Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Perfect Cat Food

When it comes to cat food, the quality can vary greatly, but the real difference lies in whether it suits your feline companion. You can infer this by observing their reaction, such as whether they have soft stools, how much they enjoy their meals, and also which brand is on sale at a discounted price! For instance, "Which cat foods are affordable yet offer balanced nutrition, benefiting the health and development of my cat?"

Firstly, it's important to recognize that cat food is not an ideal diet for cats; it exists primarily for human convenience. Ideally, if you can afford it, a combination of wet food and freezedried food (reconstituted with water) is best. If you're on a budget, homemade food is also an option.

Homemade cat food isn't as difficult as it might seem. Just search for "Alnutrin Silver Powder" on Taobao, follow the instructions by adding 5% of organs, and then mix in the powder according to the recipe. There are plenty of tutorials online. While homemade food requires attention to detail, even using a single type of meat is significantly better than most commercial cat foods (at least it avoids longterm dehydrationrelated urinary tract issues! This is especially recommended for households with male cats). To ensure your cat gets healthy ingredients, you either need to invest time or money, but you can't have both.

This article focuses on cat food, so let's start by educating you on the types of cat food available:

1. Types of Cat Food

4D Food: This refers to cat food made from dead, sick, dying, and disabled animals. Eating food made from these inferior ingredients can be harmful to your pet's health.

Commercial Food: This type of cat food is made from animal carcasses and organs, and it contains a lot of flavor enhancers, which is why cats love it. However, it is far less nutritious than natural food.

Natural Food: Natural cat food does not contain animal carcasses, byproducts, or any harmful additives like flavor enhancers or preservatives. The raw ingredients are not chemically processed. Natural food does not contain synthetic additives, artificial colors, or flavors, but it does include chemically synthesized vitamins, minerals, and trace elements.

2. Cat Food Formula

The ingredient list for cat food is arranged in order of the weight of the ingredients.

The protein and fat in the ingredient list refer to animal protein/plant protein and animal fat/plant fat, respectively.

Not all highprotein cat food means it contains a lot of meat. It's possible that half of the protein is plantbased, which may not be as beneficial for your cat.

Lower carbohydrate content is generally better! The carbohydrate calculation is: 100% minus water content (usually around 10%), protein content, fat, fiber, and ash.

It's usually better if the source of the ingredients is more specific. For example, "turkey" is more specific than "poultry," "chicken fat" is more specific than "animal fat," and "brown rice" is more specific than "grains." If merchants are genuinely using highquality ingredients, why would they be afraid to list them? If they use organic lamb, would they just write "lamb" generically? Think about it, analyze it.

About Meat Meal.

Meat meal is essentially a melting product.

Meat meal has already been subjected to high heat and prolonged cooking, so when it is used in cat food, it undergoes an additional longterm heating process. This can lead to protein degradation and more waste, making it harder for cats to absorb and placing additional strain on their digestive and liver and kidney systems.

In other words, in cat food manufacturing plants, meat meal is already meat meal by the time it enters the factory, while fresh meat is still a piece of meat when it enters the factory. This is why fresh meat is more important than meat meal.

Therefore, a major principle for choosing cat food is to select brands you can trust, as they use purer meat meal.

High protein content does not necessarily mean there is more meat. It could also be plant protein that is not as beneficial for cats.

Cats have a much lower absorption rate for plant protein compared to animal protein. Moreover, practical experience has shown us that plant protein is often the culprit behind soft stools. While carbohydrates are not ideal either, they don't cause soft stools as frequently. This is one of the reasons why cats may have soft stools when eating Orijen but not when eating NOW, despite the rumors.

There are three main sources of plant protein:

Grains (such as rice, purple rice, red rice, barley, wheat, brown rice, and oats), which have relatively low protein content. The highest protein content in grains is found in oats, which is around 15%. Meat meal typically has a protein content of 6080%, so adding grains is a "hitandmiss" strategy. It doesn't increase the protein content significantly and may even be rejected by many due to the presence of grains. However, grains have the advantage of being a costeffective ingredient that doesn't cause soft stools as easily as legumes.

Legumes (such as peas, green beans, lentils, chickpeas, and black beans), with a protein content ranging from 1535%. Using legumes in the formula is not very costeffective, but it can help fill in some of the protein values and make the ingredient list look better. This is a common technique used in many grainfree cat foods.

Purified Protein Powders (such as pea protein, protein powder, concentrated protein, potato protein, casein, and whey protein). This stuff is quite potent... If you're not familiar with it, just search for "protein powder" on Taobao, and you'll know what it is. Its protein content is almost always above 70%, and some can even reach 80%. If these purified protein sources are listed early in the ingredient list, be cautious.

Cassava Starch (which doesn't belong to the above categories but is used quite frequently). It has a very low protein content and is mainly used as a cheap filler to help shape the cat food.

In summary, here are some key standards to consider when choosing cat food:

1. The more animal meat in the topranked ingredients, the better, and the higher up on the list, the better.

2. Meat Meat Meal (meat meal) Vague meat descriptions.

3. The lower the proportion of grain and starch ingredients, the higher the quality of the cat food. (Don't buy cat food where rice is listed first in the ingredient list.)

4. Avoid cat food with purify protein sources like pea protein, protein powder, concentrated protein, potato protein, casein, and whey protein listed early in the ingredient list.

5. If you're unsure how to choose cat food, I recommend opting for wellknown brands with good reputations, such as Orijen, Eukanuba, GO!, NOW, Blue Buffalo, Nutro, Royal Canin, Fera, and Fomorians, among others. These brands have fewer pitfalls.

6. Soft stool issues can vary from cat to cat:

Here are some affordable hypoallergenic cat food recommendations from high to low price: Acana Turkey, Blue Buffalo High Protein (be aware of recent issues with pests), Fera Kitten Food, NOW (not a potatobased food; don't believe the rumors), Wellness CORE, Anna & Mat Red Bag. Avoid Hill's Science Diet due to its reliance on beet pulp, and avoid Green Fomorians due to the abundance of counterfeit products.

For less common hypoallergenic cat food, here are some recommendations from high to low price: Goats (requires additional calcium supplementation), Grizzly North American Grizzly (not recommended as a main meal; suitable for families that don't feed much cat food), Rawz, Orijen FreeRange Chicken (formerly known as Origen), Purizon Deboned Chicken, Famine N&D Series (only recommend this series), Spanish NG Rabbit, Spring, and German Royal Canin.

Finally, remember that cat food is a compromise when it comes to budget and time. If possible, provide your cat with better food:

(Ranked from highest to lowest in nutritional value) Raw Meat Homemade Cat Food Wet Food FreezeDried Food Natural Cat Food.

If you have a limited budget, choose the best quality cat food you can afford. Don't spend a lot of money on medical treatments, as this can be stressful for both your cat and you, the pet owner. Don't let small savings lead to big losses.