Welcome! My name is Natascha Wille. I am a student of feline nutrition and the creator of the raw cat food premix – an innovative product and solution to help thousands of pet owners make a homemade diet a reality in their own lives.
Since 1995 I have been a leading voice in advocating the raw meat diet for companion cats, educating thousands of cat owners worldwide about a more sensible way to feline nutrition through my public work and first website felinefuture.com – which was co-created by Scott Baker. Together we approached the subject of feline nutrition with a deep passion for cats, and our devotion to their well-being has been an inspiration to many over the years. In 1999 we published the first edition of our book “The Backyard Predator – a guide to nutrition for companion cats”. The main feature of the book was the “Recipe for a Nutriment for Cats” – one of its kind, innovative and revolutionary.
My work is motivated by the need of cat owners for alternatives to commercial pet food and more knowledge on the subject. It is based on very strong ethical considerations and much of it is pure innovation. I have never believed that information intended to help care for animals should be gathered by sacrificing them in experiments. My cats, which I use in my studies and research, are not laboratory animals, but part of my family. Together we live and learn every day.
In my opinion, common commercial pet foods represent an evolutionary dead end, because they resemble nothing the cat is naturally adapted to be eating. A product that is cheap and convenient simply can not boast the attributes of being healthy and being of high quality in the same breath. But what are a cat owner’s alternatives? Have you maybe thought of making cat food yourself? If so, you have come to the right place! With my cat food recipes you can home-make the best cat food for your cats next to mice!
Cats are so familiar at first glance, but completely alien by closer observation. There is very little we as humans have in common with cats. Our social structures, means of communication, eating habits, and physical appearances and functions are at near opposite ends of the scale. It is striking that most of us can relate to them so well nonetheless. Cats have become part of our everyday lives: part of our language and culture, and the embodiment of man’s most noble virtues. As a companion they have no match and cats have shared the lives of humans for nearly 10,000 years. Early cohabitation was likely not as cherished pet, but cats were very attracted to humans’ new lifestyle of farming, which also attracted other furry creatures, especially mice!
Cats have roamed earth for the past 40 million years, ever evolving and adapting to be living on nearly every continent and in nearly every climate, and taking their place on top of the food chain as the perfect predator. It is imperative to understand cats’ unique adaptation to life if we desire to understand their nutritional needs. Using our own nutritional needs as humans as a template for how to feed cats would be ill fated. Cats are True Carnivores. They meet their nutritional needs entirely by consuming other animals.
The ideal diet for our domestic cats would resemble that of wild living cats. A variety of small prey animals, especially rodents, would meet all their nutritional needs perfectly. Understandably, the modern cat owner is rather turned off by the idea of serving their feline companions four or five mice each every day, which is why I made it my motto to “Reinventing the Mouse” for ultimate feline nutrition.
“Reinventing the Mouse” is not as redundant as “reinventing the wheel”. The necessity of reinventing something that already exists in a perfect form is to create it for the public in a form that is safe and acceptable, and to gain a better understanding about it.
Nature has given us a precise blue print of cat nutrition. Biologists know exactly what each species of wild cat is most adapted to be eating, and modern nutritional analysis can provide a complete breakdown of these foods. DNA research enables us to find the wild equivalent of our domestic cat and provides us with the fact that the domestic cat remains genetically unaltered from its ancestor. We also know from evolutionary studies that each species specializes in a niche of life to assure continuation in the fiercely competitive game for survival. Together, this knowledge forms a very precise answer to perfect nutrition for domestic cats: mice. Innovation comes to play when attempting to recreate the mouse nutritionally with foods commonly used in modern human culture.
The raw meat diet recipes featured on this website is my reinvention of the mouse. It is the result of nearly two decades of research and extensive feed trials with my own large group of cats. For 16 years cat owners world wide have prepared the recipes featured on my site, and for nearly as long cat owners and Veterinarians have trusted in the quality and effectiveness of the raw diet premix which assists cat owners in the preparation of the homemade cat food.
Enjoy your stay.
~ Natascha Wille