Recently I saw on the blog “Cat Chat with Caren and Cody” a post about a microbiome testing kit called “Insights” from the company NomNomNow. You may remember I reviewed their cat food which I thought was a healthier option than commercial canned food. I commented on the blog that I thought the Microbiome test was a useful idea and was then contacted by NomNomNow about doing an honest review in exchange for test kits.

I really did think it was a very useful test and I would like to find one for humans too. I have been learning about natural health for over a decade and I have learned that your microbiome is the core of good health. If your microbiome is healthy, you are healthy and vise versa.

In case you haven’t heard the term before, your microbiome is the collection of organisms that inhabit humans and animals alike. These organisms, which include bacteria, fungi and viruses, perform vital functions in our bodies. In humans, these organisms actually outnumber the total number of human cells in the body. Probably their most important contribution is that they help us to digest our food and assimilate the nutrients from that food. If you don’t have a good balance of beneficial bacteria in your gut, you won’t be able to process food properly. This can not only lead to loss of essential vitamins and minerals but the undigested food can get into the blood and be treated like a foreign invader, causing inflammation and a host of health issues. This can also lead to overweight as excess toxins that can’t be processed by the liver are stored in fat cells.

So you can see why knowing the state of your pets gut health can allow you to make informed decisions about what you can do next to improve your pets overall health. You could also provide this information to your vet but I don’t know how well veterinarians are trained in understanding gut health. Human doctors that prescribe antibiotics with reckless abandon don’t seem to have a clue. Antibiotics kill both the bad and good bacteria and they are often the main culprit in throwing the microbiome out of whack. Often, a general probiotic can help but knowing the exact state of your pet’s microbiome can help you, and hopefully your informed vet, formulate a specific treatment plan. You can then retest to see how it is working. If you want more information, there are several articals on the NomNomNow website that you can read here.

Our kits arrived on Wednesday and the cats were interested in it before I even opened the box.

Frankie didn’t even give me a chance to remove the contents.

The box included three tests kits and a couple of samples of food. This was probably why they were so interested in the unopened box.

Once I removed the contents Chris became very interested in the box.

He tried very hard to dig his way through. Perhaps he thought the treat factory was on the other side.

The treat samples that were in the box were labeled “Chicken, Nothing Else” and “Beef, Nothing Else.” I opened the chicken and dumped it out for our cats to try. It was basically chicken jerkey and Chris was very interested, which was surprising considering Chris is missing eight teeth. The pieces, I thought, were too big and I decided to break them up after I already put them out. Floki was also interested but Frankie seem only mildly interested, almost indifferent. I guess you can’t please everyone. Perhaps he would have been more interested if Floki wasn’t there stealing his food.

The next morning I saw a large piece of partially chewed jerky on the floor, which was surprising because I thought I broke up all the pieces and I thought they finished eating them all. I walked into the Florida room and found another large piece of jerky next to a ripped up bag. I guess I forgot to put the beef jerky treats away.

Now I have to get poop samples to send in. This has proved to be difficult with three cats. I can’t just pull a sample out of the litter box because I need to know which cat left it. So far, after almost three days, I have not witnessed a cat pooping. Once I get a sample I will write about what needs to be done to prepare the sample and send it in.