Mary Allen
“You are what you eat” – this saying also applies to our cats. It is only natural, therefore, that you want to offer your cat food that will provide them with everything they need for a long and healthy cat life! However, it is not that easy for newcomers and experienced cat owners to identify high-quality cat food.
We would like to provide a little help here. Do not worry: you do not need an analysis device or laboratory equipment for this – often a glance at the can label or the back of the packaging is enough to know what is really in the cat food.
How to Decipher the Food Label
Cat nutrition in the wild
Cats are carnivores. In the wild, they mainly feed on mice, other small rodents, and birds. Basically, our cats need a feed that is rich in protein, has a moderate fat content, and contains only a few carbohydrates.
Ingredients of cat food
Before you take a close look at the label of cat food, you should know one thing: According to the Feed Act, the list of ingredients is sorted according to the descending content in the finished product.
If we keep the above-mentioned composition of the “natural” cat food – the mouse – in mind, one thing should come first: meat. This can be specified as a fresh product or in dry form.
Most cat foods also contain animal by-products. These are not harmful, they are even desired in the feed. After all, in addition to the muscle meat of its prey animals, a cat also eats offal such as the heart and lungs!
All possible organs such as liver and spleen, udder, or kidneys can be found under the term “animal by-products”. Organs such as the rumen, udder, and lungs contain a lot of connective tissue, which makes them more difficult to digest and therefore usually only contains a small amount in feed.
The “open declaration” of the ingredients
All the better if the manufacturer chooses the so-called “open declaration” and explains exactly which by-products are really contained in cat food! This makes it easy to identify high-quality cat food.
Grain products should only be fed in small quantities – they, therefore, appear as low as possible on the list of contents.
Flavor enhancers and preservatives
There is a war of faith over flavor enhancers and preservatives. There are no preservatives in wet food, as heating the closed can or shell creates natural preservation.
Manufacturers use preservatives in dry food to preserve the kibble. Artificial and natural substances are used here.
Flavor enhancers are rarely used, mostly in the form of aromas. Sugar or caramel is only contained in very small quantities in some types of wet food and is used to tint the meat brown. This sugar does not belong in cat food: even if it is not harmful to health in the amount it contains, it cannot be used by the cat and cannot even be tasted, since cats cannot taste “sweet”. High-quality cat food, therefore, does not contain simple sugars such as caramel or glucose.
High-quality Cat Food: the Analysis
As we have found, the carnivore cat needs lots of high-quality protein and fat to stay healthy and agile. Vegetable components and carbohydrates are only partially digestible for cats, so there should not be a high proportion of them in the food.
In addition to the pure content of proteins, fat, and carbohydrates, our cats also need a large number of vitamins and minerals. The cat’s body can build some materials from nutritional building blocks, but not others.
These include the amino acid “taurine”, which is essential for many metabolic processes in the cat’s body. Deficiency can lead to blindness, infertility, stunted growth, and disorders of the immune system and heart. In order for the cat to consume enough taurine, it has to ingest a certain amount daily through its food – many types of ready-made food contain enough taurine.
As you can see: Finding high-quality cat food for your fur nose is not a book with seven seals, it often only requires a look at the food label!