Cat Food Recipes

Kidney Diet For Cats + Recipe!

If your cat is having kidney issues, your vet may recommend for you to be on a “prescription diet” for kidney care such as Hill’s K/D.

Renal disease is staged based on IRIS guidelines and using your cat’s bloodwork (or ask your veterinarian), you can determine which stage they are in. Protein restriction may not be necessary until they are at stage 3 or 4. Holistic veterinarians agree that early stage renal disease may not require severe protein restriction. Quality of diet is more important than quantity of protein at that stage.

There are several Chinese herbal formulas which are very beneficial in supporting the cat with their underlying issues leading to CKD. It’s best to be seen in person with a holistic vet to do a more in depth TCVM assessment to determine the ideal herbal support for your cat.

This supplement for antioxidants is extremely beneficial for chronic kidney disease to reduce oxidative damage.

Additional modalities:

Acupuncture and laser therapy can also help with kidney disease!

Consider sound therapy for calming and healing frequencies. Here is a link to an original 30 minute sound healing recording that I made.

Cats are picky and can be frustrating to cook for, so be prepared for a trial and error process. Especially if they are used to/ addicted to dry food.

Recipe:

The following diet fits the recommended parameters for a “renal diet” i.e. it is similar in composition to K/D (the usual recommended low protein cat food for kidney disease) However this recipe is made at home with love using fresh, human grade, whole food ingredients, rather than highly processed, dry, starchy, animal feed ingredients (fillers, byproducts and synthetic supplements).

Ground turkey- 8 oz
Chicken heart- 4 oz
Chicken liver- 4 oz
Cooked Barley – 2 cups
Sweet potato- 1/2 cup
Flax seed- 1 tsp
Butter- 2 teaspoons
Fish oil- 2 teaspoons
Olive oil- 1 teaspoon
IVI blend- 1 tsp
Eggshell powder– 1 tsp
Nutritional yeast- 1/2 tsp Taurine– 500 mg

Instructions:

1. Cook ground turkey, hearts and liver on stovetop over medium heat in the butter, while stirring, until gently browned.
2. Now you will prepare the foods to be blended/puree’d.
3. Take the sweet potato and cut into small pieces, bake for 40 minutes. Once
cooked, add 1/2 cup to the cooked meat.
4. Cook the pearled barley in a rice cooker and add 2 cups to the meat and potatoes.
6. Once the combined food is cooled to room temperature, add the following: fish oil, olive oil, flax seed, IVI blend, eggshell powder, nutritional yeast, and taurine.
7. Mix everything together in a blender with 1 cup of water.

This should make you enough food for about a week depending how much you serve. Most cats with kidney failure have issues with keeping weight on, so your cat can generally have as much as she will eat!

Extra food can be refrigerated for up to 3-4 days, otherwise should be frozen and thawed prior to feeding. You can add warm water and mix to make it closer to room temperature if it’s cold.