to be interested in making "small rodent based" foods, wonder why...

interestedly,
Bright