Feed your cat healthily: This is how you can recognize high-quality cat food

You are what you eat – this also applies to our pets. If you believe the advertising, all cat food is super healthy for our kitties. But unfortunately it's not that simple. If you want to keep your cats healthy in the long term and give them high-quality cat food, you have to deal with the issue yourself.

No matter whether dry or wet food: We have clarified the most important questions about cat nutrition for you. We'll tell you how you can feed your cat properly, how you can recognize high-quality cat food and why you should avoid cheap food. Plus we have oneList of high quality cat foodput together for you that can help you find suitable food.

In contrast to, for example, dogs or people, who are omnivoressay the Carnivores. So they are pure carnivores. Both the teeth of cats and their intestines and entire organism are designed to utilize meat. Did you know that this means your body can't handle grains or vegetables?

The most important source of energy for cats areProteinsanimal origin. Essential amino acids such as taurine, arginine, histidine, methionine, valine or tryptophan should also be consumed through food.

And last but not least: AlsoCarbohydratesare vital for cats. A lack of fiber can lead to digestive problems. However, they should only make up a small part of the diet, as too many carbohydrates put a strain on the organs.

The most natural way is to barf your cat - i.e. feed it raw meat. But this requires some effort, time and prior knowledge. And not everyone wants to give their cat raw meat. Your pet will still be well supplied with high-quality cat food.

You can find out more about barfing in the book “simply barf: Guide to natural cat nutrition” on Amazon.*

Especially if you avoid meat or other animal products yourself, it may seem obvious that you should also give your pet vegetarian or vegan cat food. In reality, however, this doesn't work.As carnivores, cats cannot consume plant foods.

This means: The food is excreted without your cat getting the nutrients it needs. This can go well for a few years and you may initially think that the cat is healthy. But she will definitely get sick in the long run and since cats can't speak, we usually don't notice this until too late.

Many cheap cat foods contain grains and sugar. Unfortunately, this is not always obvious at first glance, because sugar, like in our food, is hidden behind many different names.

For example: caramel, cassia gum, carob bean gum, agar agar, chicory root, beet pulp, beet leaves, gum arabic, sorbitol, glycogen, hexose or kandisfarin. It's hard to keep track of that, is it?!

Since cats are pure carnivores, high-quality cat food should not contain large amounts of rice, potatoes, corn, soy, pasta or vegetable protein extracts. Only small amounts of up to 5% correspond to the stomach contents of a prey animal that cats would kill and eat even outdoors.

Also problematic:Cheap cat food does not contain high-quality meat, but often consists of “animal by-products”. IncludedcanThese are high-quality by-products such as liver, heart, lungs or stomachs. The manufacturers usually state this explicitly. If only animal by-products are listed, they are more likely to be waste from the meat industry such as beaks, claws or feathers.

You can also find out more about species-appropriate cat nutrition in the book “Cats Would Buy Mice: How the Food Industry Makes Our Animals Sick” on Amazon.*

First of all, it can sound a bit overwhelming to know what to look for when buying high-quality cat food. But once you realize what cats actually need, then it's not that difficult.

What is particularly important is:The ingredients are always clearly declared and broken down on the packaging of high-quality cat food.so that you can understand the composition. For example, you can immediately see which meat was used (heart, liver,...).

We have summarized for you at a glance how you can recognize high-quality cat food:

To put it briefly: no.Dry food is unsuitable as a complete feed for cats and is not species-appropriate.There are several reasons for this:

1. Cats are desert animals and their organism is designed to absorb fluids through food.

Cats naturally drink little and therefore they should be able to get enough moisture from their food. The moisture content of a mouse is around 75%, that of wet food is 70% and that of dry food is 10%. During digestion, dry food actually removes water from the cat's system and a cat will never drink enough to compensate for this loss of moisture. If your cat consumes too little fluid over the long term, this will lead to urinary stones and kidney disease.

2. Cats are carnivores.

Dry food can only be produced with a small amount of fresh meat. As a supplement, fillers such as grains, sugar and preservatives must be used, which are not good for cats and can even cause diseases such as diabetes or lipidosis.

3. Dry food damages your teeth.

It is often said that dry food is important for cleaning cats' teeth. This assumption is also wrong, because your cat will chew a piece a maximum of two to three times before swallowing it. On the contrary: dry food even sticks to the cat's teeth and can lead to tartar buildup over time. Raw meat or chicken necks are suitable for cleaning cats' teeth, because a cat has to bite on them for a REALLY longer time.

Of course, dry food is okay as an occasional snack. Make sure your cats drink a lot if they eat more dry food. Above all, running water like from nature encourages them to drink. A drinking fountain can therefore help your cat drink more.You can get a drinking fountain here on Amazon, for example.*

However, dry food can never be high-quality cat food.

Reading tips:

Among the best brands forThere are many opinions and cats' tastes are of course different. We just want to give you a few examples, but our list is far from complete. These brands produce, among other things, high-quality cat food.

Good cat food: List of brands to shop straight away

Once you have decided to buy high-quality cat food from now on, the next question is: Where can I find it and, more importantly, how much is the fun actually supposed to cost?

High-quality cat food is of course more expensive to purchase than cheap cat food. However, it has the advantage that your cat is fed healthily and this reduces veterinary costs, especially in the long term.

In addition, cats need to eat less of high-quality cat food because their bodies can utilize most of the food. Cheap food, on the other hand, requires more consumption because it contains hardly any nutrients and is largely simply excreted.

You can find high-quality cat food in pet stores, but rarely in the supermarket. There is a large selection of different brands, especially online. This also has the advantage that you can conveniently have the cat food delivered to your home.

Sources:
Grimm, Hans-Ulrich: Cats would buy mice: How the food industry makes our animals sick. Knaur Verlag, Munich 2016.

Landwerth, Lena: Cat food guide: Species-appropriate food for the house cat. Cadmos Verlag, Munich 2012.