D's Blog

Kitty Love / Valentine Cat Food

This is a weird entry to find on a belly dancers blog but I know so many belly dancers have cats (dogs too, I know). My favorite Goddess statue is from Crete 1600 B. C..  She has a snake in each hand and a house cat on her head!

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What did Erik and I do on Valentines Day?

We looked for a used meet grinder!  What? We decided to give a little extra special love to our beloved kitty cats. We aim to change their diet over to raw food. We are so pissst off at Purina!  Enough already! more later. . .

STORY

We had been thinking about this idea for a while and Valentine weekend seemed perfect. We began by looking up recipes and directions online. We’ll need a food scale, a meat grinder (that will do bone), meat sheers, freezer containers and a devoted cutting board. We see one must be careful, clean and dedicated. We realize this is going to be a commitment. One of love! Next, we went to a raw pet food store in Burien, WA to get more information. We bought some of their raw prepared Chicken and Turkey Cat food to bring home and see if our cats would eat it. Three out of the 4 cats loved it! They are not vomiting or having diarrhea problems either. We’ll have to work on Miss Tia it looks like. She wouldn’t try it. We found we can make batches for the month and freeze it. Hopefully that will cute down on the cost. We will buy it as a meal supplement until we get set up for production. It’s our Valentine to our cat family. OXOX.

HELP!

We are looking for a USED MEAT GRINDER and a FOOD SCALE.

Anyone got one they want to get rid of 206 632-2353 Call us! D&Erik

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WHY we are against Purina:

I have had cats all my life. For the past 15 years my cats would not eat anything but Purina Cat Chow. They wouldn’t eat eggs or turkey gizzards at Thanksgiving like the cats I grew up with. I thought this a bit weird. I suspected the kibble had something addictive in it. They were Cat Chow Junkies. I figured cats know something about our adulterated hormone infused food chain, thus they wouldn’t even touch eggs or turkey heart and liver. Strange.

I grew up in California with lots of cats. We knew what fleas were. In Washington it wasn’t until a few years ago our cats skin started getting horrible skin problems and the vet insisted it was fleas! So they all got put on Frontline. Even in the winter? I never see these fleas (maybe Washington fleas are a smaller variety). My cats sleep with me. I’m not getting bit. We did Frontline and the minute the date passed their hair would all fall out on their back side.  Well so, we got suspicious of Frontline too. I have a ton a stories about vets miss diagnosis of pets. Frontline is not cheap either! I had 4 indoor cats. I can see taking action in the summer months but the winter too? The other problem is that my cats all barf now. All the time! They didn’t used to. They started a few years ago. They even projectile vomit after eating Purina cat food. They were starving , poor dears! Finally they wouldn’t eat it at all. I tried others and changed to canned food. But I rather clean up vomited kibble than canned food! One day I talked to my friend named  Kitty who happens to raise Prussian cats. She said she feeds then raw food and they are happy, healthy and winning all the prize ribbons. They sure are soft I agreed! Then I started researching. AH HA! Purina moved all it’s cat food operations to China by 2007. Now it made since. This isn’t the same product it was years ago. There are no ethics in China as far as I can see. China is taking over America and making everything under the sun. They use old computer junk and make it  to resemble products we are familiar with. But no, no no! They are not the same products! Every belly dancers must have noticed that safety pins for instance lately. They melt in your hands. They are worthless, Dry wall from China came into this country to meet the demand of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation and tons of buildings have to be rebuilt! Roofing nails are trash. Cold medicine had antifreeze in it. In 2007 Pet food Scandal cat food had melamine in it and was recalled. Melamine can boost the protein count in laboratory read outs! Purina Cat Chow was not on the recall lists that I could find but I don’t have faith in that. I imagine money changed hands to save reputations. The reality is something has changed about this product in my personal observation. China then fed the recalled pet food to fisheries for human consumption. Great.

Hello? China was making this stuff at the companies direction don’t you think? But China is not capable of controlling it’s water quality of food supply consistency. Wheat, corn, potatoes and soy do not belong in our cats food.  So I’m done with China! We are going to stock our freezer full of home made cat food.

PS. Frontline is made in France, but many of it’s suppliers are in China so I don’t trust it either.

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Our Belly Dance Cat Family History:

I’ve had cats all my life . Samia Gamal lived to be  24 years old. She died just before her belly dance name sake died.  We lost Metropolis (the 16 year old) a few months ago from a mysterious eye injury. She was my daughter Laura Rose’s kitty. We all loved her so much.

Currently our 3 cats are all between 13 and 15 years old. We have a cat that we have adopted last Sumer. She chooses to live outside. Burrr! She won’t let us touch her, but we feed her. We posted a lost kitty announcement in the neighborhood but we think she was most likely abandoned  by maybe a collage student who moved away. She looks very healthy but freaked out for some reason. We named her Outdoor Kitty. We suspect she is actually related to our cats since our cats father does live in the neighborhood at one time. She won’t let us touch her, but she looks at us kindly when we come with the chow wagon and will sit with me on the back deck. Erik’s cat’s are Sophia Isadora Duncurl and Tiamat. Sofie is an X show girl. She is a calico American Curl and is the sweet heart of the family. She acts more like a dog actually. Amazing creature. Tia is a female orange (very rare). She is sweet but not the kind of cat you can pick up.

Neighborhood Temple Priestess

Priestess Tiamut’s Magic Sponge:

When we started selling the dry sponges as a fund raiser for the studio, we needed a photo of a cat for the label. Allison came over and chased all my cats around the house and the back yard trying to get a good pose. We figured that the X show girl Sofie would be the best bet, however she kept her sun glasses on and demanded we talk to her agent. Low and behold the cat that was the most skittish, loved the camera lens and became our poster girl  “PRIESTESS TIAMATS MAGIC PET HAIR REMOVER” Ok, so thats our Feline family.

BUY ONE!!!

The Dry Sponge is an amazing item, every cat owner should have a few. I can’t live with out them! Purchasing them from us help our studio stay in business at the same time it makes your life with cats or dogs so much easier!

Episode 28, Labyrinth and  Delilah’s Diet
Filmed on January 4th,

It is the first Power Belly Show of the New Year. Classes are filling up nicely this week but the Monday class was a bit small. We did a lot during the holidays as far as really cool events. Dahlia had a student recital. Her husbands band had an album release party at the studio. We did a Solstice Labyrinth dance and Feast event and Laura Rose filmed part of the labyrinth dance and it will be an interesting extra I think on this episode!
Then on New Years afternoon we did a Zaar. I think we exhausted every one psychically. However we didn’t do our usual Power Belly Classes for the last two weeks of December. I personally feel a bit spongy around the middle after indulging in all the rich foods. I really need to do power belly at least 2-3 times a week and sweat to make up for all the sitting at the computer I’ve been doing trying to assist the team with the web site stuff. It’s been especially cold and that makes me hungry too. Yikes! I feel it.
On this episode I feel we kept it simple and sweaty. Wanted to start the new year out with a goal and I am tired of all the food and partying. Enough! So on this episode I did mention I was going to start a diet to get ready for a swim suit in Hawaii at our coming retreat. I said I would post it on my blog. Partly to make me stick to the diet and partly to introduce my blog. So you will see me with a few extra pounds on lets see if I take em off. I could be setting my self up here. Oh well, here goes.
Back Story
I haven’t been on a diet in years. As long as I keep moving and am conscientious I don’t worry to much about my weight. I do not come from fast metabolizing genes either. All the women in my family have to watch it. None were athletes like Laura Rose and me. We know we gotta exercise. We both could see the advantages to learning to be a professional belly dance for sure. Those first shows I did were 45 -55 minutes long when I first began to dance back with the Lebanese band. Not one hair was dry when I finished!

When I was a teen I had to diet I have learned good habits from weight watchers with my Mother. Coarse the diet has changed a lot since those days.  Thats not the diet I’m going to share here. As we age our metabolism changes. Fat deposits it’s self in very predicable areas. If you don’t sleep, you can’t loose weight and your body will hold on to it. Insomnia is rampant these days at any age. Many people struggle with weight issues. It’s very hard, I know.

I went on this diet when I was 17, and then my favorite aerobic instructor Barb Ode many years later handed me the same diet at age 35. She claimed to have lost over 100 pound by going on it 2 week on and 2 weeks off. Then she became an aerobic instructor and kept the weight off. It always worked for me to take weight off fast and feel more comfortable. I usually stay on it for 10 days. If I had a lot of weight to loose I would approach it slower with weight watchers. I don’t know if it will work now a days. My metabolism is way different.I’m going to give this old diet a try again and see how it goes.
Clinic High Protein Reduction Diet
Follow this diet carefully for two weeks. Abstain from anything not included, but make sure you eat what is assigned rather than doing without. Vegetables must be eaten without butter; salads without oils; grapefruit without sugar; no cream or sugar in coffee or tea; and only the lean part of the steak or chops should be used.

Your weight loss range may be from 10 to 20 pounds in two weeks. Do not follow this diet longer than two weeks. It is harmless for two weeks, but may create problems if followed longer.

The basic premise of this diet is maintenance of normal energy while reducing calories. A change of body chemistry occurs during the process and only specific food elements should be eaten. Quantities are less important, except where indicated.

Monday

Breakfast:1 egg, 1/2 slice of toast, grapefruit & black coffee

Lunch: Serving of cottage cheese, tomato & 6 oz skim milk

Dinner: 1 broiled meat patty, combination salad*, 1 piece dry toast & grapefruit

.

Tuesday

Breakfast: 1 egg, 1/2 slice of toast, grapefruit & black coffee

Lunch: Grapefruit, 1 cup custard**, skim milk

Dinner: Steak, tomatoes, lettuce, celery, olives, cucumbers, coffee or tea

Wednesday

Breakfast: 1 egg, 1/2 slice of toast, grapefruit & black coffee

Lunch: Cottage cheese, tomato, spinach***, 1 banana, 6 oz skim milk

Dinner: 2 lamb chops, celery, carrots, tomatoes, coffee or tea

Thursday

Breakfast: 1 serving of oatmeal, 4 oz orange juice, 6 oz skim milk

Lunch: Combination salad, grapefruit

Dinner: Lean meat, cottage cheese, spinach, 1 piece dry toast, coffee

Friday

Breakfast: 1 serving of oatmeal, 4 oz orange juice, 6 oz skim milk

Lunch: Cottage cheese, spinach, 6 oz skim milk, 2-3 rye crisps.

Dinner: Fish combination salad, 1 piece dry toast, grapefruit, coffee or tea

Saturday

Breakfast: 1 serving of oatmeal, 4 oz orange juice, 6 oz skim milk

Lunch: Fruit salad (nothing else)

Dinner: Plenty of steak, celery, tomatoes, carrots, tea or coffee

Sunday

Breakfast: 1 egg, 1/2 slice of toast, grapefruit & black coffee

Lunch: Cold chicken, tomatoes, grapefruit, coffee or tea

Dinner: Vegetable soup, Chicken, tomatoes, cooked cabbage, carrots, celery, half a grape fruit, tea or coffee

Notes

*

A combination salad is a salad with protein, such as a chefs salad or similar. It could include a bit of egg, tuna, jack or cheddar cheese, or fetta cheese. 
** The custard is basically egg and milk. A scrambled egg will do.

*** Combine spinach, chopped tomatoes, cottage cheese and “Spike” seasoning salt (usually found in health food stores and some grocery stores). A great salad when those items are called for.

I have made substitutes and additions and the diet seems to still work. I substitute canned or fresh pineapple for orange juice, feta for cottage cheese. I also have had a glass of white dry wine at night once in a while. However, if you are strict it’s a very effective diet.

We shall see how I do on episode 29.

Wish me luck! I think I will miss my beer the most !

Delilah