My new grinder for making raw food is AWESOME!!

Jack waiting for me to drop pieces of chicken for him while making cat food,
affectionately called 'chicken raining from the sky day'

So making raw food for seven cats is not fun but it is completely worth it.  I credit a good diet as a major reason why Jack is still with us, as well as a few other of our cats, and my younger cats having amazingly clean teeth.  I wish my cats would eat 'frakenprey' and I wouldn't have to grind it, but I have at least one cat that won't eat even muscle meat, let alone chew on a bone, so I could never be sure my cats got a balanced diet, not to mention I don't think my husband would like the idea of dishing out livers every day (because I know I don't) or kidneys, or other organs... so we grind.

Which is one reason why I am a full supporter of 'do what you can'.  Feeding mice and chicks appear to be the healthiest way to feed a cat, frakenprey (bits of meat on bone a bit of organ) would be the next option, ground raw, canned, and then kibble (not sure if I should put freeze dried food before or after canned, as I think it is pretty subjective). I also believe if you know better you do better.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point you'll find yourself questioning things and hopefully because I and others talk about it you will be more willing to do it.

So.. we grind.  When I first started making raw food years ago I purchased a basic grinder that was recommended. The idea of raw food was so overwhelming that I didn't want to dive into the middle of the ocean (aka way beyond the deep end) so I bought the lower end model. It works well enough, but in order to get the chicken thighs (which I do not cook, but I follow the rest of the recipe at catinfo.org) in the grinding tube I would have to cut them in half or in thirds. I would cut near the bone so I would have one side with bone, and one side without. I HIGHLY recommend you spend money and get yourself a fabulous knife*, this isn't something you want to hack your way through especially if you are making 60+ pounds of food. I would grind the bones first, add the supplements (and something green - because without a very small portion of green veg {parsley, or cooked green beans or cooked broccoli} which generally comes out to about 2% of the recipe) then grind the meat.

Doing it this way it would take an hour or more of just grinding. For a month of high quality food for my cats it is totally worth it, but every month I would dread it more than going to the dentist.

For my birthday I asked for the 3/4 HP model, and OHMYCOD.. I am actually sad we didn't do this years ago.

I know that is a horrible photo, but I was in the middle of making food, and I had to stop and take a photo for this love letter to my Weston Electric Meat Grinder.. Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways..

Okay, honestly there is only one way, that it grinds the entire freakin thigh!!  There were a few very large thighs that I would have previously had to cut into thirds that I only needed to cut once, but that was rare. This round I added some boneless skinless thighs to round out the thigh weights to five pounds per batch, some chicken breasts cut up into cubes for chewing on for my cats who are willing to do that, and some green beans. I found some 'canned' beans that were not in cans so I didn't have to worry as much about BPA, although they were in plastic bags, so I'm sure there was some chemicals in there I wish weren't, but I can't micromanage everything... and considering everything I know I've weeded out by making my own, I will allow myself to make choices that make this easier for me.

This went so much faster, that we are planning on filling up our freezer next time. We are going to have to buy more containers to put the food in, and we need to eat up some of our own food that is in the freezer, but I'm actually looking forward to that.. and that alone was worth the price.

Although Jack might not be happy that there will be fewer "chicken raining from the sky' days..



* seriously, even if you don't make raw cat food, you need to own a really good quality knife, I mean a $100+ knife, it will change your life, it really will.