Better Cat Foods

I've already explained what not to feed your cat, so now it's time to tell you what they should eat, and why. In the photo to the left, my six (almost seven)-year-old cat, Bandit, enjoys a "combo platter" of fresh raw and grain-free dry food. I attribute his consistently excellent health, glossy coat, and lack of hairballs to good nutrition and the exercise he gets by playing "fetch" with his toy mice.


B.A.R.F. Diets

The ideal food for a domestic cat is their natural prey which, of course, consists mostly of mice. There are some people out there who actually feed their cats thawed frozen mice, which are generally intended as food for snakes and other carnivorous reptiles. If that doesn't sound like something you could handle (or that your cats would eat) a B.A.R.F. diet is the next-best thing.

B.A.R.F. is the rather amusing acronym for Bones and Raw Food (or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food, depending on who you ask). It consists of raw meat, ground bone meal and, depending on who makes it, vegetables and other ingredients. You can purchase frozen raw foods in pre-made patties from manufacturers such as Prairie, which makes Nature's Variety (click here to visit their website), or you can make it yourself. There are many recipes available on the Internet and in books, and pet stores often carry packages of additives (such as vitamin and mineral supplements) that you can add to your meat mixture.

The main concern with homemade raw diets is that people tend alter the recipes and may inadvertently exclude key nutrients from the food and harm their pet. If you choose to make your own raw food, find several high quality recipes, follow them exactly, and rotate protein sources. Another option is to combine or rotate your raw food with a commercial grain-free canned food.

When feeding a raw diet, remember to follow common-sense safe food handling protocol (like washing dishes in hot soapy water after they have touched raw meat and using only human-grade ingredients). Cats have a short and highly acidic digestive tract that is designed to handle raw meat, so risk of bacterial infection or parasites from meat is minimal. I would, however, avoid raw pork, as cats may contract worms from this protein source. The enzymes in raw meat actually aid in a cat's digestion and may help prevent build-up of tarter on their teeth.

The raw food I make for my cats generally consists of chicken or beef that I grind in a food processor and mix with chopped chicken liver, raw egg, blanched greens (such as spinach, collared greens, or spring greens) bone meal or crushed eggshell, and, if it's too runny, a tiny bit of oatmeal to bind it. I mix it with one of several commercial canned foods, though, because my concoction isn't necessarily nutritionally complete.


Canned Food

While some canned foods are almost as bad as dry food when it comes to grain content, there are a number of high quality canned foods available on the market today. I recommend choosing several of these and rotating them. Offering a variety of foods keeps things interesting for the cat (hey, would you want to eat the same thing every single day?), ensures proper nutrition, and prevents indigestion (because if cats are used to a variety of foods, switching won't make them sick). Canned food provides essential moisture to a cat's diet ,which prevents dehydration and reduces the risk of urinary tract crystals, while the elimination of grains promotes healthy weight and makes cats less susceptible to diabetes.

When selecting a canned food(like any other food), ignore everything written on the packaging except what is listed on the ingredient and guaranteed analysis panels. Those are regulated by the FDA... everything else is advertising. Look for foods that have quality protein ingredients listed first and, preferably, avoid those that contain grains. One canned food containing rice or barley added to a rotation with mostly grain-free foods should be fine, but cats DO NOT need carbohydrates, so grains are just fillers that add bulk to the food and can lead to weight gain.

Some recommend brands include Wellness (by Old Mother Hubbard... five of their canned food varieties are grain-free but the others are not), Natural Balance (some varieties), Evo (by Innova), and Instincts (by Nature's Variety) among others. I encourage you to click on the links and view the manufacturer's website and read the ingredients for yourself.

Here is an example of what a high-quality canned food will contain. This one is 95% chicken, turkey, and liver (so the remaining ingredients only comprise 5% of the final product). Notice that it contains NO corn, wheat, rice, or by-products. Follow the link to see for yourself.

Instinct: Chicken Formula Ingredients
Chicken, Turkey, Chicken Broth, Chicken Liver, Flaxseed, Tricalcium Phosphate, Eggs,
Peas, Carrots, Lecithin, Vitamins (Choline Chloride, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate, Vitamin
E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement,
Thiamine Mononitrate, Biotin, Riboflavin Supplement, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine
Hydrochloride, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid), Dried Kelp, Salt, Calcium Carbonate,
Taurine, Potassium Chloride, Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Manganese
Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Sodium Selenite, Ethylenediamine Dihydriodide),
Artichokes, Cranberries, Pumpkin, Tomato, Blueberries, Broccoli, Cabbage, Kale, Parsley


Dry Foods

While a previous blog described the many serious dangers of a diet comprised mostly of dry foods, I believe that certain dry foods, in small quantities, can still have a place in your cat's diet. Why? Well, one of the nice things about cats is that they can be left alone overnight or for a weekend with no ill effects, provided that food and water are available.

Canned and raw food will spoil if left out for more than an hour or so, making them poor choices for weekend feeding. Grain-free dry food, however, is reasonably healthy and can be left out without harm. I think of it as "kitty junk food." A healthy cat that is fed a nutritious diet of moist food most of the time will survive an occasional weekend of dry food without any ill effects, just like a person who generally eats well can get away with indulging every once in awhile.

I accomplish this feat without any upset tummies by adding a small handful of a good-quality grain-free dry food to my rotation of raw and canned foods about every other day. That way, they are used to eating a bit of dry food from time to time and it isn't a huge shock to their systems when I leave it out for them if I have to go away for a day or two. It is important to choose a grain-free food, though, so they don't suddenly experience the blood-sugar spikes and crashes associated with carbohydrate intake. Some examples of brands you might consider are Core (a line made by Wellness), Evo, and Taste of the Wild.

Dry Food Misconceptions

Here are the three most pervasive misconceptions that often make people hesitant to switch their cat off of dry food.


1. Dry food keeps a cat's teeth clean:

If you take a minute to actually think about this statement, it's fallacies become pretty clear. Most dry food is essentially a cereal-like product. I don't know about you, but cereal (even really hard cereal, like Grape Nuts) certainly doesn't make my mouth feel fresh and clean. I can't imagine it cleaning the tarter off of my teeth, so I have no idea why it would benefit my cats in that way. Even if it did remove tarter, your cat would have to chew it in order to clean her teeth. A cat's molars are built for shearing meat off of bones, rather than chewing, so most cats opt to swallow the majority of their kibble whole rather than struggle through the chewing process. (That is, however, the way that cats eat mice, but that's another issue altogether).

Also, the unnecessarily high level of carbohydrate material in most dry foods can actually cause oral problems (the same is true of many canned foods, so you should be careful to read the ingredients) . Bil-Jac, which has long been touted as a high-quality food actually contains (are you ready for this?) cane molasses. Follow this link to their page if you want to see for yourself. Sugar, which is unhealthy even for omnivorous humans, is a terrible addition to a cat's diet and can even lead to diabetes.

If your veterinarian has recommended dry food for your cat's oral health, she was probably just repeating what the food reps said or what he read in a pamphlet. If you look into the matter (and I invite you to do so) you will find that most of the "studies" that find that dry food beneficial to cats were funded, if not run completely, by a pet food manufacturer. Remember (and this is true of all aspects of life): a research study's published results will almost always be supportive of the company that pays for it. I'd be interested in seeing a third-party study done on this topic... but who is going to pay for that?


2. I'm afraid to switch because that will upset my cat's stomach.

I'm a big fan of analogies, and I've got a pretty good one for this situation. Imagine if, for every meal, every day, for three years in a row all you ate was a ham, cheese, and lettuce sandwich on white bread with an apple and, if you got a treat, it was usually graham crackers. Now imagine, after three years on this diet, you are suddenly switched over to meals consisting of steak, baked sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli with cheese sauce, and an orange with treats of almonds and grapes. Both diets represent the four food groups and can therefore be declared "complete" although the latter is a much healthier option. However, after three years of ham sandwiches, your new diet, as healthy as it is, will certainly upset your stomach.

That's what we do to our pets. We feed them one brand of food, often without even switching varieties, for years and then blame a new food if it makes them sick. If your cat has been on one type of food for a period of time, you will need to introduce the new food gradually. If your cat is particularly sensitive, I would feed a 3/4 portion of the old food mixed with a 1/4 portion of the new for one week. Then I would do half and half for a week, and finally 1/4 old and 3/4 new for the final week before switching completely onto the new food.

I find it hard to believe that any single type of food has the exact proportions and variety of ingredients to ensure a cat's long term health. I have found a number of high quality, grain-free foods that I rotate through at random (including canned, frozen raw, and occasionally even a bit of dry... see photo below). That, mixed with my homemade concoction (which changes every time I make it) gives my cat's diet sufficient variety and ensures that they won't suffer from any deficiencies. This feeding program keeps cats from getting fixated on a particular type of food (which is really what has occurred when a cat becomes "finicky") and helps prevent allergies from developing. 3. Cats have been domesticated long enough that evolution has enabled them to do well on dry food.

Yes, I've actually heard this argument in real life.

While I generally assume that most people know better, I'm including this gross misunderstanding "just in case." Yes, cats have been domesticated for thousands of years, which may have been enough time for some small evolutionary changes to occur. Maybe. That said, cats have only been fed a commercial diet since the mid 1950's, which isn't enough time for evolution to even think about kicking in. Prior to that, cats were kept around to catch mice, which is how they became domesticated to begin with.

Animals go where their food is, so mice began to live in and around human dwellings where there was a steady supply of food to steal and cats followed the mice. This was good for both cats and humans, so domestication occurred. This arrangement worked for thousands of years and when mice became less of a problem, cats were fed meat scraps in addition to whatever they could catch or find. In the 1950's, however, the commercial pet food industry really took off, and feeding cats and dogs became more convenient than ever. These animals have been paying for it ever since.

#4: Obesity

This is the fourth and final installation in my four-part series on the health problems caused by feeding cats a typical dry food diet. You may want to read the introduction (Name That Food!) first.

Many, many cats fed a diet of commercial dry food are terribly overweight. Even one extra pound on an animal as small as a cat can lead to major health problems, from additional strain on joints to heart conditions and diabetes. With the high carbohydrate content in many dry foods, it's no wonder that cats are putting on weight. Cats DO NOT need carbohydrates. They don't process them well and regular consumption often leads to weight gain.

I've had many customers who were afraid to switch to canned food because they thought it would be more fattening than dry food. The truth is that dry foods contain much more fat than moist foods (feel free to compare the government-regulated "Guaranteed Analysis" panels that are printed on all pet foods). Besides, it's the carbohydrates in the rice and corn they're being fed (rather than dietary fat) that leads to weight gain. Put your kitty on an Adkin's diet! For goodness' sake, it's what she should be eating anyway!

I would recommend feeding an overweight cat a grain-free canned or raw food (which gets its bulk from essential moisture rather than unnecessary carbs) and watch the excess weight melt off. Keep in mind that your cat will need a smaller quantity of a high quality food to get the nutrients she needs. That means that you must be sure to follow the feeding guidelines on the package, adjusting them to match your cat's lifestyle (an active kitty may need more than the can suggests... a lazy one may need less). Also, if your cat expects treats throughout the day, remember to switch over to grain-free, protein-based snacks as well.

The "diet" I am suggesting is great for underweight cats as well. It's not a fad or a strict weight-loss regime like so many (ineffective) human diets. My goal is to get your cat eating the way felines are meant to eat... and since they don't make canned mice, grain-free canned or raw foods are the next-best thing. On a moist, grain-free diet, thin cats that won't eat much are sure to get more nutrients out of what they do acquiesce to eat (besides the fact that they are likely to eat more because this type of food is much more appetizing to a cat), and fat cats will lose weight because carbohydrates are so limited.

I would recommend the same (or a similar) diet for cats of all ages and weights, with quantity being the only variable factor.

Next up: Myth Busters!

#3: Diabetes

This is number three in my four-part series on the health problems caused by feeding cats a typical dry food diet. You may want to read the introduction (Name That Food!) first.

I once had a customer whose cat was diabetic and went to the vet every week for an insulin shot. The poor woman was upset because it was so stressful for her cat and so expensive for her, but she wasn't ready to give up on her kitty just yet. She wanted to know if I had any suggestions that might improve the situation. I asked what she was feeding her cat, and she told me. I walked her over to the bags on the shelf and showed her the ingredients (I can't remember which food it was, but it was a pretty typical "premium" dry food like the one used in the example). Like most people, she had never read the ingredient panel and was shocked to see that the food was mostly comprised of grains... especially because she was paying extra for a "premium" food that she believed would help her sick kitty.

I reminded her that the first thing human diabetics are told is to limit carbohydrates in their diets because they disrupt their blood-sugar levels and make their symptoms worse. As far as grains go, corn contains quite a bit of fructose, which is why it's so tasty and sweet... and so very bad for your cat.

Remember: Cats have NO metabolic need for carbohydrates of any kind, especially simple ones like sugar (the fructose in corn)! In some cats, excess consumption of these unnecessary grains CAN lead to devastating health problems, like diabetes.

Also, I can only imagine how much the chronic dehydration caused by a diet of dry food exacerbated the cat's diabetes.

I suggested that my customer try a grain free canned food for a few weeks, just to see what would happen. It cost a little more than her regular diet, but not by much, and the vet bills were so extravagant that it was definitely worth a shot. She came back in a month later and told me that her vet sent his blood glucose meter in to be checked because her cat tested normal for the first time and, when she told him it was because of the new food, he said that he didn't believe that the cat food would make a difference. We both laughed about that ridiculous statement. If you think about it, many humans are able to control diabetes by regulating the amount of carbohydrates they eat, so why should cats, which shouldn't eat grains or sugars to begin with, be any different?

My customer was thrilled with the food and said that her cat was more active and playful that it had been in years... and she was saving oodles of money by avoiding frequent veterinary appointments. She actually thanked me for "saving" her cat with my suggestion. Isn't it amazing that a young pet store clerk with a little common sense can correct health problems more efficiently than a vet?

#2: Allergies

This is number two in my four-part series on the health problems caused by feeding cats a typical dry food diet. You may want to read the introduction (Name That Food!) first.

Excess shedding, itching, rashes, and other skin irritations are all symptoms of allergies. Just like humans, felines can grow into allergies over time, so they may begin showing allergy symptoms even though you have not changed their food. Both cats and dogs are commonly allergic to: corn, wheat, soy, and occasionally chicken and beef... and most dry cat foods seem to contain corn.

If you suspect that your cat may have allergies, switch her over to an "allergy" or "limited ingredient" diet that does not contain any of those ingredients (you will have to actually read the ingredient panel, as many so-called sensitive skin formulas still contain many of these items... particularly corn). If the symptoms improve after 3-4 weeks on the new food, then you know that they were caused by a food allergy and you can experiment with different foods to isolate the problem ingredient. I suggest experimenting because I'd hate for you to avoid chicken forever if your cat is actually only allergic to corn (which seems to be the most common allergen and the ingredient most consistently found in dry foods). *Important* Do not give your cat treats during your testing phase because if the treats contain the allergen, the symptoms will remain and you won't discover what is causing the problem.

I've had customers with cats and dogs that received monthly cortisone shots for allergies. Once they switched to a limited ingredient food, most no longer needed shots at all! Not only that, but the symptoms, which the shot only controlled (and not very well), disappeared completely!

#1: Urinary Tract Crystals

This is number one in my four-part series on the health problems caused by feeding cats a typical dry food diet. You may want to read the introduction (Name That Food!) first.

As explained in previous blogs, cats have a low thirst drive and a very acidic digestive system. Because cats naturally get most of their moisture from food, they don't drink much water. This means that dry food (which obviously contains less moisture than, say, a mouse) leaves many cats in a state of chronic dehydration, leading to more concentrated (and more smelly) urine. Also, the bulk of most dry foods is comprised of grain products (ie: the ground whole corn, brewers rice, and corn gluten meal in the example). Grains tend to make a cat's urine more alkaline (the opposite of acidic) and that, coupled with the concentrated urine, leads to crystals.

If you've ever had a cat that suffered from urinary tract crystals, you know how painful it is for the cat, and how expensive it is to correct (it may even require surgery). Urinary tract health dry foods are an exercise in futility because half of the problem is caused by the fact that the food is dry. The addition of cranberries is laughable because they do NOT reduce the cat's pH and, unlike a human suffering from a urinary tract infection, a cat will not benefit from the fruit's antibacterial properties. Simply switching to a grain-free, moist diet (canned or raw) prevents this condition... and can sometimes correct a current problem.

Name That Food!

What type of food do you think this is, based on the ingredients?
(the answer can be found at the end of the blog)

Chicken By-Product Meal, Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Ground Whole Grain Corn, Powdered Cellulose (10.5% source of fiber), Chicken Liver Flavor, Soybean Oil, Animal Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Calcium Sulfate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, vitamins (L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of vitamin C), Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Glyceryl Monostearate, Vitamin E Supplement, DL-Methionine, Iodized Salt, Taurine, minerals (Zinc Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), L-Carnitine, preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid, Beta-Carotene, Rosemary Extract.

Please note that this is NOT a cheapo grocery store brand food. This is a "premium," top-selling, "vet recommended" food that can only be purchased in pet stores (and it's expensive... a 3.5 pound bag is $13.99 on petsmart.com as of 1/26/2009). Now, tell me why on earth three of the top four ingredients this "premium" brand cat food are inexpensive grain products... and why two of them are just different ways of saying corn?

Cats have no metabolic need for carbohydrates. Don't take my word for it... feel free to look it up. Any grain product in a cat food (particularly in the first few ingredients) is a cheap "filler" intended to bulk up the food, fill up your cat, and pad the wallets of the food's manufacturer.

Precious little about the food listed above is good for your cat... and yet it's more expensive than some foods that really are high quality! If you don't know anything about the ingredients (which I'll cover in another blog), it just sounds unappetizing (and it is... that's why the manufacturers have to spray it with fat to get your cat to eat it). If you do know something about the ingredients, then you know that by-product meal isn't a high quality protein source and that the excessive use of grains can lead to a host of health problems.

During my years in retail pet supply sales, I've learned that people who buy "premium" foods are paying extra for what they have been lead to believe is a quality pet food. However, all too often they are not getting what they pay for. In the next four blogs, I will illustrate how a diet comprised only of a typical "premium" dry cat food can cause and/or complicate a number of common (but often serious) feline health problems.

And please stick with me, because there is a light at the end of the tunnel!


The ingredients I listed above are for Hill's Science Diet Adult indoor Cat food. You can see for yourself on their website.