How To Help Your Cat Eat Her New Cat Food Diet

You’ve do all your research on the perfect diet for your cat and realized that the carbohydrate-laden dry food that you had left out for her all day wasn’t the most healthy food. Good mommy that you are, you’ve shopped specifically for her, memorized food labels and purchased her new, healthier food. Delighted with your new-found knowledge and purchases, you present her new food only to be met with a miffed kitty glare. Cheeks puffed in disapproval, she turns her nose up at this new food, much to your dismay, and meows to you for her old food.

You’re not alone in facing down a finicky feline. Not to worry, though. Here are some suggestions to help get your kitty comfortable with her new food.

1. Mix just a little bit of the new food with her old food. The familiar smell and taste will encourage her to eat. With each day, increase just a little bit of the new food and decrease the same amount in old food. You will very gradually shift over her old food for her new food over the course of several days.

2. You are likely finding that since you can only use just a tiny bit of new food, mixed with old, that you’re storing the rest in the refrigerator or freezer. Food stored in the freezer needs to be thawed in the refrigerator for 24 before feeding. But kitties typically don’t like cold food. Use warm water to warm up the food.

3. Warm water alone sometimes increases the palatability of cat food.

4. If you tried switching to a raw diet, note that some cats do not take to the taste quickly. Consider lightly cooking the meat or using warm water. You may want to use cooked meat first then gradually introduce raw.

5. Try sprinkling a little nutritional yeast on top for flavor.

6. Add a little canned mackerel. Cats love it. But don’t overdo it! Cats can get addicted to seafood.

7. Dr. Richard Pitcairn, author of “Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to the Natural Health for Dogs and Cats,” Rodale Press, says that cats by nature can tolerate a 28-hour fast and can go about five days without eating before you try other alternatives. If your cat is ill, immune compromised or has a health issue that requires switching diets, your veterinarian may prefer that the cat does not fast. Check with your veterinarian first before taking this action. For cats with the predisposition for fatty liver disease (such as obesity), a sudden fast can bring on the liver disease.

8. If your cat was on a dry food diet, you can ground the old dry food in a processor and sprinkle that as flavoring on top of the new food.

9. You might find that you may always need to add just a wee bit of the old food for that familiar smell for some time before being able to omit it.

10. If all else fails, go back to her usual food and try adding just a little bit of a different formula of the new food, a tiny bit at a time.

Remember that cats often get used to one or two particular diets or formulas and then refuse others. So it may just be a matter of finding the right meats or the right formulas. Also some commercial cat foods use artificial flavors and coating to entice cats to eat, and your kitty may turn her nose up at the new food because it doesn’t have those familiar smells and scents. Take your time, try different options and you will soon find something that works for both kitty and you.