Balancing My Pet Carnivore Products for Cats (NRC)

Uses 2 MPC products, 4 common grocery store products and 4-6 supplements.

This recipe uses a mix of the lamb supreme grind and regular ground pork, to decrease the high bone content for cats. It also adds lamb spleen for iron, canned sardines for essential fatty acids, and extra eggs for choline.

This recipe is higher in fat, and I highly recommend rotating this with a lower fat recipe. This recipe also requires a little more supplementation for essential vitamins and minerals, due to the high fat content.

Makes 1b of food:

• 7.4oz of Lamb Supreme grind
• 2oz of ground pork (15-16% fat)
• 0.8oz lamb spleen
• 0.6oz canned sardines
• 2 large chicken eggs
• 1.7oz canned pure pumpkin
• recommended 400mg calcium supplement*
• 7mg zinc supplement*
• 0.5mg manganese supplement*
• 300mcg iodine supplement*
• 0.5mg thiamin supplement*
• 50mcg folate supplement*
• at least 50mg (74IU) Vitamin E supplement*

Instructions

To mix and prep beforehand:

1. Mix ground ingredients together.
2. Mash canned sardines with a fork. Add in egg and canned pumpkin. Add in powdered supplements (crush tablets with a spoon) and mix thoroughly. Mix in sardine + supplement mix into the grind.
3. Distribute to containers.

* Calcium: While this recipe has enough calcium to meet the requirement, the calcium to phosphorus ratio is low. To combat this, you can add a little calcium supplement to help make sure calcium is absorbed appropriately.
– Recommended per 1lb recipe: 1/4 tsp eggshell or 1.2g NOW Calcium carbonate. Bone meal powder is NOT recommended.

* Zinc: Zinc is found abundantly in lean beef cuts, goat, and oysters. To supplement zinc in this recipe, you can use a zinc picolinate or chelated zinc supplement.
– Recommended per 1lb recipe: 1/3 Solgar Zinc Piconlate (22mg) tablets. Round up to 1/2 (see note below).

* Manganese: Manganese is found abundantly in mussels, tripe, and some grains. Manganese can be safely supplemented higher than strictly required, and can be helpful for joint support.
– Recommended per 1lb recipe: 1/8 Solgar chelated Manganese (8mg) tablet. Round up to 1/4 (see note below).

* Iodine: The most commonly used source of iodine supplements is kelp powder. Iodine content in kelp can vary greatly, so make sure the company you are sourcing from tests each new lot produced.
– Recommended per 1lb recipe: 2 NOW Kelp 150mcg tablets.

* Thiamin and Folate: Both of these vitamins are water soluble, so excess will be safely secreted.
– Recommended per 1lb recipe: 1/4 caspule of Solgar B-50 Complex. Round up 1/2 (see note below).

-* Vitamin E: Vitamin E is hard to source from natural ingredients, and should be increased as fat is increased in the recipe. Additional vitamin E can also be used as a preservative to keep fats from oxidizing when food is stored for more than a week. Since this is a high fat recipe, it is highly recommended to add additional Vitamin E if storing for more than 2 weeks.
– Recommended 1lb recipe: 1/8 capsule of NOW Dry E-400. Round up 1/2 (see note below).

Rounding up and down regarding supplements: When you see a note about rounding up or down, it means you can choose to round for practical ease to preparing recipes, without unbalancing the recipe. Round after multiplying the recipe – for example, if you are making 10lbs of a recipe, multiply by 10 first, then round up or down as recommended.