Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to characterize lipid fraction extracted from five self-prepared and seven commercial cat foods using gas chromatography (GC) and pressurized differential scanning calorimetry (PDSC) techniques. Self-prepared food recipes were composed using BARFny kalkulator, software dedicated for balancing cat diets, and prepared on the basis of fresh raw meat and offal. Extracted fat fractions were compared qualitatively and quantitatively with literature data for the fat of whole prey items to check the main assumptions of the software used. The fatty acid (FA) composition and distribution were determined using GC. The PDSC method was used for the determination of the oxidative stability of extracted fats. The obtained results indicate that self-prepared cat foods contained a high level of essential fatty acids (EFA) but low oxidative stability, especially for those with significant amounts of polyunsaturated FA. The FA profile and oxidative stability were examined for four dry and three wet commercial cat foods. It was found that their omega-6 to omega-3 ratio was beneficial reaching 5.3:1 to 10.1:1, despite the low amount of EFA. The longer induction time was determined for fats extracted from commercial cat foods than for self-prepared ones, which indicate their higher oxidative stability.
Highlights
Most cat owners feed their pets with commercial cat food because it is convenient and economical; over the last decade, the use of alternative diets, such as BARF
(bone and raw food/biologically appropriate raw food), other raw meat-based diets, homecooked diets and whole prey model diets have become more popular [1,2,3]. These raw food diets are often used by owners who have concerns about the wholesomeness and nutritional value of the ingredients used in commercial pet food
It is hard to find studies in which the nutrient composition of raw meat-based foods was examined by analytical techniques
Summary
Most cat owners feed their pets with commercial cat food because it is convenient and economical; over the last decade, the use of alternative diets, such as BARF (bone and raw food/biologically appropriate raw food), other raw meat-based diets, homecooked diets and whole prey model diets have become more popular [1,2,3]. Wilson et al [10] performed computerized assessments of several types of homemade cat recipes, including some raw recipes, using the balancing software (Balance IT) available online.
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