The best cat food: choosing

Natural food is a diet that is as close as possible to natural – to what all small species of cats eat in the wild. The best and optimal food for a cat is food, which consists of various types of raw meat and fish, offal, fermented milk products of medium fat content, raw vegetables and unsweetened fruits, cereal bran as an additive to the main diet. Here are some basic foods for kittens and cats.

Meat. The best meat is lean beef, and it is not even advisable to give the animal a tenderloin. High-calorie lamb, horse meat, rabbit meat, poultry meat are perfect, but pork is undesirable. By-products – heart, kidneys – have a lower calorie content, but can completely replace meat. It is not recommended to give poultry skin, and the liver and lungs are not always well tolerated by the cat’s body. Meat and offal should not be crushed to the state of minced meat, they should be given raw, after preliminary freezing. This allows you to get rid of the main part of the worms. In addition, the concentration of hydrochloric acid in the stomach of cats is high enough to rid meat and fish of parasites.

Fish. Cats are given raw, defrosted fillets of boneless marine lean fish, replacing meat no more than 2-3 times a week. Small fish should be fed with bones to replenish minerals. It is better to freeze freshly caught fish from a river or pond.

Milk. Milk itself is not a staple in a cat’s diet, but it is okay if she loves it and does not cause diarrhea or bloating. The optimal fermented milk products are cottage cheese 5–9% fat, kefir with 3,5% fat, yogurt or kefir with a short shelf life.

You should not mix meat or fish products with fermented milk in one feeding.

Eggs. In raw or boiled form, eggs of any bird are good to give together with fermented milk feeding 2-3 times a week in a quarter, without separating the yolk and white.

Vegetables. Most vegetables work well for cats, such as cucumbers, beets, carrots, cabbage, bell peppers, courgettes, and pumpkin. Greens are also very useful – lettuce, parsley and dill, sprouted grass. All of this should be given chopped or grated. Potatoes and exotic fruits are not recommended. It is good to add fiber in the form of bran to vegetables.

In the cat’s diet, bones must be present, which must be given in the form of small fish, chicken necks, always raw, along with soft tissues, which prevents injuries of internal organs. If the cat’s diet contains small bones, then there is no point in additional mineral supplements. The exception is pregnant and lactating cats, kittens that need mineral supplements, in the range presented in specialized stores.

In the spring, it is good to add dry yeast rich in natural vitamins to food.

Unfortunately, not all owners feed their pets with natural food. Due to lack of time and money, many people prefer special ready-made feeds, buying them in stores. Food manufacturers assure that such food contains all the necessary substances to ensure the health of the pet. You can really choose a really good feed from ready-made if you know the production technology, composition and presence of additives.

In terms of consistency, such feeds differ into dry and canned food. Dry food is very convenient to use, it is useful for the teeth of the animal, and has a variety of tastes. The taste of the feed does not at all imply the presence of the declared products in it – it can only be an addition of the aroma of fish or meat that can deceive even an animal.

Many of these feeds are sold by weight, which makes it impossible to find out their composition.

In soft canned food, liquid is included initially, which allows you to get the necessary water along with food. They are usually sold in jars and airtight portioned pouches and come in a variety of flavors – chicken, veal, fish, turkey and rabbit. Such food can be specialized – for kittens, pregnant, elderly cats, spayed.

It is not difficult to choose food by consistency – it all depends on the preferences of the pet, although it is imperative to combine hard and soft food. It is much more difficult to determine the cost of feed.

In terms of cost, feeds differ in economy class food and premium varieties. Serious flaws are hidden behind the low price – the composition of such feeds, as a rule, includes harmful ingredients, bone and cornmeal. It seriously affects the kidneys of the animal and is the main cause of cystitis, allergies, urolithiasis in animals and obesity. In addition, such foods simply fill the cat’s stomach without saturating it for a long time. Meat is completely absent in it, it is replaced by soy protein.

The most famous brands in Russia are Darling, Meow and Kitikat. There is also the so-called commercial food (for example, “Whiskas” and “Friskis”), which costs a little more than the economical one, but essentially differs only in the brightness of the packaging advertised by the brand. If you read the composition on the package, it is no different from the previous one.

The use of such unsafe feed can only be justified by some urgent need and a catastrophic lack of time or money. Poor quality of raw materials, lack of animal protein, dangerous dyes and preservatives make these foods unnatural and even hazardous to the health of pets, and many of them are supplemented with substances that are addictive to cats. And therefore she refuses other, even the highest quality food.

A completely different picture with super premium and premium feed. They are made from natural raw materials – meat and by-products of good quality, they contain almost no soy and cereals, no dangerous carcinogenic preservatives and dyes are used. The composition of such feeds necessarily includes vitamins and minerals, the animal is quickly and for a long time saturated with them.

Small subtlety – the smaller the single dose of feed for the animal indicated on the package, the higher its quality