# Scallops, Clams, Oysters in a Home Diet?



## Howard Nye (Jul 21, 2011)

Hello,

I’m looking into the possibility of feeding my cats a home diet. My vet can order in Feline Vitamin-Mineral Premix from Medi-Cal.* I’m wondering if it would be possible for me to formulate a home diet in which the animal protein comes from bivalve mollusks (e.g. scallops, clams, oysters, mussels, etc.) and possibly also crustaceans (e.g. shrimp and prawns).** I want to do this primarily for reasons of farmed-animal welfare and environmental safety.***

More specifically, my question is:

(1) Is it safe for cats to eat bivalves and / or crustaceans as part of an appropriately formulated home diet?

(2) Is it safe for cats to eat an appropriately formulated home diet, where the SOLE SOURCE of animal protein comes from bivalves and / or crustaceans?

Thanks!
Howard



*Ingredients: Vitamin A (Retinyl-Palmitate; 10,400IU/g), Vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol; 2100 IU/g), Vitamin E (Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate; 130 IU/g), Vitamin K (Menadione Sodium Bisulphate Cplex; 2.2mg/g), Vitamin B1 (Thiamine Hydrochloride; 13mg/g), Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin 13mg/g) Vitamin B3 (Niacin; 200mg/g) Vitamin B5 (D-Calcium Pantothenate; 25mg/g), Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride 10mg/g), Folic Acid (1.2mg/g), Biotin (0.15 mg/g), Copper (Copper Sulphate; 5mg/g), Iron (Ferrous Sulphate; 100 mg/g), Zinc Oxide (130 mg/g), Cobalt (Cobalt Carbonate 0.36mg/g), Selenium (Sodium Selenite; 0.13 mg/g), Iodine (Potassium Iodide; 0.9 mg/g), Taurine (500 mg/g). The recipes I know of also call for Calcium Carbonate and Potassium Citrate, the latter of which I know I can also get from my vet. 

**In addition to the Vitamin-Mineral Premix, Calcium Carbonate, and Potassium Citrate, the only non-animal protein / animal fat ingredients the Medi-Cal recommended diets call for are (1) rice and (2) corn oil. So the diet I’m thinking of would really just be: VM Premix, Calc. Carb, Potas. Cit., rice, corn oil, and bivalves / crustaceans.

*** I’m vegan myself, and I’ve looked into vegan diets for cats – e.g. Amicat, Evolution, Vegecat - but, especially since one of my cats is a diabetic in remission and I’ve heard stuff about the general importance of keeping cat diets low in carbs, I’d be very concerned about trying to feed my cats a vegan diet. I think that there’s an excellent chance that bivalves, like plants, aren’t capable of having subjective experiences and thus can’t be harmed in a literal, morally relevant way, and I suspect that this may also be true of crustaceans. I am, however, quite confident that fish do have subjective experiences – see e.g. Sneddon et al “Do Fish Have Nociceptors Evidence for the Evolution of a Vertebrate Sensory System” (2003) and Chandroo et al “Can fish suffer?: perspectives on sentience, pain, fear and stress” (2004). I know that there are environmental issues about fishing and farming marine animals, but I live in Canada and I’m pretty confident that I can get farmed bivalves (and probably crustaceans) that get around these problems.


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## MowMow (Nov 6, 2010)

I'm more people will be along shortly with WAY more experience in feeding than I have but until then try reading this link that AC recently posted for someone else asking about feeding fish: Eight strikes against fishy feeding | cat nutrition blog

I had my guy on a 'fish' flavored food and the vet had me pull him off if it with the worry it would increase his UT troubles.

As for turning your cat Vegan... please don't. You adopted an *obligate carnivore*. Cat are not capable of turning plant matter into the energy they need to live long full lives. Dogs might be able and humans might be able to, but a cat cannot.


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## laurief (Jun 22, 2008)

Mercury poisoning is a significant risk when feeding seafood, so you need to research that aspect along with nutritional values and other issues raised in the blog article linked above.

I live with quite a few cats who I feed a Raw Prey Model diet. I was given a lot of raw shrimp and was excited to incorporate it in small, infrequent amounts. The first time I added a small, raw shrimp or two to each cat's meal, it wasn't five minutes before almost all of the cats were vomiting their meals all over my house. I assumed it was because the shrimp had been brined to preserve them, so I tried again later with fresh, unbrined, raw shrimp. Same result. So much for shrimp. A year later, someone gave me frozen, unbrined, raw lobster tails. I mean, who in their right mind would throw up lobster? Uh, cats do. They barely swallowed it down before it came right back up. Now, I have no explanation for that, and I have no idea whether my cats would have the same revolting reaction to bivalves, but I'd really rather not find out.

Fair warning. Feed shellfish to cats only on easily disinfected surfaces.

Laurie


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## Howard Nye (Jul 21, 2011)

Hi MowMow,

Thank you very much for your response. I will look into that further, but it seems to me less applicable to bivalves like scallops than it is to fish. 

Examples: scallops are the marine animal least high in mercury (Mercury Levels in Commercial Fish and Shellfish), they are listed as high in calcium e.g. they have almost 8 times as much as chicken; and they don't seem that have that much magnesium - just a bit more than chicken (Nutrition Facts and Analysis for Mollusks, scallop, (bay and sea), cooked, steamed vs. Nutrition Facts and Analysis for Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted).

But I hadn't even thought of a lot of those concerns, so this helps a lot!

Thanks again!
Howard


P.S.

As to vegan cats, yes, as I said on my post, I understand that current veterinary science, which of course I trust, indicates that high carbohydrate diets are bad for cats (e.g. Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition :: healthy cat diet, making cat food, litter box, cat food, cat nutrition, cat urinary tract health). That said, I don't know of any evidence that appropriately formulated vegan diets (e.g. Amicat, Evolution, Vegecat) are any worse for cats than the many commercially available catfoods that derive most of their nutrients from plants, especially dry food. It is true that in 2004 researchers found some nutritional deficiencies in commercially available vegan cat foods - see Gray et al "Nutritional adequacy of two vegan diets for cats". After this study the manufacturers claimed that they changed their production methods so that their products are adequate, although I do not know of them presenting data showing that their products were adequate. But subsequent to that the only study I could find on the topic (Wakefield et al "Evaluation of cats fed vegetarian diets and attitudes of their caregivers" 2006) found no significant nutritional deficiencies in vegan cats that could be attributed to their diets. All cats had serum cobalamin concentrations in reference range and 14 of the 17 had taurine concentrations in range. All of the three who were below range were above critical levels, one was borderline in range, and all 3 were reported to eat lots of table scraps and treats (tisk, tisk.)

So I don't know of any solid evidence that vegan diets are worse than cheap kibble diets. Do you know of this or know of any other evidence of the badness of vegan diets for cats? (I mean that seriously; I'd really like to know...). But just as there is NO WAY ON EARTH I'd ever feed my cats - especially my diabetic boy - cheap kibble, I'd be super-duper reluctant to feed a vegan diet to my cats.


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

You do not say whether you're planning a raw or cooked diet. Raw fish contains an enzyme that destroys thiamine. So I'd be concerned about shell fish causing the same problem. That's one thing to research.

The other thing to be concerned about is whether these protein sources contain the correct essential amino acids. One of the problems with vegetarian or vegan diets is that they don't contain all of the amino acids that a cat can't synthesize themselves. Yes, they can be supplemented, but then we're getting away from a natural diet. 

The other question to ask yourself is whether you want to feed an "adequate" diet or one your cat thrives on. Cheap plant and by-product based kibble and canned foods are deemed adequate because they meet the nutritional profiles as defined by AAFCO. But most of us here have seen the difference in our cats when we've become educated and switched over to a high quality diet. So the other thing you'll have to evaluate is whether a strictly shell fish diet is merely adequate or whether it's something your cat will thrive on. 

Good luck. To be honest, I don't think there is enough info on this to be able to make a well educated decision and that would scare me away.


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## Howard Nye (Jul 21, 2011)

Hi laurief,

Thanks very much for telling me about your experiences; that's good to know. When I was growing up we fed our cats shrimp as treats, as well as fancy feast salmon and shrimp, and we never got any adverse reactions. But of course every cat is different and it's very good to know that some cats respond as yours did. 

Mercury is a good concern, but it doesn't seem to me that it's ultimately something to worry about with bivalves and even shrimp. According to the FDA & EPA (Mercury Levels in Commercial Fish and Shellfish), mean mercury concentrations in scallops is 0.003 parts per million, and mean mercury concentrations in shrimp and clams is 0.009 parts per million. According to the only study I could find on mercury concentrations in chicken (Kambamanoli-Dimou et al, "Methylmercury Concentrations in Broiler's Meat and Hen's Meat and Eggs 1989), hen's liver and some eggs had mean mercury concentrations of 6.1 and 4.3 parts per BILLION respectively, which translates into 0.0061 and 0.0043 parts per million. So based on what I have, mercury is less of a concern in scallops than some chicken products, and it's only slightly more of a concern in shrimp and clams. 

As to disinfection - I was assuming that I'd cook the bivalves and blend them into a wetfood along with the Vitamin-Mineral Premix, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Citrate, rice, and corn oil. I certainly wasn't planning to feed them raw (I'd have thought that that would be a lot more dangerous). I think that all the nutrient facts I was looking at were for cooked bivlaves and crustaceans, and they still seemed very nutritious. (In any event I was planning to continue to feed the cats on the little china plates on which I've always fed cats, which get washed after each feeding)


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## Howard Nye (Jul 21, 2011)

Hi Doodlebug,

Thank you very much for your response. Sorry I didn't see it before I posted my last post. I was definitely planning to feed them *COOKED* bivalves / crustaceans for general safety reasons. Now that I see the concern about thiamine destruction I have that much more reason to proceed as I was planning. 

As to the amino acid profile, for one thing I was planning to supplement the diet with Feline Vitamin-Mineral Premix from Medical, which is recommended by my vet for all home diets, including ones using more traditional animal protein sources like chicken and beef. It might not be natural, but then again neither were any of the subcutaneous fluids, anti-hypertensives, beta-blockers, brain-tumor removals, seizure medications, vaccinations, spay-neuter operations, safe environment for my cerebellar-hypoplastic cats, or any of the other modern medical miracles that have from time to time given my kitties so many wonderful happy healthy years. 

But thank you so much for the warning about the amino acid profile of the animal protein itself. A casual glance suggests that clams, oysters, and mussels are in many respects at least as good has hamburger, but I'm having trouble getting adequate information on scallops, which worries me. (Another thing that I'm worried about is too much sodium - clams are best for this, with no more sodium than hamburger, but scallops are a little high. This is too bad because scallops are the lowest in carbs. But I don't think that clams are that bad in this respect.)

Of course I'm going for the "thriving" diet. Currently most of my cats eat Hill's Prescription Diet m/d (one is diabetic, the others just like it), and one eats Medi-Cal Prescription Preventative (he seems to have kidney problems when he eats the m/d, even though he's only 3 years old!) I'm hoping that the home diet can match if not exceed what they're currently getting with these. I'm planning to do this in close consultation with my vet, and we'll make sure to be *especially* careful with the diabetic (if we try it at all with him).

Thanks again!
Howard



P.S. 

Yes, of course to be _anywhere near_ nutritionally adequate a vegan diet has to be well supplemented with amino acids and such. All of the ones that I know to be commercially available are, and all of the ones that have been used in the studies I cited were. If you could find a crazy hippie feeding his cats lentils without so much as a taurine supplement I'm sure you'd have no trouble finding a badly undernourished cat (*shudder* - let's hope that that NEVER actually happened...). Of course, to be _anywhere near_ nutritionally adequate, almost all commercially available non-vegan diets have to be well supplemented with amino acids and such, and I don't just mean cheap kibble. I don't think that the pork by-products and chicken fat in our m/d could cut it without the added supplements at the end of the label (that read just like the home diet vitamin-mineral premix).


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