Re: dry food causing problems?

[Lernermichelle]

Dry food can, but does not always, increase the risk of urinary tract problems (the grain in it raises the ph, as does having more concentrated urine from no water content in the food, and the acidifiers they put in to try to reverse this sometimes cause the opposite problem of oxylate crystals), GI problems (lots of cats with inflammatory bowel disease get diarrhea and vomiting from dry foods because of the grain and other stuff in it), diabetes (too many carbs in it), and obesity (too many carbs, plus dry food is often free fed which leads to more eating).   I always free fed dry food until recently, when I had to stop because Lucy developed IBD problems and both Lucy and Patches had urinary tract trouble.  I still give them dry food in small amounts, Lucy I give Innova EVO which has no grains, and Patches I give a prescription urinary tract formula. My two fat cats have lost some weight since I stopped free feeding dry, which is probably good although since they are FeLV+ I always kind of prefer that they are fat.   Michelle   In a message dated 2/4/2006 4:39:02 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm reading through Wendy's sick kitty manual, and I just found this, which surprised me: Dry food:  Not good for cats.  Contributes to obesity.  Exacerbates all sorts of health problems. I wondered if you folks could help me understand why this is?  We've been feeding our cats weight-management hairball-control dry food for years, and I'd never seen this kind of claim before.  Right now  we have Eukanuba Mature Care for our cats that are 9 years old and actually eating.