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dried food

02.09.2006

my cat will only eat dried food is this harmful in any way




this is a question and a half! - and is one of my current hobby-horses!
in the wild, cats eat meat - bones, feathers and all - which is moist,high protein, fairly high in oils, and the ultimate healthy diet!
for convenience and cost we feed dried foods and have been convinced (conned?) by the pet-food industry into believing this is the right/best way to feed our cats
cats are not designed to eat carbohydrate, and yet most cat foods contain huge amounts of corn - wheat, barley, maize, rice, gluten - check out the label on the bags
and they never tell you how many calories there is in the food - I wonder why?
and why is the corn in there in the first place? one guess only allowed
would you feed a rabbit on sausage? so why do we feed cats on corn?
so ideally we would feed our cats on whole birds/rabbits and the like - though this is obviously not practical
we can feed tinned foods, and provided these are low in starch, they are fine nutritionally - but expensive, smelly and attract flies in summer as well as stinking out the fridge
one meal pouches are a big improvement
for convenience and cost we have dried foods, but because these are 'un-natural' foods, they only suit most adult healthy cats - if you are young, growing, older, obese, diabetic et etc these foods are not always suitable, and therefore you have to choose alternatives - higher protein for kittens, higher protein for older cats to help maintain body mass, less carbohydrate for obese animals etc If they were fed a high protein, low carbohydrate diet in the first place, there would be no need for all these diets.
Not all dried foods are the same - we have now moved to Cod4cats, which is 70%cod, with 20% rice, 5%beet fibre, and nothing else other than vitamins and minerals added. Some starch is required for processing dried food, but this is as good as you will currently find out there
So back to your question: depending on the quality of your food, it may be OK, but may well predispose to obesity & urinary tract problems. The cheaper the food, the more carbohydrate there will be in it, and the greater the risks.




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