Raw Cat Food Meat Grinding Extravaganza!

I found a meat grinder on Craigslist last night for $65 last night and bought it this afternoon. I spent TWO HOURS in the kitchen, figuring things out, jamming pieces of meat far too big for the grinder into the grinder, getting frustrated with meat grinder, struggling to dissassemble/remove bone/reassemble the grinder....overall a ridiculous ordeal. After two hours, I managed to produce 1 day's worth of food:

Each ground chicken patty is 2.5 ounces, which is 2-3% of my cats weights (between 10 and 12 lbs...and in Luscious' case, her healthy/intended weight). While today was relatively frustrating, I've learned some things and should be able to crank out more final product, more quickly, each time I have to break out the grinder.

I'll go into more detail on the process in later posts, including strategies for faster/more streamlined grinding of the cat's food, as well as added supplementation. Many owners switch their cats to raw food due to weight issues their cats have (like LUSCIOUS!) so I'll address what I'm doing differently for her as well.Even though the actual making of the food really grossed me out, I'm excited to be doing such a great thing for my cats! Raw is really really the best.

Here are some pictures of the cats:

One of all four (you can sort of see how big Luscious is here in comparison to the other cats)

Here's one of Luscious Fantasia Brusciouses all by herself, this is a classic Luscious pose and probably my favorite picture we've taken of her to date! Too bad that big beautiful luscious stomach will be shrinking soon. She hardly ever leaves this ottoman!

Dante Cheyenne Champagne is in pretty decent health. He has a really healthy and shiny coat. He does suffer from the most horrid, rancid cat breath I've ever encountered in my life, and occasionally experiences room-clearing gas.

Luscious' brother, the Reverend Frederick Aluiscious Brusciouses III is the healthiest of our cats. His coat is the shiniest and softest, and he has a significant amount of muscle mass. He is the Alpha Male (a phenomenon I wasn't sure existed among domesticated cats until I met this guy). You can really see the family resemblance between them in their faces...and nowhere else, really. :)

Jack Knickabuckna Powell is my favorite! He is fairly healthy with the occasional gas & gross poops. A few months ago we were drying out some umbrellas which really intrigued the cats, subsequently leading to this and other glamour shots.

So those are all the cats! I can't wait to post their vibrant, healthy faces after a few weeks on raw food!

what a silly quote...

"But the bottom line," he added, "is that we already know that the genes that are associated with exceptional longevity already exist, and that they are concentrated in subgroups of the population. And the rest of us don't have those genes, or don't have all of them. Those who do have won the genetic lottery for making it out to exceptional old age. And, unfortunately, if you haven't won, there's no chance you can make it."
--Jay Olshansky, a senior research scientist at the University of Chicago's Center on Aging

from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/16/AR2008121600756_2.html

Pushups & Cat Food

I just got back from the gym! Yesterday & today were the first days that my legs really felt usable after Thursdays ass-kicking workout. I was limping around like an old lady for most of the weekend, and the pain was almost unbearable when I'd try to go up or down stairs. Overall, I did not feel good.



Anyway, I developed a pretty nasty cold on Sunday/Monday which pretty much came to a head today. Getting out of bed was nearly impossible this morning. I juiced it up old school today (1.5L green smoothie, 2L celery juice) but caved and ended up eating rice/yucca/bacalao from the hispanic place next door. Ugh. I didn't feel that crappy afterwards, but I was a bit worried that it would interfere with my speedy recovery.



I came home right away after school today (after thoroughly clearing my desk in case I decide to take tomorrow off...tehe), sat & rested, caught up with some emails, etc etc, and eventually felt well enough to go to the gym. I did the Week 1, Day 1 of http://hundredpushups.com/ and found it to be a bit challenging. I did a series of 6, 6, 4, 4, 5+ pushups. What made it so difficult is that as my arms get stronger, my form gets better and the number of pushups that I can do with super-correct form decreases. Obviously this will increase over time, but for right now I am really feeling the burn. I also ran for 30 minutes on an 2309283 incline, and feel so much better now (breathing/hackey wise) than I did before I went running.



I've decided I'm going to switch my cats to an all raw diet (consisting of raw meat/bones, some fish, pureed veggies, freshly grown wheatgrass, eggs, oils, and supplements). After months of watching Luscious get even more...luscious, I've decided my planning needs to morph into some serious action. I weighed the cats today (first by trying to coax them onto the scale, then by realizing I could just pick them up and stand on the scale...DUH). Luscious is 17 pounds! Her brother Fred is 12 pounds, and a solid, solid muscular cat. This makes me feel like Luscious should probably fall within the 10-12lb range. If she were a human, she would probably be considered morbidly obese. :( Jack and Dante are both 10 pounds each, and while weight-wise I'm only concerned with Luscious, the others would definitely benifit from raw food as well.

I've been reading up on raw food for cats for a while and am absolutely horrified by the things that go into conventional cat food. Kibble contains melamine, preservatives, animal "by-products," and grain/carbohydrate fillers that cause digestive problems. The fats in conventional dry kibble typically go rancid before the food is even consumed. On study showed that 9 out of 10 bags of dry kibble have some type of bug living in them. Gaaaah. Its disgusting!

So now I need to find a meat grinder. And take some before & after pictures of the kitties!

Stolen Cell Phone!

So, as some of you may know, my cell phone was stolen on Thursday night while I was at the gym. I accidentally left it on a treadmill for no more than 2 minutes, and when I went back it was gone. After the initial trauma of being heckled by the ladies who stole my phone when I tried calling it, things started to feel pretty good.

I LOVE not having a phone. The night it was stolen I panicked and spent hours searching online, trying to find something to tide me over on eBay until my contract renews in February (iPhone time!) If I were to replace it with an iPhone through AT&T at this moment, it would cost me over $500. My roommate suggested I wait 2 days, and if I still *NEEDED* to have a phone, I could then figure something out when I'm thinking more clearly. Its been four days (even including a weekend!) and I've decided that I'm completely fine going without. In all honesty, the thing I miss most is being able to tweet at all hours of the (work)day. Haha.

I'm really looking forward to this experience!



Moral of the story: You don't NEED a cell phone. Also, it probably doesn't hurt to spend the $10 or so per month on insurance.

Craaaaavings. :)

Today's Intake So Far:

breakfast:
1L OJ

lunch:
1/2 head romaine, 1/3 avocado, 1/4 cup cherry tomatoes, salt & pepper, cumin, lemon juice
1 apple
1 banana

after work snack:
1 mango
20 cheezy almonds



Due to logistics (mainly the 10 million things happening in the last 36 hours, nearly all unexpected) I didn't have enough OJ on hand to make 2L like I would've liked this morning. I also had no bananas. I wound up having insane-ridiculous cravings for the not-so-good-for-me hispanic food from the bodega next to my school, but since I had an idea of why I was experiencing them (not enough CARBOHYDRATES!) I managed to (barely) ride it out with a couple pieces of fruit. I couldn't finish my salad at lunch today either, I just wasn't feeling it. I think my body is adjusting to the lowered fat intake. Woo! I'm actually feeling MUCH better now that I've eaten my mango.

Its so interesting to think about cravings as being both emotional and physiological. For the majority of the past two weeks, I haven't wanted rice or wheat whatsoever. My thoughts on cravings have been confirmed over the past two days. When my carbohydrate intake dipped too low, I INSTANTLY began craving cooked starches/felt starved -- and even though I had a salad (w/smooshed up avocado) in front of me both times, I didn't want it, because I needed sugar. Our bodies are incredible!

Day 11. :)

Entirely too tired to enter my food in nutridiary...but here goes the intake:

breakfast:
1.5L OJ
1 banana
12 almonds

lunch:
4 cups grapes
31 almonds

dinner:
5 cups mixed fruit salad (melon, grapes, pineapple)
a few bites of cucumber/avocado out of a salad
chamomile tea w/ 2oz honey
2 bananas
EDIT: salad w/1 head romaine, 20 cherry tomatoes, 2tsp olive oil, lemon juice, 20 almonds, salt & pepper
10 cheezy almonds


I'm going to try to muster up the strength to throw something together, its late but I'm too hungry to sleep. Tuesdays are ridiculous and I need to figure out a better plan for getting through them with a full stomach. I don't even want to know how many calories I consumed today. Probably 7. I wound up having to throw out the salad I brought for dinner because I didn't add enough lemon juice to keep the avo from turning. I just couldn't stomach eating it. :(

Today I slid into a pair of pants that hasn't fit me since shortly after my juice feast ended in February. They were a bit snug this morning but totally fit well enough to wear to work. Woo!

I will definitely be stopping at Caravan of Dreams for some dinner tomorrow! I have been craving it all week. While there, I'm going to buy a few containers of hummus to smuggle back to Florida for Thanksgiving. :) This may mean sending it in with my checked baggage, so I will probably wind up sealing it in super tupperware and stuffing that in a lunch box with ice packs!

I can't wait to see my family and throw together some raw vegan deliciousness for Friday, it is going to be fantastic!

things have come half circle.

Ah. A full 6 months after my last posting, I have returned.

I called into work today and spent the majority of it sleeping in/lying around, hence the low food intake. I'm not too worried, I had lots of rich food this weekend from Caravan of Dreams (delicious flax chips and hummus) as well as half a bag of Cheezy Almonds (I recently ordered 1/2 dozen bags from Living Nutz and am trying desperately to ration them out, haha!), so my lack of hunger is probably just balancing out those indulgences.

Today's Intake (so far):

breakfast:
1L orange juice
1 mango
0.5L water

lunch: (munched on over the course of a couple hours)
4 bananas

dinner:
4 cups grapes
a few grape tomatoes
12 almonds
1/3 of tomorrow's lunch salad: 1 bunch kale, 1 avocado, 1/2 cucumber, 1 pint tomatoes, 2tsp EVOO, salt & pepper


Total: 1641 calories, 34g fiber
81 carbohydrates/6 protein/13 fat




I've been frustrated with the choices I've been making over the past half-year. I found that even though I started out eating a vegan diet with a high intake of raw fruits and vegetables, things gradually slid back to the point where I was eating vegan & vegetarian junk food (white italian baguettes, anyone?) and even dairy, among other unmentionables. I couldn't just draw up "reasonable" or "moderate" cooked vegetarian dietary guidelines and just stay within them (ie, x percentage raw, y percentage cooked). For months I struggled to change my eating habits -- I attempted 100% raw several times, tried a whole foods vegan diet, juiced, tried a SAD vegetarian diet where I just counted calories...the list goes on. The only positive aspect that I can really note from the past half year is that the emotional binging stopped. Also, even though I was eating crap at times, I generally only ate until I was full and was conscious of portion sizes.

My food choices began to take an emotional toll on me. Not only did I know the damage I was doing to my body, it was impossible to ignore. I'd put on about 15lb over the course of 6 months, was constantly bloated, tired, irritable, and had basically lost hope of ever being on a raw vegan diet again...or pooping on a regular basis.

I've found that over the past week or so, I've had NO trouble staying raw and haven't experienced ANY cravings whatsoever for wheat or cooked starches. At first I was just grateful for the turn of events, until I did some thinking/random reading and realized it wasn't coincidental at all. In my past 100% endeavors, despite drinking green juices and intaking lots of kale salads, I was still craving cooked grains -- particularly rice. The problem with these attempts (not only within the last 6 months, but throughout the two years I've been on this journey), is that I wasn't consuming enough calories or carbohydrates!

In the past, I'd been so focused on getting in enough greens (salads) and the fullness that eating raw vegan comfort foods (onion bread, flax crackers, pates, nuts, etc) offered. Fruit didn't give me a full feeling immediately and wound up slipping by the wayside. Since I wasn't eating the carbohydrates, I wound up craving the cooked carbs. I ate more fatty heavy things to try to fill that, and the cycle continued, eventually resulting in a cooked-carb binge.

I have a less than desirable grocery situation, and over the past week or so, its been cold and I've been too lazy to go to Manhattan or Park Slope regularly. As a result, the majority of my intake has been OJ (1-2L/day) and bananas; two things that are cheap & local to me, and that I also don't mind buying if not organic. I've also been drinking celery/apple juices (both organic), since Whole Foods isn't too much of a stretch for me. Salads have been simple (tomatoes, avocado, lemon juice, some type of green requiring minimal preparation, salt & pepper) because I've really just been too lazy to even deal with olive oil if I'm already hacking open an avocado.

I'm feel so fortunate and grateful to have figured this out when I did! I am going to enter my daily intake into some type of carbohydrate/fat/calorie tracking system on a regular basis now. I'm not striving for 80/10/10 but I do need to make sure that I am taking in sufficient calories (at least 1500-1600/day?). I'd also like to keep the fat under 20%.