Taurine Content In Cat Food

Formerly wild cats ate rodents and ingested the taurine stored in rodents brains.

Taurine content in cat food.

The aafco lists 2 as the minimum for canned wet. It s difficult to overdose the pet as excess taurine isn t stored but excreted. If you ever start looking at taurine content in cat food you might come away thinking that it all sounds pretty small. According to other studies for every 2 2 pounds of food consumed it s recommended that cats consume 1000 mg of taurine.

A little goes a long ways when it comes to most minerals like taurine. There is no precise feline requirement for taurine in raw cat food as many factors influence requirement levels. It s because cooking destroys up to 2 3 of the taurine content in foods. Taurine is an essential amino acid produced by most mammals in the body in the liver itself.

So you will have to look for high animal protein content food so that your cat gets more taurine. Unlike other mammals cats do need this amino acid to be present in their organism. Unfortunately cats cannot synthesize sufficient amounts of taurine from other amino acids for their body to properly function. Recommended ranges for an average cat fall between 35 and 250 mg a day.

So trust your kitty s appetite and feed him a raw food diet of beef lamb chicken fish or shrimp. A species appropriate prey model raw pmr diet is abundant in taurine it is important to note that heat destroys more than half about 65 of the taurine content and vegetables contain almost no measurable amounts of taurine. Taurine comes from animal based protein. Look at the ingredient description when buying.

While i can t find a quick answer it is in the guaranteed analysis of each food. Maybe just the tiniest bit higher so that they never mess up. The average cat needs about 1000mg of taurine for every 2 2 pounds of food or roughly 100mg per day. Taurine is one of the most important essential amino acids for the proper functioning of a cat s heart muscle vision digestive and reproductive system.

When it says for example taurine 0 10 min that means that taurine will be almost exactly 0 10. It is generally safe to assume however that if a cat food meets the requirements set by aafco cat food nutrient profiles the taurine content will be sufficient to avoid a deficiency. Another problem is that most cat food brands don t list taurine content in their guaranteed analyses. These include protein source dietary fiber levels food processing sulfur containing amino acid content and the metabolic needs of the individual cat.

You also can add small amounts 1 2 teaspoon per serving of nutritional yeast to your cat s diet to supplement his taurine intake if he is a particularly finicky eater. Plant based proteins are avoided because they do not have enough amino acids that are essential for the cats which is easily found in animal based protein.