What kind of cat food is really good and healthy for my cat?

Haley

What kind of wet and dry cat food do you feed your cat, and what kinds are really healthy?



Ashely

Not all pet food is made equally. A lot of it is full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, filler grains and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of pet food companies are perfectly happy to dump cheap leftovers in. Will it kill your cat? No, it has to be nutritionally complete and safe to even be marketed. Is it healthy? Not by a long shot. Corn is a low quality ingredient you never want to see in your pet food. Corn and low quality grains are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to food allergies in our pets. Thankfully, there are some excellent cat foods being made these days that include organic, human grade ingredients rather than trash not fit for human consumption. Examples of low quality foods to avoid: Anything you can find in a grocery store will be low end, Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Royal Canin, Whiskas, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Meow Mix. Examples of high quality foods to look for: : Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold, Canidae All Life Stages, Fromm Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Natures Variety Prairie, Natures Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix, Timber Wolf Organics. Although the high quality foods are more expensive, youre getting what youre paying for. Less filler material means more concentrated nutrients... this means you typically need to feed far less of the high quality food than you would of the low quality one. Which also means less poop! A great option is to go with an entirely grainless diet. Diets high in grain have been attributed to problems with diabetes in cats. Cats are obligate carnivores, so why should there be grain in their diet? Many of the high quality foods now put out grainless formulas. Some good grainless diets include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Natures Variety Instinct, Orijen, Fromm Surf Turf, Now!, and Sold Gold Indigo Moon, Taste of the Wild. Some of the high end foods can be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness and Solid Gold. If you cant find a food, most of the high quality food brands have websites with store locators on them. Remember that foods should be switched gradually, especially when switching to a higher quality one, so as not to upset tummies. Another option for feeding cats is to feed raw. This is something that should be thoroughly researched before being attempted:http://www. barfworld. com/http://www. rawfedcats. org/http://www. rawfed. com/http://www. wysong. net/controversies/rawm…Now the question is, do you feed wet or dry? Wet is the correct answer. The reason is, in the wild, cats normally get most of their water content directly from their prey items and drink very little. Domestic cats are no different, and because of the fact that they are designed to take in water with their meal, they have a very low thirst drive. Cats often just dont drink enough. This leads to urinary tract infections and crystals. The bit about dry food being better for teeth is a myth and has not been proven in the least. Canned/wet food is better because it more closely mimics the cats natural diet. More on why canned food is best:http://www. catinfo. org/ (Excellent cat nutrition information by a vet)http://cats. about. com/cs/catfood/a/canne…http://www. littlebigcat. com/index. php? ac…Another option to get cats to drink more would be a cat fountain. Cats tend to like to drink from running water and cat fountains see to that need, encouraging cats to take in more water. More:http://www. dogfoodanalysis. com/dog_food_… (Dog food reviews. Its for dogs, but most of the high quality brands also put out excellent cat foods. Anything with five or six stars is a great food.)



Charlena

I feed the best stuff I can find (short of going with raw food)...canned :: Wellness grain-free, Merrick grain-free, EVO, Natures Variety Instinct, some Tiki-Cat occasionallydry :: a combination of Innova EVO and Natures Variety Instinct(EVO is higher calorie but my cats love it, so I combine it with the lower-calorie Instinct)The best cat foods out there have no grains or fillers or by-products and have an identified muscle meat listed as the first ingredient. Read the ingredients before buying any cat food. If it contains either "meat" or "meat-by-products" then its bad. Very bad. You can buy Wellness at Petco, but some of their dry foods and canned foods have grains. On the cans, look for the yellow triangle. If doing dry, Wellness makes a grain-free dry called Wellness CORE but it caused serious stomach problems in one of my cats. The rest of the food you would need to buy at a pet food store. If you go to the brands website and enter your zip code, they will tell you the closest stores that carry their products. Its great youre looking into this. Some of these foods seem initially more expensive, but since no fillers, you end up feeding less so not as expensive as you might think. Also, these foods will keep your cat healthier so trips to the vet will be less expensive. I should say - ideally, you should do canned with no dry. The canned can be left out longer than you would think - if it has been too long, the cats wont eat it. You wont believe the difference healthy food makes. Its the best thing you can do for your cat.



Juliet

The best kind of food for a cat is probably live prey, but in todays lifestyle, this is impractical. The next best thing is a good quality canned food. Most all of the dry foods are not healthy for cats. It is also a myth that dry food cleans teeth.



Annamarie

Innova, and EVO, both by Natura Pet. Theyre all natural and/or organic. All around great food. My cats and dog seem to love their products. Heres the website:http://www. naturapet. com/default. aspTheyre not available everywhere, but they might have some by you, just check the locater thing.



Marquerite

I feed:Natural Balance canned and Natural Ultramix dry. Both are good quality foods. :)



Dulce

LOOK FOR: Meat or fish named on the label with words like--chicken, turkey, lamb, beef, herring, salmon, etc. Also acceptable are concentrated named meat proteins like--chicken meal, turkey meal, lamb meal, herring meal, etc. WHY? Cats are what scientists call "obligate carnivores". This means that they are designed to eat a meat diet. When youre choosing a food for your cat, you want it to have all the available nutrients to provide for good energy, strong muscle tone and a stable immune system so the meat protein source should be primary. AVOID: Unnamed food ingredients with words like--poultry by products, meat and bone meal, meat meal, poultry meal, animal digest, etc. Also avoid protein fillers like--corn gluten meal, wheat gluten, egg product meal, soybean meal, wheat germ meal. TIP: If you look at a cat food label and group all the grain ingredients together, they are often more primary than the meat pictured by manufacturers. This disguises protein ingredients that are inferior, portraying them as nutritious. Quality meat is a MUST.



Elvia

The answer from "cat care" is exactly it. I was told by several of my friends that are Vets that as long as the first ingredient is NOT "by-product" it is ok for your pet. Also, do not give your cat more than 25% of its food as wet food, it needs to have the crunchy dry food to help with tarter control and other teeth issues. Tuna and milk should be given sparingly, cats are actually prone to intestinal issues from those things even though most people think its ok. I choose to find the cheapest brand that has an actual meat as the first ingredient and by products towards the bottom. I dont spend more than I have to and they do great.



Ramon

When you are choosing food, it is important for you to learn how to read ingredient labels. They tell you a lot about what kind of meat is being used and whether the food has any cheap fillers which does not benefit your cat/kitten. You want to feed a food which is high protein - meaning the meat source must come from wholesome muscle meat. Make sure to select only food that list chicken, lamb, rabbit, beef, turkey, venison, salmon, whitefish, herring or a combination or those and not one that says by-products (chicken by product, meat by product, fish by product)Stay away from too much fillers like corn, corn gluten meal, wheat, wheat gluten, soy, oatbrans, etc. These are all cheap filler which help reduce the cost of manufacturing but brings little to no benefit to your kitten. You would also want to stay away from preservatives like BHA/BHT and Ethoxyquin which are proven to be harmful to your kitten. Also you do not want other artifical preservatives such as propylene glycol and propolyneglycol. You need natural preservatives such as Vitamin C, Vitamin A or Rosemary. Your cat need an essential amino acid called Taurine. Cats can only receive this from eating wholesome meat. Choose a food that contains ample amount of Omega 3 sources - Salmon Oil, Flaxseed Oil or Canola Oil. When you are well educated in learning how to read pet food ingredients, shopping for the best food for your cat would be easier. I only feed 100% wet. I came to this conclusion after doing my own research and getting to know pets that suffer dire consequences as a result of being fed exclusively dry. These websites has great information if you are interested in learning more about feline nutrition and the proper diet for a cat. http://www. littlebigcat. com/index. php? ac…http://cats. about. com/cs/catfood/a/canne…http://cats. about. com/od/catfoo1/tp/tpca…http://www. catinfo. org/http://www. naturalmatters. net/article. as…http://www. traciehotchner. com/cb/QandA. h…I love to say this whenever someone ask this question. Look at your cats. They are majestic animals, with their wild ancestors blood still running through their veins. They are predators, equip with sharp canine teeth to shred through meat. Now, imagine a lion or a tiger, feasting on a bowl of dry kibble. Does that sound right to you? Well, now you know why it is so ridiculous to feed your cat dry kibbles! Domestication only changes the way the cats live but not the way the cats eat. If we cannot guarantee their wellbeing, we have no right to invite them into our home.



Deneen

Purina one!



Dewayne

I feed Wellness dry canned. It wasnt on the recall list. Pure ingredients too. The breeder vet both recommended it.