FOOD ENERGETICS FOR FELINES
The study of how food affects the body is known as food energetics. Knowing some basic energetic concepts can help pet owners discern which foods are best to feed when. Understanding food energetics is the best way to ensure a balanced diet. Below, we review some basic concepts as it pertains to the energetic temperature – cooling, neutral, and warming – properties of food.
WHAT IS FOOD ENERGETICS & WHY IS IT IMPORTANT
Food Energetics is the study of how food can be used to help restore and maintain balance in the body. This nutritional science focuses on which foods heat or cool the body; cause dryness or moisture; cause inflammation or reduce it; stimulate or sedate; and nourish specific organs and functions. The study of Food Energetics as it relates to pets is explored thoroughly in Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM). Nutritionist and pet owners who wish to feed a balanced diet must rotate between foods of different energetics – cooling, neutral and warming foods – on a regular basis and ideally, understand when it’s best to offer particular foods.
WHAT is FOOD ENERGETICS & WHY is it IMPORTANT
Food Energetics is the study of how food can be used to help restore and maintain balance in the body. This nutritional science focuses on which foods heat or cool the body; cause dryness or moisture; cause inflammation or reduce it; stimulate or sedate; and nourish specific organs and functions. The study of Food Energetics as it relates to pets is explored thoroughly in Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM). Nutritionist and pet owners who wish to feed a balanced diet must rotate between foods of different energetics – cooling, neutral and warming foods – on a regular basis and ideally, understand when it’s best to offer particular foods.
FACTORS THAT IMPACT ENERGETICS
Each pet has specific energetic needs which can vary based on personality, age, breed, disease, and seasonality.
- For example, very active young cats can often benefit from metabolically cooling foods, especially after a big play session.
- Persian cats with huge coats tend to maintain a more consistent body temperature than sphynx cats so sphynx may benefit from being fed warming foods more often; breed impact.
- The treatment of certain diseases, like inflammatory bowel disease, is often alleviated by foods that calm inflammation in the GI track so cooling or neutral foods.
- Seasonal weather can also impact which foods are more craved and better digested by the body. For example, as humans tend to crave foods like watermelon on a hot summer day and soup on a cold winter day, our kitties are expected to benefit from cooler and leaner proteins such as rabbit and whitefish more during hot summer days and fattier, more warming proteins such as beef and lamb during cold winter months.
- Ultimately, how factors such as seasonality, disease, age, etc. interact is dynamic. One factor may be momentarily more important to consider than another. Nevertheless, there is one overarching rule that every pet owner must follow to maintain balance --- FEED VAERIETY!
ENERGETIC PROPERTIES OF FOODS
Listed above are the energetics of animal meats in their purest form – raw, and raised as nature intended (on a species appropriate diet and free range), unless otherwise noted in the description (i.e. conventional vs grass/pasture fed). Due to variability in lifestyle and processing, some proteins may fall under a different energetic category depending on author/source of info. Chicken, beef and salmon are amongst the most variable meats.
CONVENTIONAL VS PASTURE RAISED
The energetics of different proteins is largely affected by the lifestyle of the animal:
- How is it raised?
- What does it eat?
- What toxins is it exposed to?
For example, corn fed animals raised in unnatural and often times crowded environments generally produce ‘hotter’ and more inflammatory meat products than those raised on their evolutionary diet, who exercise appropriately and experience minimal stress. Conventionally raised beef, farmed salmon and farmed rabbit is more warming than their grass/pasture raised and wild caught counterpart. Sometimes, the extra warming nature of conventional meat vs meat from their pasture raised counterpart can trigger an inflammatory response in sensitive, immuno compromised pets, especially if the meat is ultra-processed or feed-grade.
HOW PROCESSING EFFECTS ENERGETICS
Meats that are ultra-processed gain unnatural warming characteristics. Cooking at high temperatures, adding artificial dyes, preservatives, species inappropriate fillers, and thickening agents such as gums cause unnatural energetic warming and metabolic stress. Protein from an animal that undergoes unnatural warming by way of ultra-processing may cause an inflammatory response in a pet while that same protein fed to the same pet in its raw version may not.
Processing method generally has a greater impact on food energetics than any other factor; species, lifestyle of animal, cut of meat, etc.
Foods from least to most processed:
- Fresh raw food
- Canned food
- Dry food; kibble is warmer than freeze dried food
UNDERSTANDING YOUR CATS NATURAL ENERGY
The more you know about your cat and their energetic needs the better you can care for them. Recognizing which kitties run energetically cold or hot can help you tailor a diet to achieve balance.
Cats that run cold or have excess yin energy are often described with words such as slow, stiff, sluggish and phlegmy. They tend to seek sunny spots and hide in warm places. They often suffer from slow digestion, arthritis, excessive urination and loose stools. Their paws, ears, and skin may also look pale and feel unusually cool to the touch, even in warm weather.
If you have a cat that runs chronically ‘hot’, consider feeding more cooling and neutral foods. Rabbit, duck, whitefish, sardine, turkey and pork are the cooling to neutral proteins that we feed on a weekly basis; raw, minimally processed.
It’s easy to spot cats that runs hot or have excess yang energy. The most obvious signs are if they overheat easily, pant or drink excessively. Hot cats are prone to suffer from allergies, hot spots, dry skin, dry couch, reddish eyes, and inflammatory disorders like inflamatory bowel disease and kidney disease. They may be restless or highly reactive.
If you have a cat that runs chronically ‘cold’, consider feeding more warming and neutral foods. Chicken, beef and lamb are part of the warming proteins we commonly feed; raw, minimally processed. Theoretically, lamb is one of the hottest and we personally find it to be less inflammatory and more nutritious than beef (due to lifestyle of animal).
If your cat doesn’t regularly exhibit symptoms of hot or cold energies, has obvious food cravings or a known disease, you may have a neutral cat. This is ideal, as it is the most balanced state. Keeping a cat in a balanced energy state is far easier than fixing an imbalance.
FINDING BALANCE
Ultimately, balance is key. Reducing the foods which share the same energy as your pet, and increasing the foods with opposite energy will help to create balance. Rotating through foods from different energetic classes on a regular basis will help to maintain balance. Excluding any one food group for an extended period of time is a sure way to result in a nutritional deficiency or disease. And don’t be afraid to explore your cats palpability to new proteins; just add GI Aids during the transition.
TIPS
Our cats prefer coarsely ground raw food over finely ground raw food. 
Our homemade pork and homemade rabbit appear to be (most) our cats favorite flavor. 
They frequently ignore the homemade and viva beef, except when fed sparingly or during cool weather. 
Half will ignore a new protein, such as seasonal goat and venison, unless we severely limit their flavor options and feed warm. Sometimes, we have to mix in the new protein with an older well-liked protein to encourage them to transition. Also, we always add digestive aids like pre+probiotics or we find they vomit and/or have loose stools more often than not. 
Their desirability for new proteins grows over time. For example, at first, nearly all our kitties appeared to hate the sardine from Lutos (brand). Now, they crowd at the sardine plates and leave nothing behind! 
If we limit their protein options per day, say only feed pork and rabbit, for several days back to back . . . when we begin to offer other proteins they gravitate towards the others first. In other words, they appear to tire of the same flavor and naturally gravitate towards eating variety if given the option. 
We had to stop making homemade chicken in large batches because several would vomit and have diarrhea. We suspect it was caused by intolerable levels of salmonella. They eat the Viva chicken, which is sterilized using high pressure pasteurization, and it results in no obvious negative side effect. 
Beef appears to cause the most diarrhea, puking and digestive upset when used to transition cats from kibble or canned food to raw. For this reason, we never recommend conventionally raised beef as a transitionary protein. We believe it is very ‘hot’ and inflammatory so we prime their microbiome with lots of other bacteria from proteins like pork, rabbit and chicken first. CHINESE PROVERB
