Cat Food Ingredients That You Don’t Want
When you are deciding on a food for your cat, it is important to know what ingredients you should look for and which ones you should avoid. You will want to evaluate labels and manufacturers for vitamin and mineral content, fat and protein content, and overall nutritional value. But do you really know what you should stay away from?
There are some key ingredients found in some cat foods that are not healthy choices for your animal. In today’s marketing world, the manufacturers will glam up their product in order to get you to buy their product. It is important for you, as your cat’s care taker, to know what is good, and what is not so good, for your cat.
Some things to avoid when looking for the right food for your cat are artificial colors and flavors. These are things that we, as humans, often add to our own food to make them look, smell, and taste better. But cats are true carnivores. They don’t taste, nor do they need, the additives we put in to their food. It is better for the cat to have a more natural diet than one we doctored to make it more palatable for us!
Similarly, we have added excess sugars to many cat foods to make them appear to taste better. These sugars, especially man-made sugars, do not enhance the flavor for the cat, and they can contribute to obesity and diabetes in your cat. Stay away from excess sugar in your cat’s food.
Also, while it is quite necessary to add preservatives to a cat’s food to avoid unnecessary food poisoning, there are options that make it possible for us to avoid chemical additives and preservatives. Read your food’s label carefully to see that you are purchasing a food that is preserved with safe, natural ingredients that will not adversely affect your cat.
As we have discovered the importance of a well-balanced diet in the human world, we have imposed those ideas onto our pet diets. While there are some advantages to increased consumption of plants, we must remember the cat’s natural diet is meat. Therefore, we ought to avoid foods that have a base of wheat, oats, soybeans, or other poorly digestible carbohydrates. These foods create excess gas in your cat, which is not healthy.
Corn-based foods have become popular as the cost of corn is lower than the cost of meat. However, cats need meat-based diets, rather than corn-based diets. Avoid foods with a base of corn or other carbohydrates. They do not have the level of protein that the carnivorous cat needs to sustain a healthy lifestyle.
While fiber is important, be careful not to overdo it. Too much fiber in your cat’s diet can stimulate the digestive system to the point where food passes so quickly through the cat’s system that important nutrients are not properly digested before the food is dispelled.
Other ingredients to avoid in your cat’s food are blood meal and animal meal. These products will provide some of the protein your animal needs, but they are insufficient, and definitely less healthy than the meat cats eat in their natural setting.
Finally, while you must look for sufficient protein sources in your cat’s food, beware of products that have animal by-products in the ingredients. You may get small pieces of actual meat in the processing of the food, but you are also getting hooves, feathers, tendons, and ligaments processed into your cat’s food. Vegetable by-products will give you some healthy vegetable proteins, but you will also get stalks, leaves, and other plant parts processed into your food. While these are sources of necessary protein, they are not the healthiest choices for your cat.
While you are weighing your options for your cat’s diet, remember that your cat is a cat. It needs the types of nutrition it would find in the wild. It does not need excessive amounts of plants, fiber, or additives. Avoid feeding your cat the things we add to our food to make it more palatable. Providing your cat with the food that is closest to its natural diet will make him happier and healthier.
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