What's the best and healthiest cat food brand?

Question

I use special kitty but I looked at the ingredients the other day and it had by products. Is that bad?

What's the best cat food brand?

Answer 1

Choose any from the list below. Also see my blog on how to identify good foods.

There is no one healthiest brand. Even some good brands may disagree with the occasional cat.

But a good rule of thumb is that if you can buy it at the grocery store, it's crap. Petsmart doesn't seem to carry any good brands either (that I've seen so far). You'll find your better foods at indy pet stores, and the occasional chain store.

I personally feed Nature's Variety Instincts. At $1.79 per can it's quite pricy (since I'm feeding two cats one can per day each) but it has stablized Poppy's sensitive system to a degree I'm quite pleased with. And it's completely grainless.

Before that I fed Natural Balance which is an ok brand as well (and much less expensive).

Answer 2

There are plenty of decent pet foods out there.

I don't like to advertise, so I won't list any particular ones.

All you have to do is read the label, which you seem to have done, already. In the USA and most other countries, ingredients are listed with the highest percentage item first, followed by the next highest, and ending with the lowest percentage.

For example, if a can of tuna cat food reads as "Tuna, fillers, water, soybean oil, and salt", then you would know that most of the contents are tuna, followed by the rest, with salt being the least by percentage (of course, with such a small list, it's difficult to tell how much salt is in there! 0.1%? 0.5%? 15%?

Of course, you could buy the most all-natural pet food in the world, which meets 100% of your criteria, but it will be worthless if your pet doesn't like it!

Also, these days, it's more important to know which country made the food!

Below are some links that may help (there are plenty of brand names listed, but I cannot vouch for any of them; use the links only for the information, not necessarily for the manufacturers). As I said, your pet has the final say!

Answer 3

Yes by products are bad and can be the equivalent of meat from road kill. Some tests done a few years ago even found Phenobarbital in some pet foods. Phenobarbital is the drug used to euthanize animals in vet clinics. Some pet foods use meat unfit for consumption by any living thing (human or animal) in their products.

Anyhow, the first ingredient should be meat or fish. Hopefully, the first 2 or 3 ingredients. Cats are carnivores. They NEED meat. The link someone listed above from www.catinfo.org is an excellent source of the leading (in ingredients not sales) food for cats.

Answer 4

The best food is one that doesn't have fillers/allergens like wheat/corn/rice/soy, which means don't feed most dry foods INCLUDING science diet.

Take a look at labels. Some fancy feast flavours don't have any fillers and have some muscle meat as well as biproducts. Higher end products like wellness are higher quality but also are higher in fat which isn't good if your cat has pancreatitis.

You can also look at prepared raw diets at high end pet food stores.

Your choice depends on what you can afford, what your cat will eat and if there are any other medical conditions.

Just please remember that vet brand foods are actually lower quality than many other foods!

Answer 5

I have a small cattery and found Royal Canin works well for me since there are so many choices. For instance," babycat" is the size of small beads and my little guys begin eating this at two and three weeks of age. They then progress to "kitten", which is in the form of a small star. Easy to eat and they love it. Other selections include, "Queen", for pregnant and nursing mothers, "Persian", several types just for "Picky Eaters" , as well as several more. The ingredients are easily digestible and of high quality. Purina Pro Plan has also been a favorite at my house. Again, many varieties and Purina One has a special "diet" brand. I always leave food and water out for all my cats but if yours eats more like a dog......special food times may be in order.

Answer 6

The top dog and cat food brand, which is used by vets, is Hills, Science diet.
Hills also makes prescription diets that are formulated to be the least stressful and most beficial to animals with certain medical conditions.
Hills foods also just happen to be the most expensive diets.
Popular brand-name foods like purina (which is what I feed my cat), Iams, and even Friskies are all about the same level of quality and don't vary much as far as ingredients.
Of course, the much cheaper foods, like Alley cat and meow mix are of a lower quality, with lower quality ingredients.
All cat foods sold in the US have to contain certain amounts of protein and certain vitamins and amino acids, so no cat food is really going to be unhealthy, damaging, or even lacking in nutrition for your cat. The higher quality foods just use better ingredients, have less fillers (fiber just to make the calorie content higher without adding any nutritional value), and go above and beyond the minimum requirements.

Answer 7

The best canned foods you can buy use muscle meat as the 1st ingrediants and have no grains as cats are carnivores. human quality canned foods inlude wellness and merrick

Answer 8

special kitty is a substandard cat food. I feed mine Eukanuba but there are good "store brands" as well. Try Cat Chow naturals if budget is a concern

Answer 9

Purina Indoor is what I use for my cat. She does very well on it and the Vet recommends it. A lot of this special diet stuff is just overpriced and unnecessary.

Answer 10

Our vet recommended "Science Diet" which has kept our cat (and dog) very healthy.