Eating cat food

G'day G'day Folks,

The thought of eating cat food sounds quite preposterous. As is my wont I enjoy a preposterous thought along with my morning coffee just so I can experience what it is really like to be awake. Of course being a conservative bloke I don't intend eating cat food ... not even when I'm an old age pensioner.

So why think such a preposterous thought?

Well some humans need more alpha lipoic acid they can ever obtain from diet. Spinach is supposed to be on of the better sources. 1 cup of spinach provides 1 mg of alpha lipoic acid. WOW!?

Does 400 cups of spinach to meet a diabetics requirements for alpha lipoic acid appeal? Nah.

My next thought is whether I could make my own alpha lipoic acid. Humans apparently synthesize alpha lipoic acid from alpha-linolenic acid. Hey, that is good news since flax fibre is a major component of my diet. (Ha, ha, ha to all you piscatorial types who by pass alpha-linolenic acid and go directly for EPA and DHA.) Of course the conversion of alpha linolenic acid to alpha lipoic acid requires sulphur. Not elemental sulphur but sulphur present in amino acids. That is where cat food and taurine come in. Cats and humans appear to have a higher taurine requirement than most other animals. Human milk has a much higher percentage of taurine than cow's milk. Of course taurine isn't essential for humans as it is for cats. Cats go blind in a couple of years without taurine. But hey, diabetes isn't essential for humans and that doesn't mean some of us can live without it. So there it is, I could make my own taurine from cysteine or eat cat food.

Life is simple when you understand the choices. <grin>

Bye for now while I go and plan a conservative line of action.

There is nothing a dog likes more than chasing cats. So if you are interested you could visit the Feline Fact Library.

http://www.felinefuture.com/fact/nutrition/taurine.html

OK so they can't spell fict but hey, roast lamb is TWICE as good as beef as a source of taurine. And I really must include paua aka abalone in my diet this season. Come back soon.

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