What dry food should I feed my cat? One without by-products?

Question

My cat is indoor and 2 years old. We feed her Science Diet Indoor Cat dry food and sometimes treat her to wet canned food, Sheba. It works and she is healthy.

However, I was researching what exactly is in the food, and it lists "animal fat"

A few websites say that generic terms like "meat, animal fat, ect" is rendered c**p, not just from farm animals! I'm not sure if the reports are just rumors or have some truth to them.I wont go into the details, because they are so horrific i was depressed about it!

Is the Blue Buffalo Spa Select brand food any good? They claim that they only use human-grade meat, although the AACFO dosen't have any rule about that.

Answer 1

Cats were never meant to eat dry food, also known as cereals or kibble. We, humans, make them eat it for convenience to us. It has nothing to do with them or their nutritional needs. It's completely species inappropriate.

All small domestic cats descended from desert cats. In the wild, desert cats derive their entire liquid intake from their prey. They do not have a thirst mechanism because they don't need it when eating a species appropriate diet. They get all they need from what they eat. Additionally water was usually not available to them in their desert climate. So they do not often drink water. Regular ol' house cats have descended from those same wild desert cats.

So in a home environment, your kitty does not get the moisture it needs from dry food and it’s almost always in a constant state of dehydration. Water fountains are encouraged to TRY to get your cat to drink more and your kitty may even enjoy it, but it will never meet its water intake needs drinking from a bowl.

Deadly feline illnesses such as diabetes, kidney failure, obesity, allergies, Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD), bladder stones, kidney stones,  urinary tract blockages and Urinary Tract Infections (FLUTD), with and without deadly crystals run rampant these days. Cats are not taking in enough water to stave them off. Proper water intake through a species appropriate diet alone can prevent most of these conditions.

Overall,  wet is all around better for any cats diet, be it canned or Raw and they should never be fed dry cereal kibble if we wish to most closely match their wild nutritional and dietary needs. Kibble meets our needs… not our cats.

I recommend varying the diet with a constant rotation of accepted canned foods that your cat enjoys. If you do this, and allow your cat the same assortment they would have in nature when eating mice, bugs, birds and rabbits, your cats’ digestive system won't be so sensitive and you won't have to run around looking for a specific brand when your store is out. You will have a nice variety to choose from instead.

Canned foods I recommend for your rotation:

Nature's Variety - http://www.naturesvariety.com/content.la...

Wellness Grain Free Formula’s - http://www.wellnesspetfood.com/cat_welln...

By Nature Organics - http://www.bynaturepetfoods.com/productp...

Organix -  http://www.castorpolluxpet.com/store/org...

Evanger's Holistic Pheasant - http://www.evangersdogfood.com/cat/20089...

Evanger's Organic Braised Chicken - http://www.evangersdogfood.com/cat/50103...

Evanger's Turkey & Butternut Squash - http://www.evangersdogfood.com/cat/50111...

Answer 2

you dont need top of the line foods, i'd say what you want to avoid is "corn meal" as your number one ingredient or "chicken by-products" as the number one meat source.

Having corn as the number one ingredient is known as a "filler" you know something to just act like your eating something.  Science diet is healthy ig uess..., since they have been in business for awhiles and vets do recommend it, but i'm guessing its probably because not every one can afford the higher grade food.

If you have the extra money and would like a great brand of cat food, i'd suggest wellness or solid gold(not sure if this company puts out dry food for cats, only know of wet food).  It was a popular buy at the pet store i use to work at, and it had great feed back.  Or even a brand known as nutro ultra.  It is fairly priced, but the thing i like about that brand is if by some chance your pet doesnt' like it our you yourself just decide you hate it, you can return the product to where you bought it from and get a refund(it says it righton the package), so i figure theres no gamblet here.  i like the ultra because it used brownrice instead of carb fillers and used 3 sources of protein instead of just chicken or beef.

Answer 3

Why dry? Wet is much healthier.

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, Felidae, Fromm Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety Prairie, Nature's Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix, Timber Wolf Organics.

Although the high quality foods are more expensive, you're getting what you're 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 p**p!

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 diet's include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature's Variety Instinct, Orijen, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now!, and Sold Gold Indigo Moon, Taste of the Wild.

Some pretty decent foods can even be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness, Solid Gold, Natural Balance, Eagle Pack Holistic, Blue Buffalo, Castor & Pollux Organix, Pinnacle, and Halo. If you can't 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 don't 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 cat's 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...

http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...

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. It's for dogs, but most of the high quality brands also put out excellent cat foods. Four stars is a decent food, five stars is a great food, and six stars is an excellent food.)

Answer 4

Iams and Science Diet are about the best commercially made cat foods out there. All animals that are killed for animal or human food aren't always killed in the most humane manner. But since cats and dogs are vegetarians what can you do? Unlike humans that can choose to eat or not eat meat your pets can't and remain healthy. So just close your eyes to the fact that what is fed to your pet isn't killed in a polite manner and let things go. If you ever seen a pack of wolves or wild dogs attack another animal and kill it you wouldn't think that was humane either? If you seen a cat beat the c**p out of a bird or mouse then bite it's head off you would think that was a sweet way for that animal to die either right?  

Answer 5

I use the Purina Pro Plan Selects which has no corn meal and is made from chicken, liver, brown rice, sweet potatos etc its great and my kittens love it.

Answer 6

I have heard some good things about Blue Buffalo, but the top two (IMO) seem to be Wellness Core and Innova Evo.

Mine are switching over to Evo now.  

Evo: http://www.naturapet.com/brands/evo.asp

Natura, the brand that makes Evo, makes several high quality pet foods but I thought Evo would be best for my group.  I have 6 ranging in age from 10 years to less than 3 months.  One is very overweight and one is on her way to being over weight, so I needed a food that they could all eat that would help the kittens grow and help the bigger ones stay or get healthy.  So far all is going well.

You're not going to find any truly high quality foods in the grocery store.  They put their money into pet food, not marketing and they don't want their foods sitting in a warehouse from months at a time.  Natura lists a variety of feed stores and pet stores that sell their products and they are also sold at some online vendors if you can't find any stores in your area with it.  

Wet food is actually healthier.  There isn't really evidence that hard food cleans their teeth since all they tend to do is shatter their food with their teeth then swallow the pieces.  And dry food always contains some unnecessary ingredient to hold the kibble together, no matter how high quality the food is (in Evo dry it's potato).  

As long as your kitty doesn't have any health problems (like kidney problems, which require a lower protein diet), I'd recommend Evo.  Although, Wellness Core is also supposed to be great, but I don't have experience with it.  All the grain free, by product free foods will be more expensive than the commercial stuff but they'll eat less and get more nutritional value from it because it doesn't have all the empty calories.

best of luck with your decision! remember to switch the food slowly

Answer 7

Blue Buffalo is ok, but there are better.

These are my picks:

The best of the worst - dry foods: My personal picks are Wellness Core, Innova Evo or Nature's Variety Instincts. I agree with some of the foods listed here but not all. I am happy to review ingredient lists if requested: http://cats.about.com/cs/nutrition/tp/pr...

I do encourage you to step up your servings of wet food.  It's much healthier!  (Note that Sheba isn't complete and balanced so you'd need to choose another brand.  If it's the one I'm thinking of.)