You must be sure that your cat gets adequate taurine in his food whether you are feeding canned commercial food, home cooked food, or raw food. Taurine is an amino acid essential for your cat's good vision and healthy heart.
From an article in Wikipedia as well as articles on web sites devoted to animal welfare, almost all animals manufacture this amino acid as part of their metabolic processes. Cats cannot do this; they depend entirely up their food to provide the necessary amount to maintain health.
The articles I have researched on this topic all concur that insufficient amounts of taurine eventually result in retinal degeneration leading to blindness. Gradually weakening of the walls of the heart muscle is another serious health issue directly related to a lack of this dietary substance.
Since taurine plays such an important role for the healthy cat, you need to evaluate your feeding program to you ensure your cat gets the required amount of this vital ingredient. Frankly, the web sites dither about the exact quantity considered as the minimum requirement. The recommendations range from 1000 grams per two pounds of meat to "a pinch for each meal." Personally speaking, I go with the pinch per meal as high end equals about four cups of the stuff and far more appropriate for the big cats.
Muscle meat, including heart muscle, is the source of this amino acid and there are higher levels of it in dark meat than white meat. The catch-22 is that heat destroys large amounts taurine. The temperatures used for processing commercial cat food are so high virtually all nutrients are destroyed and subsequently added in again as a final stage of processing. Home cooking also destroys a substantial amount even though the temperatures used are much lower. One veterinarian suggests that freezing temperatures may also reduce the amount of this amino acid, so there could be some deficiency in raw food as well.
The good news is that supplemental taurine is readily available in both powdered and in capsules. I paid approximately eight dollars for an eight ounce container that is the equivalent of two hundred and twenty-seven grams of pure amino acid. That is relatively inexpensive unless you are feeding a pride of lions.
By the way, this supplemental amino acid is absolutely tasteless. Therefore it is easy to incorporate into the daily diet as even the most finicky of your cats will not detect that it is mixed into the food.
