Choosing The Healthiest Cat Food
Your cats foods is the number one most important decision you can make for your cat. It's also one of the most agonizing decisions new pet as well as established cat owners like yourself agonize over. Don't take this decision lightly. Feeding your cat quality food will keep your pet healthy and out of the veterinarians office. Proper diet is the best way to ensure your cats long term health.
I don't want you to agonize over the little things in your cats diet. Let's just get the most important parts right and the rest wil fall into place. Agonizing over kitty food details will just cause you undue stress anyway. The important thing to do is find a good quality food and be consistent with your feedings.
- Protein
- Taurine
- Vitamins
- Minerals
- Water
- Healthy Fat
These are your basics, the whole kit and kaboodle! Believe it or not cats dont need carbohydrates as part of a healthy diet. Here's an important healthy cat food fact: THe carbohydrates that are in your cats food are actually fillers. Corn and rice are not needed for a healthy cat.
The corn and rice that is in both wet canned food as well as dry food foods is completely unnecessary. As a matter of fact many of the ingredients in cat food are there to please you and not your cat. Flavors and colors are worthless to your cat and are only put in the food to make you feel like you are giving the cat healthy and delicious food.
When Cheaper Cat Food Is Not Really Cheaper
Trust me, I get it. I want to save some money too but saving a few pennies per meal will probably cost you more in the long run. There are studies that have shown that cats will eat more to get the nutrients they need. This basically means that if your cats food is full of lots of fillers and is low on healthy ingredients they will actually eat more of it. Try a higher quality, yes more expensive, cat food and see if your cat eats less. Your cat may eat as much as half the amount of a healthy food compared to a less nurtient dense meal.
In an effort to save few few bucks I have been toying with the idea of making my own healthy cat food once in awhile. W.P. Allen has a collection of 50 healthy and homemade cat food recipes and has a shed full of information about commercially available cat food. As he say about two thirds of the way down the page, just above a pitcure of his beautiful Siamese, "over 50 recipes that will have your cat purrring like a motorboat in no-time".
Healthy Label Reading Tips
There are three things you want to look for when comparing cat food labels for a healthy option.
- Look for the words "Complete and Balanced," in order to make that claim the food has to meet certain requirements
- Chicken, lamb, fish or beef; don't buy mystery "meat."
- The protein source should be listed first on the label, this means there is more meat than anything else in that can of food
Avoid These Unhealthy Ingredietns
- Steer clean of byproducts, bone meal, and anything with the word "digest"
- Corn meal, it's just the cheapest filler you can waste your money on
- Chemical Preservatives