This is a cooked human food?  I would only give it to a cat as an occasional
treat, not as his regular diet.  Cats have very specific nutritional needs very
different from our own.

Lauren
________
See my cats:  http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm

I get it for as little as $ .75 (dollar stores and such).  I've never offered
it to my cats but my dogs get it as a change on their diet once every 2 weeks
or so.  The dogs love it.  The cats haven't shown any interest in the dog's
bowls when it's served.  Maybe they just know they're supposed to eat their own
food, but it may be that it doesn't appeal to them as well!

Janet Boss
Best Friends Dog Obedience
"Nice Manners for the Family Pet"
Voted "Best of Baltimore 2001" - Baltimore Magazine
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com

Check the ingredients. If it has onions in the gravy, do not feed it to your
cat.  Onion can cause a dangerous anemia in cats.
Annie

.... and possibly ciguatoxin.

One of our vets was an emergency and critical care specialist for about 10
years.  He was presented with several cases of severe diarrhea and vomiting
in cats that were recently fed mackerel.   One case involved two of three
cats in a household - the third, asymptomatic cat, did not eat the mackeral.

At the time there was no test to definitively diagnose ciguatera poisoning,
however, the symptoms in the cats closely resembled ciguatera poisoning in
humans.  He encountered a few other cats over the years with the same
symptoms who also recently consumed mackeral - that's why he suspected
ciguatera poisoning.

There's no way to detect ciguatoxin in fish -- and there's no way to destroy
it.  Cooking, freezing and canning have no effect.  So the best way to
reduce the risk is to avoid the fish that are known carriers of ciguatoxin.
Also, the larger the fish, the higher the concentration of ciguatoxin - big
fish eat little fish contaminated with ciguatoxin -- and bigger fish eat
those fish and so on.  The highest risk is in fillets because they can be
cut from 100-pound King Mackerals.

I would avoid feeding raw fish to cats altogether.  Some fish contain
thiaminase - which is an enzyme that destroys thiamin (vitamin B1).  Cats
are very susceptible to thiamin deficiency because of their high requirement
for thiamin.   The risk for thiamin destruction exists only when fish is fed
raw -- cooking destroys thiaminase.

Good luck.

Phil.