L'il Bite of the Day - Carrageenan

(So sorry for the length of this one - but it's an important one to know about!) 

Check your canned cat food ingredient label and see if it contains carrageenan. Here's why: 

Carrageenan is a food additive used very widely in canned cat food as a texture enhancer. It has been directly associated in scores of peer-reviewed medical studies as an agent that INDUCES gastrointestinal inflammation - and has been identified as a possible carcinogen to boot.

It is derived from red seaweed via a chemical solvent and has absolutely NO nutritional value. If you're feeding canned food - and most especially if your cat is struggling with digestive issues such as IBD - avoid foods with this additive. 

(And based on what I read, it's also wise to steer clear of any foods for yourself that contain this extremely troublesome ingredient! One advocate for removing carrageenan from the food supply puts it like this: "Carrageenan . . does to your intestines what poison ivy does to your skin." 

You'll find it in far too many brands of sour cream, ice cream, kefir, buttermilk, soy milk, coffee creamer, frozen desserts. rice milk, almond milk, deli meats, and frozen pizzas, just for starters. It's also found in toothpaste, mineral oil laxatives, some brands of cod liver oil, and many "low-fat" food preparations.) 

-- This link is to a 2012 letter petitioning the USDA to prohibit the use of carrageenan in food, written by an MD scientist who has been studying the effects of carrageenan in human cells and animal models for almost two decades: http://bit.ly/156QJvW

-- This link takes you to an American Physiological Society paper on carrageenan's action as an "inflammatory mediator" in human intestines: http://bit.ly/16FsCBE


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