Cat Food Recommendations - How to Choose the Best Cat Food?

Posted by Wise Pet on August 30th, 2018

Many customers have asked us if there is any cat food that is the best? What cat food can you recommend to us?

In fact, it is hard to say that what cat food is the best. Because each cat has different health conditions, it is impossible to have one cat food that is the most suitable for every cat.

The quality of cat food depends mainly on the ingredients. If the top five ingredients are meat, without by-products, that is an indication of high quality cat food. If the first five ingredients are starchy ingredients and/orgrain-based, they are usually cheap cat foods and may not be suitable for the nutritional needs of your cats. In addition, you can look at other ingredients, does the food have added artificial colors, artificial flavors and chemical preservatives? The colors and flavors are usually used to cover up the poor quality ingredients. Some pet food manufacturers also state that their ingredients come from fresh farm produce and/or human grade (fit for human consumption).  These are also indications of high quality cat food.

Cat food is divided into dry food and wet food. Dry cat foodis usually processed with high temperature and high pressure, so some nutrients may havebeen lost.  Pet food manufacturers will add vitamin and mineral supplements to dry kibble, so that the dry food could meet the AAFCO "complete and balanced" standards.

Wet cat food / canned cat foods are less processed.  Some contain shredded or chunky meat with fresh ingredients, which are highly palatable and rich in nutrients.  Canned cat foods may not be supplemented with vitamins and mineral supplements. If vitamins and minerals are added, the cat food would meet AAFCO's "complete and balanced" standard and it can be fed as the sole diet. If vitamins and minerals are not added, the canned food is not considered as “complete and balanced” and is recommended for supplementary feeding.

Many people may ask: is it healthy to eat canned cat food without added vitamins and minerals? Cat food manufacturers explain that each type of meat and vegetable contains different nutrients. As long as your cat eats high quality ingredients in a wide variety, you can achieve a "complete and balanced" diet naturally. Just likehuman, when people eat food, they don't need to have acomplete and balanced diet in every meal.  As long as they eat fresh healthy food and consume a wide variety of different foods, they can naturally absorb all kinds of nutrients and achieve a balanced effect. However, some people may argue that cat food without added vitamins and minerals cannot guarantee balanced nutrition and may have adverse effects on health over the long run.

We recommend that cats should eat at least half of dry food, half of wet food, or even increasing the proportion of wet food to higher percentage.  It is because wet food is not only rich in nutrients, the water content can reduce the chance of urinary tract problem (crystals or infection) in cats.  For wet food, you can feed a mixture of complete and balanced canned food and those for supplementary feeding.  Try feeding different meats, chicken, duck, beef, lamb, fish, shrimp, crab, etc. Feeding a variety of cat foods can prevent cats from preferring a certain type of meat or a brand of food, can let the cat absorb more balanced nutrition, and can avoid food allergies caused by long-term consumption of the same protein.

Wise Pet is a pet shop in Hong Kong selling only high quality dog food and cat food.