Talking about Taurine

There has been much discussion about taurine and dog kibble lately. If you have been following commercial pet food diets over the past fifty years, you will see that taurine must always be added as a chemical compound to cat food kibbles. That is because taurine is only biologically available in meat sources, which are lacking in most commercial cat foods. Historically, commercially made cat food kibble is high in carbs, but too low in protein, as all felines are obligate carnivores who derive their nutrition from animal sources. And felines cannot produce this amino acid at a safe level without a high protein diet, or by eating a food supplemented with taurine.

Reference PetMD https://www.petmd.com/blogs/nutritionnuggets/cat/dr-coates/2014/december/what-taurine-32287

 

Other mammals, such as dogs and humans, can produce enough taurine to sustain optimal health. Humans and dogs (canines) are not obligate carnivores, both species and survive and flourish on diets that are not high in protein. There are no AAFCO or other governing body statements that dog food requires supplementation of taurine, despite taurine becoming a hot topic in the past five years.

Raw diets, or protein heavy commercial blends, are essential for the health of your feline friends. When your felines get enough protein from meat sources, taurine is not an issue. This can be difficult to achieve with an un- supplemented kibble diet but is easy to achieve when feeding high protein diets, typically frozen or freeze-dried raw, or high protein canned diets.

These are the natural sources for taurine that should be on your radar:

  • Beef 
  • Pork
  • Chicken
  • Fish 
  • Eggs
  • Organs (liver, kidney)
  • Mussels
  • Shrimp
    • It should be noted that taurine is not available in any grain, legume, or non – meat source outside of a lab.

This is just a tiny dive into the differing dietary requirements between different species, in this case, feline and canine, but the major take away should be that taurine is found naturally in meat sources, if the body is not producing enough of this essential amino acid, the protein sources above are the best choices, outside of synthetic taurine which is added to low-protein diets.