Pet owners have been duped by the billion-dollar pet food, well-intentioned veterinarians, and advertising disguised as educational content.
There is nothing commercial pet food provides that you can’t make in your own kitchen other than a high price markup, depressingly inferior ingredients, disease-causing fillers, and a fancy label.
Here’s an easy, cheap way to get cats the nutrients they need. Like so much in human nutrition, feeding cats is actually very simple once you take out the dogma. See the 2 rules for feeding cats below, and when you follow those rules, you’re on your way to good pet health at a fraction of the price.
Take a look at the bigger picture (how cats eat in the wild) and stop trying to apply human nutrition myths to our pets, your pet will get the food it needs to live a long healthy life.
Raw rules food for Cats
There are two main rules for feeding cats. When you follow these, you’re working with the cat’s natural nutritional patterns.
- Feed your cat nose-to-tail animals that are smaller than they are (what they could realistically catch in the wild). This includes bones, muscles, and organs – especially the heart.
- If your food is not fresh and raw, supplement with the essential (for cats) amino acid taurine. (source)
Raw Food for Kidney Disease
Cats that have been raised on commercial food with its dead, dry, nutritionally inferior ingredients are susceptible to kidney disease. Once kidney disease has started, it is a progressive disease and the #1 reason for housecat mortality other than trauma. (source)
To help cats that have already started this process have the highest quality of life they can, and slow the progression as much as possible, a raw food diet that is loaded with nutrients but low in phosphorus is key. (source)
My Experience Feeding Raw Food to Pets
Bob the cat came into my life a year ago as a 14-year-old Maine Coon. He had some health issues the year before, prompting an overnight vet stay, myriad of tests, and no answers. Bob’s health had mostly recovered, to the point that his owner and vet weren’t overly concerned. But still, he wasn’t thriving.
Last spring he started having health issues again, with frequent indoor accidents, ‘drunk’ behavior, weight loss, lethargy, and excessive thirst. This time he was diagnosed with hyperthyroid and early-stage kidney disease. He was sent home with medication to tone down his thyroid dysfunction and special ‘kidney care’ cat food.
Trying raw cat food for kidney disease
Bob got better on the special food and thyroid medication, but still wasn’t great. And the cost was ridiculous, costing over $100/month to feed and medicate this 15-pound cat.
I had success a decade earlier feeding my dog raw food, with his weird skin condition clearing up, as well as his digestive upset. Still, I knew feeding cats was different than feeding dogs so I wanted to make sure I didn’t mess up the cat.
The internet provides dozens of different options for cat food, with some containing ingredients I know the cat doesn’t eat (psyllium husk or brown rice? No thank you! The cat is a carnivore, thankyouverymuch) to commercially available raw food at a hefty price to cooked recipes using vegetables.
Finally, I found a facebook group that seemed to know what they were talking about and had a recipe that included ingredients that made sense to me for the cat.
This recipe, combined with Bob’s love for salmon, and the phosphate limit that the vet recommended, has been the winning ticket for returning Bob to good health with a food that is easy on the budget (about $10 per month!).
And becoming his personal chef totally won over the cat, who was rumored to ‘hate everyone’ other than his owner before I came along. I’m still not really a cat person, but I like this one ❤️
Raw Food Recipe for Cats with Kidney Disease
Ingredients notes: You can find the organ meats at US Wellness Meats (here). It looks expensive at first, but 100 g of liver, kidney, etc is a super small amount so one purchase from US Wellness will probably last you for an entire year! Just add in easy-to-find ground beef and you’re good to go!
Put the unused portion of the organ meats back in the freezer for later. I don’t completely thaw them, I just thaw the organ meats enough that I can cut a chunk off.
The heart has to be chicken (or other small animal) heart or you must supplement with taurine. The kidney can be any kind of kidney. Don’t add more liver than recommended, due to vitamin A toxicity potential on a diet higher in liver. Remember, we’re trying to replicate what the cat would eat in the wild from their catches- a combination of majority muscle meat with a little organ meat as well.
Directions notes: Watch the first video to see how easy this cat food is to make!
Beef and Salmon-Based Raw Kidney Care Cat Food Recipe
This is Bob's favorite cat food, which we're using for kidney care. If your cat is not diagnosed with kidney disease, it is encouraged to use bones in place of the egg shell.
Ingredients
- 50 grams chicken liver
- 50 grams beef kidney
- 2 cups water more as needed to puree
- 6 grams ground egg shell save your egg shells, bake at 350* for 15 minutes, and then crush with a mortar and pestle.
- 1 whole raw egg
- 100 grams chicken heart
- 700 grams ground beef 70/30
- 100 grams raw salmon bones removed
- 14 g sardine or salmon oil
Recipe Notes
This works best to puree all the organ meats (heart, kidney, etc) into the water, and then pulse this mixture into the ground beef. If you have a Vitamix this should work just fine (just pulse and allow to rest if it sounds like it's over working). If you have a regular blender, I would mix the water/organ mixture and the ground beef by hand or with a stand mixer instead.
Divide out into containers and thaw 2-3 days' worth at a time.
Phosphorus calculations, aiming for less than 100 mg phosphorus per 100 calories:
Is this recipe enough taurine? I wasn’t sure, since taurine in the chicken heart may degrade when it’s frozen, and my chicken hearts come frozen. Since taurine is so essential to cats, I sprinkle powdered taurine, 1 pinch, on each container of his food (2 days’ worth).
Ingredient Nutrition notes:
50 grams chicken liver Per 50 g: 63 calories, 21 calories from fat, 31 calories from protein, 294 mcg folate, .9 mg riboflavin, 0.85 mg niacin, 8.3 mcg B12, 84 mg choline, 148.5 mg phosphorus
https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/poultry-products/666/250 grams beef kidney Per 50 g: 51 calories, 13.5 g fat, 37 g protein, 46 mcg folate, 1.4 mg riboflavin, 4 mg niacin, 13.5 mcg B12, 128.5 mg phosphorus
https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/beef-products/3466/2
6 grams ground eggshell – typically cats get calcium from the bones in meat in a raw diet, but in the case of kidney disease, we want to limit the phosphorus in their diet. Bone is made up of quite a bit of phosphorus so we use egg shell in its place.
Per 6 g 5400 mg calcium, 50.4 mg phosphorus
Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23607686
https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/custom/1145333/2
1 whole raw egg 71 calories, 44 calories from fat, 25 calories from protein 95.5 mg phosphorus
https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/111/2
100 grams chicken heart 153 calories, 84 calories from fat, 66 calories from protein 177 mg phosphous
https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/poultry-products/664/2
800 grams ground beef 70% protein/30% fat (can replace 100 g with egg white) Per 100 g 362 calories 271 calories from fat 61 calories from protein 132 mg phosphorus
85/15 per 100 g 215 calories, 135 c from fat, 79 calories from protein, 171 mg phospherous
https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4102/2
100 grams salmon, wild caught
142 calories
1 tablespoon sardine oil for omega 3 fatty acids if not using salmon (do not use cod liver oil, it is too high in vitamin A when combined with the chicken liver)
Our experience feeding Bob Raw Cat Food:
Raw Food to keep Cats Healthy
Cats that don’t have a phosphorus restriction due to kidney disease should have small bones they can eat (like in small fish) on their own, or some ground up bone in their food to provide calcium and phosphorus in place of the ground up egg shell.
Otherwise, the nutrition is about the same! Use the comments below to tell me about your cat’s raw food diet! Do you make your own food for them? Have you bought raw food before?
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Thanks, Cara. I love the idea of feeding my cats a more natural diet. How much of this recipe do you feed per day? My cats are each about 15 pounds (not Maine Coons, just large “boned”).
Bob is supposed to be gaining weight, so he can have as much of this as he will eat. He usually eats 100 calories a day, but I used this calculator to calculate what he needed and the chart I included in the post to calculate how much that was :) https://www.petnutritionalliance.org/cat.php
How many days approximately will this feed Bob? Would love just a ball park figure. Thank you.
Hi Starlene! This feeds bob for about a month.
I think 16 days, 8 containers with 160 grams, Bob eats 80 grams a day so 2x 8 = 16 and not a month. Correct me if I am wrong!
I think that’s right! I don’t remember, he’s fed as much as he wants since he needs to gain.
Hello. I do not live in the usa… i will make the recipe. What isxmeant by sardines? The kind that come in a can? Aren’t they salty? Thank you!! Ilana
Hi Cara!
Thank you for this recipe! My 15 year old cat was recently diagnosed with kidney disease and does not like the commercial food–for which I do not blame him.
I tried to approximate a small batch of this recipe (without the beef–and without a proper scale) last night and he loved it! I am hopeful…
a couple of questions:
1. My grocery store only has chicken hearts in a package with chicken gizzards. Are they ok to use as well? (I cannot tell the bits apart)
2. The recipe says it yields 21 servings. Is that correct???? It seems to be a way smaller amount when I add the grams. And is the nutritional info and calorie content divided by the number of servings? (I may just be confused!)
3. Is there something I ought to worry about using raw food–which I had not done before??
4. To get my non-kidney cats involved with raw as well, is it simply a matter of adding bone meal?
Thank you!!!
For the heart- you want to be sure they are hearts; gizzards won’t give the same amount of nutrients. For the serving size, I suppose it depends on how much your cat needs. For your non kidney cats, I’d use bone-in chicken in place of the beef.
Thank you, Cara.
My cat was just diagnosed for kidney disease and hyperthyroidism. She really likes Hill’s KD . The dry food feels greasy, so I think they must coat it with fish oil to make it more attractive to cats. Mitzi already seems to be improving, after less than a week, with the diet and the pill for the hyperthyroidism.
She’s happy, but I am not. Well, I am happy she is getting better, of course. What I am not happy about is the cheap ingredients they use, for which they up the price just because it is a prescription diet. Brown rice as the first ingredient. Really? For a carnivore?
Which is why I found your website. Thank you for doing the hard work for us and sharing your recipe. We are leaving on vacation in a few days, but I plan to make it and wean her onto it after we get back at the end of the month.
I noticed a couple of people asked about substituting chicken thigh for beef, so I hope you don’t mind my posting a link. This site shows the phosphorous levels for different types of meat. Turns out chicken thighs are the lowest, although hamburger is not much higher. This article might be helpful for those who need to adjust your wonderful recipe to suit their kitty’s palate, or other health needs.
https://www.davita.com/diet-nutrition/articles/advice/top-low-phosphorus-foods-for-a-healthy-kidney-diet
Thank you for this! Did you use 100 grams of chicken heart? In the video it sounded like you used about 50. Also, how has Bob’s weight gain been?
The link to the Facebook group is broken. Would you be able to give me the name of the group so I can find it?
Also would love an update on Bob. Is your blog searchable?
How’s your kitty doing? Mine’s not into beef, can I sub with the same amount of chicken thighs?
I’m a long-time feeder of raw homemade for cats, but was interested in how it differs for a cat with chronic kidney disease. So, thank you! :)
I have a question – what about iodine? The recipes I found all include some kind of low/light iodized salt. If we’re not including the thymus gland of the animal, isn’t adding iodized salt important?
Hi Cara.
I just found out that my 17 yr old kitty has kidney failure. I am very interested in doing the whole raw diet for her.
I did notice that the recipe you have listed asks for 70/30 ground beef, but the numbers with calories/protein amounts has ground beef at 85/15%…. also the video says 800 grams of ground beef and the recipe shows 700 gr…. can you please let me know what should be the actual recipe please? Anything you can provide will be helpful.
Thank you so much.
Hi Kay, I use some salmon in addition to the ground beef now, and reduce the beef. For 85/15 or 70/30, it depends on what you can find. The phosphorous level is still low enough with either one.
Hi Cara,
When you say you use salmon in addition to the ground beef, what do you mean? ~ how much raw salmon and how much ground beef ~ my cat doesn’t like beef as much as chicken, so I would prefer to use chicken, someone above made a comment that their cat also does not like beef but chicken ~ what do you think? you use ground beef due to its phosphorus content ~ is that why? ~ maybe chicken doesn’t have that phosphorous content? ~ my cat does not show signs of kidney disease only that I noticed he was thirsty a lot, but the vet said to definitely introduce more wet food! I have and noticed he is not as thirsty.
I am unable to find raw chicken heart. What can I substitute for it, please?
You can omit it and add taurine. You’d have to look up how much taurine to give your cat per day based on weight.
My 17 year old cat, Aloha, was losing weight and in general, not doing well and not eating the kidney diet from the vet. I started making your recipe about 3 weeks ago and it’s like I have a new cat! She loves it and is putting weight back on, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat so much. She was also vomiting every night so I also add 1/16 tsp of slippery elm powder to each 4 oz of food and it’s really helped that. Mahalo from Maui!
How many egg shella for 6 gram powder?
Hi Cara,
My 17 year old Manx cat just recently got diagnosed with kidney disease. My husband found your recipe and we made it for our cat. He loved it and ate it all up…but to our dismay a little while after he ate he threw it all up. I’m wondering if we gave him too much all at once…should we mix a little at a time with his current food?
Thank you so much for this video, and article. My cat has just been diagnosed with kidney disease. The cat food is quite expensive as you mentioned. He and his mother will both have to eat the same food since they eat in the same location in the house and it would be very difficult to have them on separate diet. The cost of 120 cans a month of prescription diet is insane. And I will definitely be giving this a try. Again I appreciate so much that you shared this
The vet recommended 2 cans of the 5.5 oz cat food (1.5 cans of the 3 oz ones). The 5.5 oz can is 156 grams(96 cal/100grams) so approx 300 cal/day.
Is the above recipe 100 cal per 100 grams? Approximately?
Thanks
My cat just got diagnosed with stage 3 CKD. I asked my vet about using homemade recipes. She said to avoid raw food as it carries increased risk of infection for salmonella, E. Coli and other bacteria. Cats with renal disease are more at risk for developing urinary tract infections and even kidney infections.
What have you found?
Thank you!
I’ve got five cats but only one with renal diet needs. Can I feed them all the renal diet?
I’d add in bone for phosphorous for your other cats.