Important Information About Cat Food

[*NYC Princess*]

My bf and I recently adopted a cat from a local rescue organization, and we found out a lot about the proper way to feed a cat, and many common misconceptions. The rescue organization specializes in cats, and got the information from books and vets. Feeding cats dry food or cheaper canned foodscause our cats to not be as healthy and can lead to serious health problems down the line. It's not just about what is easier to feed our cats, or what they prefer to eat.

I wanted to highlight bullets of what I felt to be the important information for you all here so that our loved babies get the best care and live long and healthy! The main thing is that a high quality CANNED FOOD IS BEST.

• Cats need animal based proteint. Cats are carnivores and very different from dogs in their nutritional needs. Cats need animal-based protein, and the protein in dry food is heavily plant-based, and not equal to the quality in the protein in canned foods, which are meat-based.
• We are feeding cats too many carbs. In their natural settings, cats would not consume the high level of carbs (grains) that are in dry foods. In the wild, a cat's diet is 3-6% carbs. The average dry food contains 35-50% carbs; cheaper brands may have even more.
• Look for a muscle meat in the first ingredient. When reading the ingredient label of a cat food, it should have a muscle meat as the first ingredient, not a organ meat. For example, it should read "chicken" not "chicken meal", "chicken by-products," "chicken broth," or "liver".
• Dry food linked to serious health problems. Dry cat food has been linked to:
  • Diabetes (from high level of carbs in dry food)
  • Kidney failure (cats are often chronically dehydrated on a dry food diet)
  • Bladder inflammation/kidney stones (cats on dry food have more highly concentrated urine)
  • Inflammatory bowel disease (many anecedotal reports of cats with IBS improving dramatically when all dry food removed from their diet)
  • Obesity (again carbs)
  • Fatty liver disease
  • Dental disease (long standing claims that cats have less dental disease when fed dry food are grossly overrated, inaccurate and not supported by recent studies. Dry food is hard, but brittle, and merely shatters with little to no abrasive effect on the teeth. Cats' teeth are meant to grind meat, and so dry food ends up between their teeth and ferments into sugar, causing dental problems. Also, many cats swallow the majority of their food whole, eliminating any benefit from chewing.
• Stick to twice-daily feedings (does not apply to kittens). Feed 3 oz of canned food twice a day, and try to stick to the same times. Cats may beg to be fed more often, but more than that can lead to obesity. Also leaving dry food between meals have led to ancedotes about dandruff on the cats' coats.

FINALLY...recommended cat foods:

• Wet food
  • Nature's Recipe Optimum
  • California Natural
  • Pet Guard Premium
  • Natural Choice/Max Cat
  • Wysong
  • Iams
  • Innova
  • Wellness
  • Felidae
  • Precise
  • Nature's Variety
  • Wysong's Au Jus Canned Meats
  • Wysong's Archetype
  • Avoderm Select Cuts
  • Merrick
• Wet food for kittens
  • Max Kitten
  • Triumph Turkey for Kittens
  • Iams Kitten
  • Precise
• Wet Foods Not Recommended (unfortunately these are the most common brands)
  • Purina
  • 9-Lives
  • Fancy Feast
  • Friskies
  • Alpo
  • Whiskas
  • Kalkan
  • Sheba
  • Amore
• Dry Foods Not Recommended
  • Hills' Science Diet
  • Iams Original Flavor
  • Eukanuba Chicken & Rice
  • Bil Jac
  • Waltham Adult
  • Proplan Beef & Rice

Not meaning to be preachy here by any means, but I hope that this information will help all of our kitties to be happy and healthy for many years to come!

[tiramisu]

^^I agree that canned food is best for cats, too. But I do want to add that there are decent 'economical' Fancy Feast ones that you can feed, and not good Innova ones to feed your kitties depending on your cat i.e. We should not always only decide based on the brand sometimes. Look at the label and look at the ingredients, percentage of dry matter base for each protein, carbohydrates, etc. And some, you just learn from the manufacture's breakdown of nutritional labels. For example, it is well known that Innova EVO has high phosphorus level in their canned food and that is not recommended for cats that have kidney disease. Most Light formula even in canned foods will have more carbs (including vegetables that cats may not need...) even in the canned food. There is a Fancy Feast's series (I think the Gourmet kind? are decent to feed. They are the ones that do not have gluten and mostly meat products with carbohydrates less than 10%. For those who cannot always afford high-end brands check out this -> http://www.felinediabetes.com/glutenfree.htm
This is a good website to check out if you want to find out more about feline nutrition and good links... -> http://www.catinfo.org/commercialcannedfoods.htm
And if you have time, take a look at this book for some good info, too -> http://www.amazon.com/Your-Cat-Simple-Secrets-Stronger/dp/0312358016
They are more of a raw food proponent, but IMO, you could still feed your cat better without going all raw food.
For those who decide to switch to all canned and currently eating dry, just make sure to watch you cat carefully during the transition. Last thing you want to do is to starve your kitty. Sometimes eating something is more important than not eating 'high quality food' for cats. One of my kitty was very much of a carb addict and took a long time to switch over. So be prepared to be patient, too!

[*NYC Princess*]

I don't know much about Fancy Feast, but the director of the rescue organization told me that it is an average quality food (so it's ok to feed it) but for the price, that there were better alternatives. She also said it was highly addictive and cats love it, so it's hard to wean cats off it. But tiramisu, you're absolutely right that you should read the label, which is why I tried to write down some of the pointers I learned.

[wordbox]

^ Yeah, a lot of "name brand" foods aren't actually very good. If you look at the ingredients, you're getting a lot of by-products, dyes, yeasts, etc. instead of good quality, natural ingredients.

But I agree, you need to consider more things than just the brand, and not just for cats. I don't have cats (rather, two dogs), and while I feed them the same brand (Solid Gold), they are on different blends because they have different dietary needs.

[bnjj]

That is very interesting as is this article on the same topic. I was unaware of any of this and now need to really thing about switching my cats to canned food. Problem is, I am gone for 15 hours a day several times a week so would not be home at the end of a normal work day to give them dinner.

http://tinyurl.com/2hrc8a

[*NYC Princess*]

Originally Posted by bnjj

That is very interesting as is this article on the same topic. I was unaware of any of this and now need to really thing about switching my cats to canned food. Problem is, I am gone for 15 hours a day several times a week so would not be home at the end of a normal work day to give them dinner. http://tinyurl.com/2hrc8a

I know what you mean. I work in finance, and work 12 hr day minimums. Luckily my bf can feed them if I come home late. Maybe feed them wet food in the morning, and leave out one of the high quality and grain-free dry cat foods for the evening? Or leave a little of the dry cat food before you can feed them properly when you come back?

[bnjj]

I actually just went and took their dry food away and gave them each a half a small can of canned food that I had on hand from the Vet.

I think what I will do is feed them canned in the morning and leave a small amount of dry out for them to snack on during the day and then will feed them canned again when I get home. I think this should work.

Thanks for posting this.

[tiramisu]

*NYC Princess*, definitely a good posting! For the longest time, cats were treated like small dogs, and they are sure NOT!!! I have found the list of brands differ among different 'groups' of people and time, too. For example, Iams was a decent brand, but since the pet food scare, lots of us are staying away from it. And there are those who are cautious with smaller brand names because it has not been out on the market for long and no one has done any trials to make sure that they are safe or etc for the cats... The brands I personaly found that seem to be good are Wellness and Innova. So I always take it with grain of salt and where it came from in regards to the list. It is a good starting point. I do agree that cats are obligatory carnivores and they need a high protein diet and low carbs!
In my experience, I like Wellness and Innova. Among the major brands (those that have research capability, etc), I like Royal Canin. But I feed my cats half raw (Feline's Pride) and FF (just the flavors that are lower in phosphorus and high protein/low carb) because I have 5 cats! I am not confident in making raw from scratch. I have a cat in renal failure, so look at the phosphorus content carefully, so Innova EVO, is out...
As for feeding time, I feed my cats canned food in the AM before work, and canned food when I get back. No dry food in our house unless we travel. I can see that dry food really porks them out because just in a week I find my cats 'rounder'...
Like OP says, to many many more happy days with kitties~~~

[vanessa_karie]

Thank you for the information. I am currently feeding my cat with Hill's Science Plan dry food.. hrm this is making me really worried. Can you please be kind enough to post the original article you read from on here or let me know where this article comes from, (as in whether if it is published in any veterinary journals, etc etc). Thanks! As I only want the best for my baby girl

[tiramisu]

^^Educating ourselves and making the decision what is best for our kitties is a great thing! I don't know where and who NYCPrincess got her great info from, but here are the sources that helped me make my decision regarding what I feed my cats. Lots of vets still don't get that cats do not need carb in their diet, so her vet is definitely doing his/her studies regarding feline nutrition. If you go to a feline exclusive veterinary hospital, they are catching onto moving all cat diet to all canned food. But lots of people even in my profession (veterinary medicine) feed their cats kibbles... Anyway:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/diet.htm (http://www.felinediabetes.com/index.html Very good layperson's website that I think started to 'revolutionize' about diet and cats. It is mainly for those who have cats with diabetes, but has tons of essential information!)
http://www.catinfo.org/index.htm (Webiste maintained by a veterinarian)
http://www.catinfo.org/zorans_article.pdf (By a Board certified veterinary internal medicine vet. Academic published journal article that came out saying cats need high protein diet and not much carb)
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Cat-Simple-Secrets-Stronger/dp/0312358016/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-1121778-6836659?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179210413&sr=8-1 (Book by a veterinarian written solely for cat mommies and daddies. Very informative information with all feline disease and nutrition. She practices in OC, CA)

The two websites listed above does have Discussion Boards that you can log on and ask specific questions. Hill's is not bad, but the only high protein low carb canned food is the kitten series. Maybe try something different when you go buy cat food next time. You probably have to go to a pet supply store other than Petsmart and Petco to find the 'higher quality' line brands like Innova or Wellness, etc. And like I mentioned in my previous post, I won't diss Fancy Feast all together... Purina was the very few major pet food company that did not have to do any cat food recall, so I felt that they were doing something right...
Thanks again to NYCPrincess for the posting because I love discussing feline nutrition, too!!!
Happy Kitty Feeding everyone~~~

[cascratchfever]

I agree that canned food is definitely best and you should try to get the canned food without a lot of "gravy" in it. The problem with my cats is they won't touch the wet canned food! None of them are the least bit interested in it. I tried it for a week and after a couple of days, I had to supplement with dry food because they weren't eating. I swtiched to a high quality dry food and hopefully that'll be okay for them (although not ideal).

[dr. twiggers]

My cats LOVE wet food....but I use it as just a treat. Normally they just get dry food. Except for one of the cats they are all overweight :-( I am going to look into this more!

[wordbox]

And it's always best to discuss your pet's diet with your vet or an animal nutritionist to make sure that what you're feeding them is best for them.

[tiramisu]

cascratchfever, i know, it took me a good month for my carb-addicted boys to switch over! towards the end, i had 3 kibbles on top of the canned food and they will eat that. but without those few kibbles, they would turn away. i didn't get it, but slowly that 3 kibbles went to 2, 1, and 0!
the whole argument of canned food is better is also about the moisture intake. cats do not drink like dogs nor humans and do not have strong thirst drive so they must intake moisture with their diet... some dry foods contain a lot of salt to 'encourage' more drinking water, but it kind of defeats the purpose for health wise, i think... higher quality dry kibble maybe better, but in order to make a kibble, they have to have some kind of carb to make the kibble 'stick' together, and hence keeping the carb % low is tricky. there are freezed dried kibbles that clain less carb and high protein, but since mine transitioned finally, i have not really looked into that.
before the food recall, i gave up switching from dry to wet so many times, but when that whole thing happened, i had to be patient myself at the same time making sure i didn't starve my babies...one of the websites i listed does have some advice about successfully switiching over to all canned food if you are serious abotu trying.
as for discussing with animal nutritionists, etc before making any change, yes, it is a good idea to talk to your veterinarian first! but remember there are those who are not up to date with feline nutrition.

[cascratchfever]

Originally Posted by tiramisu

cascratchfever, i know, it took me a good month for my carb-addicted boys to switch over! towards the end, i had 3 kibbles on top of the canned food and they will eat that. but without those few kibbles, they would turn away. i didn't get it, but slowly that 3 kibbles went to 2, 1, and 0! the whole argument of canned food is better is also about the moisture intake. cats do not drink like dogs nor humans and do not have strong thirst drive so they must intake moisture with their diet... some dry foods contain a lot of salt to 'encourage' more drinking water, but it kind of defeats the purpose for health wise, i think... higher quality dry kibble maybe better, but in order to make a kibble, they have to have some kind of carb to make the kibble 'stick' together, and hence keeping the carb % low is tricky. there are freezed dried kibbles that clain less carb and high protein, but since mine transitioned finally, i have not really looked into that. before the food recall, i gave up switching from dry to wet so many times, but when that whole thing happened, i had to be patient myself at the same time making sure i didn't starve my babies...one of the websites i listed does have some advice about successfully switiching over to all canned food if you are serious abotu trying. as for discussing with animal nutritionists, etc before making any change, yes, it is a good idea to talk to your veterinarian first! but remember there are those who are not up to date with feline nutrition.

Thanks for the info! Do you know about how many ounces a day an adult cat (fairly innactive house cat)? I'm trying to figure up the cost.