VOLUME 1, ISSUE 7

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There is a lot to consider when it comes to deciding which cat food is best for your cat.  Life stage (age) and lifestyle (activities) should be looked at first. You want a pet food that is catered to your cat's characteristics. Different cats need different ingredients to bring them to their optimum health.  For example, kittens need special food to their rapidly growing body and some older cats need special ingredients to help their arthritis. 

There are three main types of cat foods that are manufactured today: dry, semi-moist, and moist. Dry foods are the least expensive and the most convenient. They don't get old if you leave them out all day and the scratchy surface helps keep up the cat's oral hygiene. Semi-moist and moist foods are more appetizing for cats. Both of these types of food should only be left out for thirty minutes before being put back in the refrigerator.  If left out too long, they are susceptible to bacterial growth. Some cats may begin to have runny stools when fed semi-moist or moist foods.  In this case, the cat would most likely do better with dry food. 

When comparing brands, it is important to look at more than the price if you want quality ingredients (a good web site that talks specifically about different brands is http://www.consumersearch.com/www/family/cat_food/fullstory.html). A low price is a sure sign of low quality ingredients while a higher price can be, but is not always, a clue to higher quality ingredients. The less expensive brands use low quality ingredients, like by-products or vegetable substitutes as their main ingredients and use unnatural preservatives. Many chemical preservatives have not been studied to find out the effects on cats and are potentially dangerous. Higher quality brands do not use by-products and use natural preservatives, which are not harmful for your cat. If the cat food has by-products, it will be listed on the label.  Some brands call by-products "meat-and-bone meal" or other similar names.

Cats are true carnivores, meaning in order to get all of the essential nutrients their bodies need to stay healthy, they must eat meat. The first ingredient listed on the cat food label should be meat. Some argue that it is unacceptable for any ingredient in a cat's diet to be a by-product. The meat by-products are the parts of the animal that are considered unfit for human consumption, like utters, esophagi, and potentially diseased parts of animals. Even the vegetable and grain ingredients in cat food are the pieces considered unacceptable for humans. By-products are not very nutritional for the cat and there is some evidence that by-products could cause can

cer later on in the cat's life. Other people insist that it is a necessity for cats to eat the by-products in order to get all of the nutrients and it should not be looked down upon because wild cats eat the whole animal, including the parts we consider by-products. 

Most cat foods also consist of vegetables and grains. Vegetables and grains should not be the top ingredient in the cat food. Cats need more protein in their diet than they do vegetables or grains. Out of all the vegetable ingredients, soy has had the least problems when it comes to mold, bacteria, etc. 

In order to help the cat's overall nutrition, it recommended to vary the cat's food rather than sticking to one brand.  This also helps the cat adjust better to necessary dietary changes, like when the cat's life stage changes (she becomes pregnant, ages, etc).  When a cat will not cooperate with a diet change that needs to take place, you can help her by slowly adding increasingly greater portion of the new food into her old food over time until it is entirely her new food. 

Although every cat food brand claims to have the perfect nutritional formula for your cat, it is hard to determine

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