Raw Feeding Glossary

The first thing to do when you want to feed your cats a raw diet is to research the diet and nutrition science to do it correctly. However, you can easily hit a wall: the raw feeding community uses a lot of jargon. It can make it really difficult to learn, and even discourage beginners entirely. In this article, I will explain most terms and acronyms you may encounter around.
Don’t hesitate to suggest other words or expressions that I should add to this guide.

Raw feeding community

In this first part, I will cover some terms used in the raw feeding community.

BARF

BARF stands for Biologically Appropriate Raw Food or sometimes Bones And Raw Food. It is one of the most popular types of raw diet and was created by Dr. Ian Billinghurst. Now, the guidelines evolved from the original ones of Dr. Ian Billinghurst, and each community has its own. In Europe, the term BARF is almost synonymous with raw feeding.
One of the main differences between the BARF diet and the Prey Model diet is that BARF includes vegetables, fruits, and supplements.

Prey Model Raw (PMR)

The Prey Model Raw diet is another popular type of raw diet. The philosophy of this diet is to nutritionally recreate prey using meat, bones, and organs. The rule or ratio to follow in the diet is 80/10/10: 80% meat, 10% bones, 10% organs.

PMR+

The PMR+ diet is a Prey Model Raw diet plus supplements. It’s a relatively recent type of raw diet. The idea behind this diet is to base itself on a PMR diet and then add supplements in order to fulfill the nutritional requirements.

NRC

The NRC stands for National Research Council: it is a private (non-governmental) and non-profit organism in the USA. This organism published the textbook “Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats” in 2006 which, as its name indicates, defines the nutrient requirements of cats. An NRC raw diet or an NRC balanced diet is a diet that complies with the nutrient requirements of cats specified by the NRC.

RMB

RMB is an acronym for Raw Meaty Bones: they are edible bones with meat around and appropriate in size for a cat. Raw meaty bones are essential as they provide calcium to the diet. Examples of raw meaty bones are quails, rabbit ribs, and chicken necks.

80/10/10 or 80/10/5/5

These numbers refer to the ratio used in a Prey Model diet. More precisely, they indicate 80% meat, 10% bones, and 10% organs. The second variation describes the organ content in a more precise way: 5% of liver and 5% of other organs.
You can sometimes find other variations like 84/6/5/5, with a reduced amount of bones for cats.

Ratio diets

This term designs all the diets based on percentages of ingredients, like BARF and Prey Model. It’s often used in opposition to an NRC diet based on nutritional requirements.

AAFCO

The AAFCO or Association of American Feed Control Officials is a non-profit organization in the United States. It sets the nutritional requirements as well as quality and safety standards for pet food. The requirements are based on the ones of the NRC and adapted for the pet food industry. The AAFCO is not a regulatory authority and it’s up to each state to enforce the standards.

FEDIAF

The “Fédération Européenne de l'Industrie des Aliments pour Animaux Familiers” or, in English, the European Pet Food Industry Federation. As its name suggests, it represents the European pet food industry and, like AAFCO, it establishes nutritional requirements for the pet food industry.

Meal completers

A meal completer is an all-in-one supplement made to balance a meat-only diet. It replaces the bones, organs, and supplements, making feeding a raw diet simpler.

Franken Prey

This is another way to describe a Prey Model diet. In fact, the goal of this diet is to recreate a prey with ingredients the same way Dr. Frankenstein tried to recreate a monster from different pieces.

Whole Prey

A whole prey is an entire prey animal that a wild cat would hunt like mice, rats, and chicks. Whole prey is fed whole with the organs, fur, or feather… It can be fed as the whole diet or as part of a BARF, Prey Model diet…

Complete

A diet is said to be complete if it contains all essential nutrients. This definition is used by the AAFCO.

Balanced

A diet is said to be balanced if the nutrients in the diet are present in the correct ratios. This definition is used by the AAFCO.

Bioavailable

The bioavailability of a nutrient in an ingredient refers to the ability of the body to use and absorb the nutrient after it's digested.

Species appropriate

A diet is said to be species-appropriate if it respects its biology and evolution. It can also describe a diet that tries to mimic what they would eat in the wild. In the case of cats, as they are obligate carnivores, a species-appropriate diet is a meat-based diet rich in moisture.
However, this term is a bit of an umbrella term that is often used as a marketing ploy. 

Muscular organs

These ingredients would be considered organs in human food but, as they function as muscle, they are often considered as such in raw feeding. Examples of muscular organs are the heart, gizzards and tongue.

DOC 

DOC is the acronym for day-old chick. It's a popular whole prey ingredient. Day-old chicks are generally the "leftover" male chick from the egg industry.

DOQ

DOQ is the acronym for day-old quail. It's less common than day-old chicks.

GLM

Green-lipped mussels are a common supplement that is added to raw diets because of their high content in glucosamine and chondroitin. Both these compounds can be beneficial for joint health.

PDD

PDD is the acronym for Pet Diet Designer, a software that can be used to formulate homemade diets.

RFN

Raw Fed and Nerdy is a website and community which has a science-based approach to raw feeding. 
You may hear about the RFN spreadsheet which is a tool to formulate raw diets.

SACN

SACN is the acronym of the book Small Animal Clinical Nutrition, which is one of the major textbooks in feline and canine nutrition. You can find it online for free on the Mark Morris Institute website.

CFN

CFN is the acronym of the book Canine and Feline Nutrition. It's another nutrition textbook that is recommended also for people without prior knowledge of nutrition.

Nutrition

In this second part, I will cover terms that are related to the science of nutrition.

Ca:P

This notation represents the ratio between the calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P). More precisely, it's the entire quantity of calcium in the diet divided by the quantity of phosphorus in the diet. In fact, the absorption rate of these two minerals is linked and so the ratio between the two needs to be kept between 1 and 2.

BW

BW is the abbreviation of Body Weight. It's simply the weight of your cat: this parameter is often used in equations to calculate calorie requirements.

MW

MW is the Metabolic Weight: in the case of cats, the metabolic weight is the weight of the cat at the power of 0.67. The metabolic weight represents the surface qrea of the body and it's a more accurate value to be used in the equations to calculate the nutrient requirements for small and big cats compared to using directly the body weight.

ALA

ALA or alpha-linolenic acid is an omega-3 fatty acid that is essential for kittens and must be provided in the diet. This fatty acid is found mainly in plant oils.

LA

LA or linoleic acid is an omega-6 fatty acid that is essential for cats and so it must be provided in the diet. It's found in poultry fat as well as plant oils.

AA

AA or arachidonic acid is an omega-6 fatty acid that is essential for cats, and it must be provided in the diet. It's found exclusively in animals.

EPA

EPA is the abbreviation of eicosapentaenoic acid, it is an essential omega-3 fatty acid. It must be provided in the diet and it's found mainly in fish.

DHA

DHA is the abbreviation of docosahexaenoic acid, it's an essential omega-3 fatty acid. It must be provided in the diet and it's found mainly in fish and brains.

PUFA

Polyunsaturated fatty acids are fatty acids with several carbon double bonds. These fatty acids are fragile and can easily become rancid. In function of the position of their first carbon double bond, they can be categorized into different families: omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9.

SCFA

Short-chain fatty acids have a carbon chain shorter than 7 carbons. These fatty acids are produced by fiber fermentation in the colon and are beneficial for the cells of the colon.

Alpha-tocopherol

Alpha-tocopherol is the most potent form of vitamin E.

I hope this will article will help if you encountered some jargon while trying to learn more about raw feeding. If you have any suggestions of words or expressions that I should add to this article don't hesitate to leave a comment.