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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 29th, 2023

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  • I hope you’re not feeling too guilty about it. Many people just don’t know these things and when you buy stuff in the store you kinda sorta expect it to, at the very least, not be so harmful.

    One of my cats had chronic diarrhea when she was a kitten and even after vet visit it didn’t stop. That’s why I started reading about feline nutrition and learned that cats need basically two things: meat and water. That stupid special diet food didn’t help, of course, it was dry food with stuff they didn’t need. We switched to better wet food and cut almost all their dry food and all the issues were gone. My boy started peeing more which is very good, especially for male cats (they get UTI’s very easily). They also both started pooping less, which is very logical if you think about it. All the non-meat filler… well they can’t digest it, so they poop it out. Now they eat 100% meat and they poop once every 2-3 days, and in way smaller quantities. Oh and their fur became way more full and much softer too. They just look healthier.

    During my search for info I found this website. It’s a great thing to read for every cat owner. It lays out the info in a very logical way en it’s easily understandable. I’d say everyone who has cats should read it.

    My cats are pushing 11 now (they’re siblings) and have zero health issues. I’m so happy I figured it out when they were so young. Still, I think it’s terrible that so many people just don’t know/learn these things and have the best intentions but then still end up hurting their own cats, because the stuff they buy is simply bad. But I guess pets aren’t really a high priority for lawmakers, so I doubt standards for pet food will change any time soon. This is why I try to spread around info a bit.

    Your cat is very lucky boy, hopefully he still has many years. :)


  • Yup. I always try to explain this to people, because I’ve noticed many people who really try to give their cats the best just don’t really know about these things. And they inadvertently hurt their cats.

    Giving your cats healthier food doesn’t necessarily have to be super expensive either. Even supermarket wet food is better than dry. Sure, they sometimes have vegetables or grains added as well, but at the very least you fix the water intake issue and this is the number one priority imo.


  • Pretty much only wet food, except for a few kibbles every day because they love them so much, like treats. Dry food is super bad for cats, because they have very little natural thirst drive. This means they won’t drink enough water by themselves, no matter how many fountains or water bowls you put out. This is easily explained. Cats are obligatory carnivores. This means that they need to eat meat. House cats are not different at all from their wild (and bigger) counterparts. Instinctively they do the same things. So ask yourself this: How do cats get most of their fluid intake in nature? Exactly! While eating their prey. Cats are ‘used to’ getting enough water by eating.

    When you exclusively feed your cat dry food, they’ll never get enough water intake to be healthy. This increases the risk of urinary tract infections and a bunch of other things. When you feed them bad quality dry food (lots of grains and non-meat filler), in addition to UTI’s they will run a high risk of developing other problems like Diabetes.

    So basically I’m saying: Only/mostly feed your cat wet food. The worst wet food is still always better than the best dry food. Because water is so important.

    Edit: Also note that most of the “special diet” cat food is dry food. Which is ridiculous. I would never feed my cats that. Most vets have these well-known products like Hill’s or Royal Canin that they prescribe… PLEASE REMEMBER: Vets are sponsored by these brands, and pet food regulations aren’t nearly as strong as they should be. Vets get money specifically for advertising and prescribing these brands. This does not necessarily mean that they are good for your cats. Why would a vet prescribe dry food for cats, when the worst dietary offenders are low water content and non-meat ingredients?


  • I am pushing 40 now and I doubt I’ll ever stop gaming. I introduced my mom to Ragnarok online 2 decades ago. She introduced her dad to the game and they played together. My grandpa played that game until the day he died and he loved it. My mom still plays it too with the same group of people. This idea that gaming is a young person’s thing… is so weird. My mom is in her late 50ies and she and my dad started with playing Pong. Both my parents and my brother and I grew up with computers, consoles and games. We all love it. That’s not something age will suddenly change. In about 20 years those same people will be typing posts like these themselves. ;)


  • Well, let’s not pretend any of us even ‘need’ American influence to become shitty. The entirety of Europe has apparently decided that it’s been long enough since WW2 for us to give Fascism another try. Sure, the US influences the world, but we’re more than capable of fucking things up ourselves.

    While maybe not as bad as the US yet, that image can be recycled for Europe in a short while.







  • I actually think those kinds of mistakes are made more often by native speakers, because they learn it from other people as they’re growing up (including all the mistakes), while non-native speakers learn it correctly (from books and teachers). Same goes for the then/than or they’re/their/there, etc. When you learn it spoken first, and incorrectly, it’s harder to correct those mistakes than to learn it correctly from the start.

    In Dutch, for example, we have loads of people who will say “groter als” (bigger than), which is dead wrong - it should be “groter dan.” This als/dan-mistake is something typical of natives, and I’ve never heard a non-native make this mistake. Same goes for zij/hun. Usually kids just learn incorrectly from their parents. My own parents make those mistakes as well and it took more than a year of my elementary school teacher correcting me every. single. time I made the mistakes, for me to correct them.






  • There’s a huge difference between reading reddit (with ads blocked ;)) and actually being active on reddit (i.e. posting/commenting – adding content).

    I believe the former will not decline so fast, there is simply too much info on reddit, especially on niche subjects, from experts. I’ll probably keep ‘using’ reddit for my search results and such. But I’ve stopped commenting and posting. Reddit needs content, not just readers/traffic.

    If there is a decline it will probably be slow, and it will mostly affect the quality of content. If power users leave, it won’t make much difference in quantity, but quality, well… And when it comes to 3rd party apps I would imagine most of those users weren’t the casual ‘read a few posts a day’-users, but the really active ones.