Do the Math

For the folks who have been asking about Newt’s diet, here’s a sample breakdown of what he eats, and how much it costs. This exercise can also be useful for those owned by other special needs kitties requiring limited protein intake or special diets.

A typical meal involves one (1) US Tablespoon (T) of meat-source protein (usually chicken, sometimes cod or other) in combination with a fresh, pureed vegetable mix of three (3) Ts of vegetables, typically selected from cucumber, green beans, zucchini, broccoli, yellow squash, carrots. We also incorporate dairy proteins, including cottage cheese, cream cheese, ricotta cheese, and yogurt, both as meal components, and as between meal snacks.

For today’s sample menu analysis, we chose chicken, cucumber, broccoli and green beans.  We splurged and got the broccoli florets from the salad bar; otherwise, it would have been less expensive.  Gotta love Cheap Chicken Fridays where the freshly-roasted rotisserie chicken is on sale for $5.00!

Meat Component $ 0.06:

• One medium chicken $ 5.00
• Marrow Soup for gravy. No cost, as it is made from the chicken carcass and leftover broccoli crowns, carrots, etc.

Upon food processing, one medium chicken yields an average of 5.5 cups, With 16 T per cup, one chicken yields 88 servings (1T per meal), and six cents per serving.  Yes, six cents per serving.

Vegetable Component $ 0.11:

• 1 large cucumber $ 0.79 (did not weigh, sorry. They are per each, not per pound)
• .27 pound of green beans = $ 0.54
• .07 pound broccoli = $ 0.35
• Veggie Total Cost = $ 1.68
  

After pureeing, the above yields three (3) cups of fresh veggie mix, or 48 T.  At 3 T per serving, each meal’s veggie mix costs 11 cents (10.5 cents).

Cost per Meal $ 0.17; Food Cost per Day $ 0.68:

His meals are roughly the same volume as the typical 5.5 ounce can of cat food.
Combining 3 T of veggie mix and 1 T of chicken, Newt’s meals cost $ 0.17 per meal. At four (4) meals per day, this is $ 0.68 / day, or $ 4.76 per week.

Compare with the average price of one single serving of:

• Generic, canned cat food – average $ 0.40
• Commercial, canned cat food – average $ 0.60
• Human grade, holistic, canned cat food – average $ 1.50
• Prescription food (he ate previously) – average $ 1.41

So, when you do the math, it becomes glaringly obvious that preparing your liver shunt cat’s meals in-house is tremendously more cost-effective than any other food choice.  Plus, you have the added benefit of knowing exactly what ingredients are included – no worries about food safety recalls, such as the one required by Newt’s former prescription diet (prior to his consumption), or concern about the quality of ingredients  – no corn or grain filler, and none of the 4 Ds commonly accepted in commercially-prepared food sources.

Home cooking for your liver shunt, (or other special dietary requirements), cat, under the guidance of their veterinarian, can be a truly rewarding experience. 

Not just in terms of dollars and cents, but also in dollars and sense!