Yep. But then we did something on accident.
About a year after dropping half his weight, he lost his fangs. My mum figured he wasn't long for this world and started feeding him raw hamburger. From there also liver, other offal, eggs, fish scraps, etc. And he turned back into a kitten, practically. Filled back out, glossy coat, energy to spare, started hunting again... and lived a very active life for another 10 years.
Come to find...
Cats and dogs used to be fed a raw food diet, but when the Great Depression rolled around, there just simply wasn't the food available for your own kids, much less your pets. People still loved their pets, though, so people came up with other things they could eat (mostly corn and crude fats, and spoiled meats). Science Diet, for example (and oddly to my way of thinking) proudly lists out their story of being started by a vet during the Great Depression, and still using nearly the same formula. (Huh??? Like that's a good thing? Does that make sense to anyone else?)
More and more pet food companies are going back to a no grain, organ rich formula (merrick BG, etc.). And others still are actually going further back and creating wholly raw food (WetNoses, etc.). Anecdotally, there's a lot of consistant results; whiter stronger teeth/ better breath/ better vision-clear eyes/ lots of lean muscle/ glossy coats/ increased energy/ etc. I don't know if there have been any large scale studies, and obviously petfood companies are going to get all shiny about why their product is best... all I know for sure is our own experience;
Since our first cat doubled his life... all of our pets have been on rawfood (except my dog, the past couple years, but he's young and can deal better, although I hope to get him back there soon). They typically live twice as long as everyone else's pets (20-25 years on average), and are in fighting health until the last 3-6 months or so of their lives and then start a very rapid decline. For us it always seems to be winter. They make it through christmas and then pass just before spring. :(
There's no way we could afford the uber pricey prepacked raw food... we had our old butcher make it for us (closed 2 years ago, and everywhere else is too far to schlep to or is a 'yuppie butcher' with prices that make my eyeballs pop out of my head, and crawl crablike to the door and out to the cat (I have to feel my way out). Prices vary... on average for all the ground bone/ offal/ meats/ fats/ sweet potatoes/ blueberries/ etc... .it worked out to 30 cents to $3 a pound. (Yuppie butchers not included. Seriously, what idiot pays $15 a pound for tripe, and $30 a pound for bottom round?)
A meangrinder is on my 'list', but unfortunately, so are 30gazillion other things.
Oy. LONG story short... if you don't already feed raw, you might give it a whirl.
Dr. Pitcarin has a book out with recipes for dogs and cats (we had to pester my cousin the big animal vet for our old recipes, which are quite similar), that can be found fairly easily.