Melbourne Zoo says this is the Best Best Food for blueys!!!

[Tigergenesis]

I found this

Taurine is a beta amino acid required by cats but not dogs. There are two reasons for this. First, the liver of the cat has a limited ability to make taurine, as the rate-limiting enzymes required for converting methionine and cysteine to taurine are only minimally active in the feline liver. Second, cats lose taurine in the secretion of bile acids (whereas other mammals also use glycine in the conjugation and secretion of bile acids, freeing up taurine for other uses)............dogs do not have a dietary requirement for taurine, since they can make it out of vitamin B and the amino acids methionine and cysteine. Cats cannot do this; as true carnivores, they require dietary taurine. Deficiencies can occur in dogs and cats fed vegetarian diets, as taurine (or the precursors for taurine) is present in meat but not in vegetables.

[Shadowfax]

Yup, I think cats cannot make most amino acids, which is why you can feed a dog absolute rubbish and it will thrive, while a cat will not.

[Lucifer_Spades]

I know a few rescued cats who were (previous to being rescued)being kept by a strict vegen hoarder, they are all blind because she fed them no meat and didn't replace the taurine they needed, she was trying to prove cats could be vegen too. I hate people.

[KyleWeiss]

I know a few rescued cats who were (previous to being rescued)being kept by a strict vegen hoarder, they are all blind because she fed them no meat and didn't replace the taurine they needed, she was trying to prove cats could be vegen too. I hate people.

People are morons. I worked at Wild Oats where they sold vegan dog and cat food.

But hey, the crap they put in pet food in general, what's the difference?

KW

[Blotch]

I may have missed something in the previous posts - but is taurine bad for blueys?

[Tigergenesis]

I may have missed something in the previous posts - but is taurine bad for blueys?

Not that we know of. Zach was just wondering why it is in cat food and not dog food - what it's purpose was for cats.

[Blotch]

it's acually quite a coincidence that you guys brought this up. When i went to by the cat food the other night I was reading the ingredients and noticed that it had taurine. I was wondering why, if it was bad, and the rest of the generic Questions that have been asked.

[LittleFoot]

If i remember correctly from my days working at Petsmart...taurine is an amino acid (or some other chemical)that cats cannot produce naturally and need to survive....dogs do not need taurine. Cats in the 'wild' can produce taurine since they get it from their prey animals, domestic cats do not hunt (at least not to the extent that they need to) to get enough to survive.

[LittleFoot]

Taurine is essential for cat health, as a cat cannot synthesize the compound. The absence of taurine causes a cat's retina to slowly degenerate, causing eye problems and (eventually) irreversible blindness. This condition is called central retinal degeneration (CRD).[14][15] In addition, taurine deficiency can cause feline dilated cardiomyopathy, and supplementation can reverse left ventricular systolic dysfunction. (Pion et al 1988) Taurine is now a requirement of the AAFCO and any dry or wet food product labeled approved by the AAFCO should have a minimum of 0.1% Taurine. For further AAFCO requirements for cats, consult the table here.
this was from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine

Taurine or 2-aminoethanesulfonic acid is an organic acid that is abundant in the tissues of many animals (metazoa).[1] Taurine is also found in plants, fungi, and some bacterial species, but at lower levels. Taurine is a derivative of the sulphur-containing (sulfhydryl) amino acid, cysteine.

Taurine is named after the Latin taurus, which means bull, as it was first isolated from bull (Bos taurus) bile in 1827 by Austrian scientists Friedrich Tiedemann and Leopold Gmelin. It is often called an amino acid, even in scientific literature,[2][3][4] but it lacks a carboxyl group and therefore does not qualify as an amino acid.[5] It does contain a sulfonate group and may be called an amino sulfonic acid. Small polypeptides have been identified which contain taurine but to date no aminoacyl tRNA synthetase has been identified as specifically recognizing taurine and capable of charging it onto a tRNA.[6]

Taurine is also found in many energy drinks, including Red Bull.

all of the above info is from wikpedia.com

Hopefully that helps.