Nikki’s Natural Adventures

I’ll try not to make this long and drawn out …but here’s what to look for in a truly nutritious commercial cat food. (As of yet, Mr. O hasn’t gone “raw” or “natural” in his diet.) This is all information from Internet sources, but from what I’ve read everything is basically the same on the sites I used. But again, I do this just for me…and this one for Mr. O.

Pay attention to the first five to seven ingredients on the label as this will give you an idea if you should keep looking at it. Proper fiber and probiotics are essential for a healthy digestion. The more food that is digested properly the more nutrients are absorbed. (Mr. Orange gets Jarrow Petdophilus as his probiotic. It’s a powder that I mix in with his canned food, and he never even seems to notice it’s there. I initially bought it for a stray we took care of that had to have antibiotics, then just started giving it to Mr. O.)

A top quality, holistic canned cat food…

Is grain-free:

• Cats are strictly carnivores, with essentially no grains required, and only a small amount of vegetables or other food items needed. Cats need meat. Many commercial pet foods are composed primarily of low-cost grains. These grains are fillers and are not necessary to the diet of a cat. Cats lack specific metabolic (enzymatic) pathways and cannot utilize plant proteins as efficiently as animal proteins.
• If you are unsure as to which ingredient is used to make up the most of the cat food, all you have to do is look for the first ingredient listed. The first one listed is the one that makes up the majority of the food.
• If you want to use a premium canned food with grain make certain the grains are whole and not flours.
• Taurine is one of the most important amino acids that is present in meat but is missing from plants. Taurine deficiency will cause blindness and heart problems in cats.

Has a named meat source (protein) listed first:

• Chicken, turkey, or beef should be the first and main ingredient. Try to stick with chicken or turkey as beef and fish are common allergens in the cat and can cause inflammatory bowel disease and skin allergies.
• The meat source should be named. It shouldn’t be ambiguous like “meat”. That could literally mean any type of flesh from any type of creature.
• Look for a muscle meat, not a by-product or liver.
• If the first ingredient that is listed is wheat or corn or anything other than animal protein then reconsider the food.

Avoid flours, corn, wheat, and wheat gluten.

Has the next several ingredients also of a named protein source:

• This can now include fish/seafood, as well as chicken, turkey, beef.

Can contain a starch:

• Examples include sweet potatoes, white potatoes, carrots, etc.

Can have other vegetable sources listed:

Contains vitamins and minerals:

Sometimes you see fruits listed, which appear to make a food healthier, but really have no place in a cat’s diet. They are not harmful, however.

Has approximately 78% water, or moisture content:

• This helps keep a cat properly hydrated given their low thirst drive. This leaves 22% as dry matter (food/calories/nourishment).

Ingredients to avoid!

These are some common ones that are found in all inferior foods. These ingredients are harmful to your cat if fed over time, and will result in poor health and a shorter life span.

Ethoxyquin, BHA, BHT:

• Artificial preservatives that are very unhealthy.
• Ethoxyquin is a known carcinogen. Most companines are not using this anymore.
• BHA and BHT are both known to cause liver and kidney disfunction.

By-products:

The word by-product in any form, such as meat by-product or chicken by-product, is always very bad news in a canned cat food.

Any type of flour:

• Wheat, corn, rice, soy.

Wheat gluten:

• This is what was contaminated and killed thousands of pets in 2007 when adulterated wheat gluten was allowed into dog and cat food by Menu Foods.
• It’s highly allergenic for cats and can cause irritable bowels, just like it does in humans.
• Used as a very cheap filler and is a very poor source of protein.

Ground rice or brewer’s yeast:

Can be used as protein sources which are inferior. They can cause allergies because they are not digested well.

Here’s a list of the best canned foods for cats (according to research done on one website). But I did my own research (and taste tests with Mr. O himself ) to find the two that I use. I get both of them from PetCo.

Best canned food, Grain-free:

1. Wellness
2. Innova EVO
3. Merrick
4. Merrick BG (Before Grain)
5. Natures Variety Instinct
6. Natures Logic
7. Innova 95% Meat
8. Weruva
9. Halo Spot’s Stew
10. Avoderm
11. ZiwiPeak
12. Evangers

Better canned food ,with grains:

1. Natural Balance
2. Tiki Cat
3. California Natural
4. Innova
5. Castor & Pollux
6. Felidae
7. Pinacle
8. Mulligan’s Stew
9. Solid Gold
10. Evolve
11. Eagle Pack
12. Blue Buffalo (Blue Spa Select)
13. Dr.’s Foster and Smith

(The rest of the lists were the ‘not as good’ and ‘bad’ canned foods. If it’s not on the above lists, I won’t be feeding it to Mr. O; but everyone needs to decide for themselves.)

 I use Wellness and Avoderm for Mr. O. Here’s  a listing of the first 5-7 ingredients (then compared with store/vet brands).

Wellness (the grain free kinds, five grain-free flavors: Chicken, Beef & Chicken, Chicken & Herring, Turkey and Turkey & Salmon. And the grain free kinds have a little yellow triangle on the label.)

• Chicken Ingredients: Chicken, Chicken, Chicken Liver, Turkey, Chicken Broth, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots…
• Beef & Chicken Ingredients: Beef, Chicken Liver, Chicken, Chicken Broth, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots…

They go on to list the rest of the ingredients that should be in a top quality cat food.

Avoderm:

1. Chicken chunks: Chicken, Chicken Broth, Sunflower Oil, Salt… (no starches or vegetables in this brand).
2.  Sardine, Shrimp, Crab meat: Sardine, Fish Broth, Shrimp, Crab Meat…

Now, a couple of “regular” brands:

Friskies Cat Food:

1. Prime Fillets with Beef in Gravy: (prime fillets of what with beef?) Water sufficient for processing, beef, liver, wheat gluten, meat by-products, turkey, corn starch-modified, soy flour, artificial and natural flavors…

Science Diet:

1. Hill’s Science Diet Culinary Creations Adult Formula Roasted Chicken In Gravy: Water, Chicken, Liver, Wheat Flour, Soy Protein Isolate, Rice Starch, Wheat Fiber, Chicken Liver Flavor, Sunflower Oil (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Beef Plasma Protein, Soy Fiber, Titanium Dioxide…

 

Dry food:

• In their natural setting, cats–who, again, are true carnivores–would not consume the high level of carbohydrates (grains) that are in the dry foods we routinely feed them. In the wild, your cat would be eating a high protein, high-moisture content, meat-based diet, with a moderate level of fat and with only approximately 3-5  percent of the diet consisting of carboydrates.
•  The average dry food contains 35-50 percent carbohydrates. Some of the cheaper dry foods contain even higher levels. This is not the diet Mother Nature intended for your cat!
• (A high quality cat food, on the other hand contains approximately 3-5 percent carbohydrates. But keep in mind that not all canned foods are suitably low in carbohydrates.)
• Cats have a physiological decrease in the ability to utilize carbohydrates due to the lack of specific enzymatic pathways that are present in other mammals, and the lack of a salivary enzyme called amylase.
• Cats have no dietary neeed for carbohydrates and, more worrisome is the fact that too many carbohydrates can be highly detrimental to their health.

The protein in dry food, which is often heavily plant-based, is not equal in quality to the protein in canned food, which is meat-based. Because plant proteins are cheaper than meat proteins, pet food companies will have a higher profit margine when using corn, wheat, soy, rice, etc.

The protein in dry food has also been cooked at very high temperatures for a long period of time. This extensive cooking required to dry the product significantly decreases the value of the protein sources. Harsh cooking also destroys other nutrients.

 

Water:

As obligate carnivores cats are designed to eat meat–not grains–and they need to consume water with their food. Water is an extremely important nutrients to a cat’s overall health. It’ s important that this water is ignested with food, as the cat does not have a very strong thirse drive. This lack of a strong thirst drive leads to low-level, chronic hydration when dry food makes up the bulk of their diet.

Cats are designed to obtain most of their water with their diet since their normal prey contains approximately 70-75 percent water. Dry foods only contain 7-10 percent water, whereas canned foods contain approximately 78  percent water. Canned foods therefore more closely approximate the natural diet of the cat and are better suited to meet the cat’s water needs.

A cat consuming mostly dry food will drink more water than a cat consuming a canned food diet, but in the end, when water from all sources is added together (what’s in their diet plus what they drink), the cat on dry food consumes approximately half the amount of water compared with a cat eating canned foods. This is an important point to remember considering how common kidney and bladder problems are in the cat.

(Side note: When a cat starts eating a more appropriately hydrated diet of canned food, the urine output will increase significantly. Litter boxes need to be scooped out more frequently–or add more boxes to the house.  Clumping litter is the only sanitary choice of litter to use for cats. Non-clumping litters do not allow the removal of all the urine and are not sanitary litters. I’ve used clumping litter for decades now and definitely prefer it over regular cat litter.

 

Still in progress, more to come