All cats, small or large, are true carnivores, obligate carnivores. This means they must eat meat to survive. Cats cannot be vegetarians. Because they evolved to fill this top predator niche, their bodies are specifically geared for processing a prey-based diet. Raw feeding is a way to feed cats a more natural diet. By natural we mean species-appropriate. A diet that fits their true nutritional requirements. In the wild, cats eat whole, raw prey. Their diet includes mice, rats, any other small rodents available, rabbits, insects, amphibians and birds. They usually eat the whole animal, meat, bones, brains, organs and fur. Their systems are uniquely set up to metabolize this diet which is high in moisture, high in protein and very low in carbohydrates. Because this is the diet they have relied upon for tens of thousands of years, they do not have the ability to process carbohydrates very well. Cats get most of their energy requirements from glucose their livers process from protein, not carbohydrates.
Many of the nutrients cats need must come from animal sources. Arachidonic acid, an essential fatty acid, is found only in meat. Cats must consume preformed vitamin A from animal sources because, unlike dogs or humans, they do not have the ability to make it from plant derived beta carotene. Taurine is essential for cats and is only found in meat sources, not plants. A taurine deficiency can cause blindness and heart problems. Taurine is also found in high levels in insects. They evolved eating a prey based diet, and more importantly, eating that diet raw. Cooking degrades nutrients in meat, causing losses of vitamins, minerals and amino acids.Cats in the wild eat the bones of their prey, as raw bone is highly digestible and is their primary source of calcium. Cooking bone not only reduces the nutrients available but also makes the bone brittle and dangerous to ingest.
Providing your cats with a diet that is modeled on what they would eat in the wild has many benefits, for you and your cat:
these proportions are relatively the same in almost every prey animal that carnivores are designed to consume, and the percentages are, approximately: