One of our goals at Feline Nutrition is to showcase the many leading voices advocating a fundamental change in how we think about feline nutrition. As a "big tent" organization, we believe in presenting a variety of approaches and viewpoints for you to consider as you decide what diet is right for your cat. The writers, veterinarians and advocates contributing to these pages have all traveled different paths to the same idea: we need to change how our cats are being fed.

 

Here's a little bit about all of the people who are dedicated to changing the world, one cat at a time:

 

Lynette Ackman is a dedicated advocate of proper nutrition for cats. She has changed the lives of many cats through her research into nutrition, and has provided assistance and advice to caregivers of cats with serious diseases including diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and hyperthyroidism. She is a co-founder of Feline Outreach and runs the Pet Food Crusade, advocating and campaigning for reform and oversight of the pet food industry. She writes the Chi-Town Chronicles, a column published every other week in The Greeley Citizen in Nebraska. 

 

Michelle Bernard has spent nearly a decade digging into what makes cats bloom naturally with excellent health. A freelance writer who breeds and shows American Shorthairs, she has been keeping her own cats vibrantly healthy using a raw meat diet and plain common sense since 1993. She is the author of the groundbreaking book Raising Cats Naturally, How to Care for Your Cat the Way Nature Intended.

 

Lee Ellis became a dedicated advocate of raw feeding after ending her cat's IBD — with just one meal. She is founder of the Feline IBD Yahoo discussion group, a support group for people whose cats suffer from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). She is also the founder of Canadian Natural Cats, a list for cat owners who feed raw and treat their pets naturally. She runs Three Star Pet Sitting Services in Toronto, Canada and shares her house with Molly the cat.

 

Michael W. Fox, BVetMed, PhD, DSC, MRCVS is a member of the British Veterinary Association and an Honor Roll Member of the American Veterinary Medical Association. He has doctoral degrees in ethology/animal behavior and medicine from the University of London, graduating from the Royal Veterinary College London in 1962. In 1961, he was awarded the gold medal and Fellowship of the Royal Veterinary College Medical Association for his report on the effects of poor nutrition on the health of working sheepdogs, (published in the J. Small Animal Practice, 5:183-192, 1964). Spending most of his professional life in the US as an advocate for animal health, welfare and rights under the flag of One Medicine, One Earth, he has published over 40 books and writes the syndicated newspaper column, Animal Doctor.

 

Margaret Gates is the founder of the Feline Nutrition Education Society and a life-long cat enthusiast. After attending a lecture on feline nutrition given by Dr. Andrea Tasi, she transitioned her cats to a raw diet. After witnessing dramatic health changes in her clowder, she found that few of the cat owners she met had heard of raw feeding or the health dangers of grain-based dry foods. She started Feline Nutrition to change that. She holds a degree in Fine Arts and has years of experience as a website graphic designer. She produces the graphical elements and videos for the Feline Nutrition website, as well as researching, blogging and writing articles.

 

Elizabeth M. Hodgkins, DVM, Esq., has been a veterinarian since 1977, and currently has a cat-only practice in Yorba Linda, California. She is the author of Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life. After veterinary school at UC-Davis, she served as the director of technical affairs at Hills®, the largest proprietary pet-food manufacturer. It was there that she developed her passion for veterinary nutrition that led to her investigations into the subject, particularly the management of feline diabetes and obesity.

 

Anne Jablonski became an early advocate of raw feeding after using a raw diet alone to eliminate all symptoms of IBD in her cat Duke. Alarmed at the damage improper feeding was doing to cats, she developed her "Open Letter to Veterinary Professionals" in which she urged vets to consider the role diet plays in feline health. She founded the CatNutrition.org website to help other cats and their humans discover the many benefits of a raw diet.

 

Lisa A. Pierson, DVM, graduated from UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in California in 1984. Her passion for feline nutrition, and how feline diseases relate to specie-inappropriate diets, came about in 2002 when she was researching feline nutrition for her cat Robbie who was dealing with severe intestinal issues. She launched Catinfo.org, in 2003 with the goal of educating feline caregivers regarding optimal feline nutrition. Her practice is now limited to consulting worldwide. The most common health issues she deals with are kidney disease (CKD), diabetes, urinary tract issues, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and obesity as these all have strong ties to unhealthy diets.

 

Ashley Stephen Root holds an M.A. in Communications and has spent his career plying his skills in non-profit, for-profit and trade membership associations.  His own experiences with unquestioning, unconscious "knowledge" led to his examination of what and how we feed our cats. As a Skeptic, he became concerned with issues such as: the significant anecdotal evidence of a relationship between common feeding practices and serious health problems; the scarcity of unbiased, hard scientific research in response to such evidence; an industry with a vested interest in grain as the basis of all products; a questionable government concept approval and oversight process; the economic inertia of maintaining the status quo; and the rejection of science-based belief systems on the extremes of both sides of the issue. As director of communications for Feline Nutrition, he is tasked with messaging outreach in a moderate, reasoned and facts-based way to promote informed consumer decisions. He is webmaster and chief editor for the Feline Nutrition website, and has many raw-fed feline companions.

 

Kymythy R. Schultze has been a trailblazer in the field of animal nutrition for nearly two decades. She is a Clinical Nutritionist (C.N.) and a Certified Nutritional Consultant (C.N.C.). She has been certified as an Animal Health Instructor by the state of California, licensed by the federal government as a Wildlife Rehabilitator and is a certified Veterinary Orthopedic Manipulation Practitioner (V.O.M.). Kymythy has completed a wide variety of health and nutrition coursework, including small animal nutrition at Cornell University. In addition to Natural Nutrition for Cats, The Path to Purr-fect Health, she is the author of other best-selling books on human and animal nutrition. Her extensive background of formal education and personal experience gave her the insight to be among the first to recommend a grainless, specie-appropriate diet for cats. Her dietary recommendations are endorsed by veterinarians worldwide and have successfully improved the health of thousands of cats.

 

Andrea Tasi, VMD, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary medicine in 1988 and has been in exclusive feline practice since 1991. She is a member of the American Association of Feline Practitioners. She and her husband have four wonderful cats that make up their family. It was Doctor Tasi's lecture on Nutrition and Raw Feeding that inspired Margaret Gates to begin raw feeding her cats and found Feline Nutrition.