If Windsparrow is a pet food snob, that makes me the queen bitch of pet food. I'm sure she's much, much nicer about it than I have been in the past.

When Bartleby was so sick and I went into hyper-research mode out of desperation, I learned stuff you just don't want to know about some of the grocery store/common brands. Subsequently, I've pitched to both ends of the spectrum: raw home-made food to a kibble I respect with fresh stuff thrown in.

My theory is sort of a pay now vs paying later sort of thing. But, in the end, I've known some dogs who live long lives eating the worst brands and others who do better on the more 'human grade' brands.

I think the rule of thumb is the same for most things, if there are scary ingredients you would not eat yourself, chances are good they won't do your pet good.

My father used to feed his cat cooked liver every day...which my middle school life sciences teacher proclaimed to be a death sentence. The same cat also got that gross kitty pouched food that smells like plastic. She lived to 17 or 18, so go figure.

Vortex, I don't think your profile addy is cooperating today. So I sent it off through Facebook. I hope that is ok with you. And thank you so much for taking a look at it.

Hmm, i replied to your yahoo addy from my profile addy, so hopefully there's no issue.

Ok, I have banged it off to Ginger and vw.

Wow, that sentence is real easy to misread.

For dirty-minded people like you, maybe...

Somebody did something like that on Top Chef (I think - one of the cooking reality shows, in any case), and got raves for it.

I've had something very like that at a cocktail party somewhere it was fucking delicious. (And really, how could it not be?)

So last Thursday my doctor called with my HbA1c level ( 3 month avg glucose reading). It was, as I suspected not good. Stress - isn't good for it -- and when I am stressed, umm oddly I don't care for myself. and when I spend a lot of time caring for other people -- ( ok DH and The cat) it means there is less time for me. My doctor and I agreed to a retest in 3 months to see if I could do anything.

So starting Friday - I started paying attention. Adding exercise has been the easy part. However. it hasn't been as effective as it used to be. Food has been harder, because minimum carbs seem to be raising my blood sugar dramatically. I know that any improvement will take time, but this is not fun. I work better with a reward.

With lots of help from Vortex, I have finished my cat food essay (that also applies to dogs). Here is the link [link] .

That reminds me -- I have a friend with a Jack Russell - she claims that feeding her dog an all meat dog has calmed her dog down considerably.

Beth, it sucks that improving your health is so much work and not much fun.

she claims that feeding her dog an all meat dog has calmed her dog down considerably.

!!!!

It really is a dog-eat-dog world!

stays the fuck away from the jack russell in question.

And cats being obligate carnivores, the more meat in the first few ingredients in the list, the better. For dogs, meat is also a good thing, but as I understand it, it is a smidge less urgent.

Pretty much everything I've ever read about feeding pets a vegetarian diet says that dogs are easy -- there are a few prepared vegetarian dog food brands, and a bunch of easy recipes for making your own vegetarian dog food that's got all the nutritional stuff that dogs need -- but that cats are much trickier. There's some nutrient (taurine, I think?) that cats absolutely need that's in practically no vegetarian foods. There are some supplements available, to give to the cat in addition to the vegetarian diet, but I've heard mixed reports about how good those actually are.