When transitioning a cat who is used to eating commercial food one must be prepared for some reluctance on part of the cat in accepting raw foods. Reviving a cat’s natural taste preference can represent a real challenge for both the care giver and their cat(s). It is important that the care giver be comfortable and confident with the new diet and must enforce the change despite any protest. All the cats that we have encountered, both in our own family and those of our customers, have been successfully transitioned to a raw diet when the change is approached with this attitude. The cat is a very intuitive creature and will detect any apprehension you have about the dietary change. You can not question your choice or feel sorry for your cat about eliminating existing foods your cat appears to “love”. Otherwise, your insecurity about this progress will be transmitted to your cat. Introduce and enforce dietary changes only if you are completely convinced about the improvement it will make in your cat’s life.

Try not to interpret your cat’s reactions with human emotion. The cat is naturally hardwired to imprint on the foods she was introduced to during kittenhood. Later in the cat’s life, when she appears to favor certain foods over others, it is not the cat “loves” these foods, but that she does not recognize other foods as being edible. Food does represent a certain “security blanket” to your cat, but only for the sober fact that food equals survival. Your cat’s possible attachment to a certain food or brand can be explained by her inability to recognize other foods as edible, and the removal of this familiar food will naturally cause anxiety, as the cat associates this with unavailability of sustenance.

The degree of food imprinting or fixation varies from cat to cat. It is for you to explore how limited your cat’s ability is to recognize other foods as sustenance. Since an abrupt and complete removal of the familiar food can be a cause of stress, it is often best to incorporate the familiar food in a gradual transition to a new formula.

Often it is sufficient to prepare your new, homemade cat food with cooked meat, and graduate to raw meat. Some cats will eat the new raw meat food when it is mixed with a familiar canned food. Cats imprinted to dry cat food will need a very gradual transition and first need to learn how to eat food moist. In this instance, this can be accomplished by running the dry food through a clean coffee grinder and feeding resulting “kibble powder” to the cat. Later, water can be added to moisten the kibble powder, to which then a moist food can be added – canned, cooked, or raw.

Food at any stage of the transition, you may top-dress your cat’s meal with a food item that will encourage her to eat. “Nutritional Yeast” and canned fish (not tuna) have been employed for this use.