To help your cat live a lifetime of wellbeing, understanding what constitutes high quality nutrition can make a big difference in improving their health.
So with so many brands and products available today, what are the key factors to look for to determine what makes one brand the best nutritional choice? Here are the top 4 things you should consider when selecting an appropriate diet for your cat:
The Unique Needs of Cats
Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they need to consume a meat protein diet as well as have a higher total protein requirement than many other mammals including dogs. Cats get certain key nutrients from meat—including taurine, arachidonic acid, vitamin A and vitamin B12—that simply can’t be sufficiently obtained from plant-based foods. Without a steady supply of these nutrients, cats can suffer from liver and heart problems, not to mention skin irritation and hearing loss.
Selecting a high protein, meat rich brand like Wellness CORE can ensure that not only will the recipe be a meaty taste that your cat will crave, but that it will also provide enough meat protein to naturally meet their nutritional carnivore needs for optimal health.
Complete & Balanced
In addition to the nutrients coming from meat proteins, cats also require a wide array of other nutrients to keep them in optimal health which includes fats and carbohydrates as well as vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, and amino acids.
Read the Ingredient List
One of the best ways to see if a recipe is of good quality or not is by reading the ingredient list on the back of the packaging. What you want to see is an ingredient list which has fresh meat or fish listed as the first ingredient with concentrated meat meals as the second and third ingredients. This will indicate the food probably contains enough animal-source ingredients to supply essential amino acids and fatty acids. By the same token, just as important as what goes into the recipe is also what is excluded. Inferior quality ingredients to avoid include “By-products,” “meat and bone meal,” added sugars, chemical preservatives, including BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin, and propyl gallate and artificial colors and flavors.
Feed a mix of wet and dry
Many veterinarians will all agree that cats should eat a variety of food, both wet and dry to help optimize their health as well as suit their unique food preferences and fussiness.
- Dry Food
- Wet Food
Many cats like to graze throughout the day making dry food a convenient and the most economical option for cat parents as it can be left out for free feeding. As a more nutrient dense form of nutrition, dry food contains the extra health superfoods and inclusions that promote wellbeing as well as support dental health with the crunchy kibble texture.
Canned cat food will have a moisture content upwards of 75% making it not only a tasty meal for a cat but also a great source of hydration which is key to their urinary tract health. Superior quality brands of wet food should contain the same high quality ingredients that you find in dry food so make sure you try and avoid brands that added unnamed “meat” ingredients, by-products, sugars and artificial ingredients that are often abundant in grocery brands.
At Wellness CORE, every recipe we craft is based on our philosophy of always doing things the right way and never the easy way. Mealtime is more than just a bowl of food. It’s the foundation to a longer and healthier life, together.
Find out more about Wellness CORE here: www.wellnesspetfood.com/natural-cat-food.
