Quote:
Originally Posted by Maneki Neko
Look at the first four ingredients:
Chicken meal: means stuff that is ground up from parts of chickens. This may include some meat but most likely includes parts like beaks and feet, which contain little nutritional value.
Rice flour, corn and corn gluten meal: These 3 are carbohydrates, which offer calories but virtually nothing of any nutritional value to cats. Corn is the most frequently used "filler" ingredient in dry cat foods -- it is all but undigestable in the feline gut.
Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning that they require very high protein content food, and the protein needs to come from animal sources. Unlike dogs and humans, cats cannot synthesise proteins from vegetable sources.
There is a wealth of great information on feline nutrition on this site (and many others)! http://www.catinfo.org/
Nutrition is essential to your cat's health, so it's a worthwhile investment to spend some time learning what to look for on cat food labels. It will also help you understand why you may not want to feed your cats what they appear to find most palatable -- many of the pet food companies add flavour-enhancers to their otherwise junky catfoods. Because the cat likes it doesn't mean it's good for him or her! And, as my holistic vet reminds me when I complain about the cost of premium wet food: Yes, it is expensive, but look at it as an investment. You will save a fortune on vet bills for chronic kidney failure and a whole host of other ailments stemming from bad nutrition. :-) |
Thanks for the info Maneki Neko! I am always on the lookout for "holistic" food... and I saw "Holistic" on the label, I thought I'd give it a try... Plus when I read the label, there was no corn:
Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, Chicken Fat (Naturally Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Oat Groats, Dried Beet Pulp, Egg Product, Hearing Meal, Brewers Dried Yeast, Lecithin, Flax Seed Meal, Fish Oil, Phosphoric Acid, Potassium Chloride, DL Methionine L-Lysine, Calcium Carbonate, Salt, Kelp Meal, Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product Dehydrated, Taurine, Glucosamine, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Vegetable Oil, Biotin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Vitamin A Acetate, Riboflavin Supplement, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Citric Acid, Menadione Dimethylpyrimidinol Bisulfite (Source of Vitamin K Activity), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid, Potassium Chloride, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Manganese Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganous Oxide, Sodium Selenite, Calcium Iodate.