In various articles I recommend feeding high-quality cat food and in some articles I have already tried to provide tips and information on what is important when it comes to cat food or how to recognize “proper” food. Nevertheless, I am often asked for food recommendations or for information about how you can actually tell whether a food is good or not. That’s why there is now (finally) a “checklist” in which the various points by which you can recognize high-quality cat food can be found.
Checklist of high-quality cat food
One thing first: My comments refer to wet food. I have already explained elsewhere that and why, in my opinion, dry food is not species-appropriate and has no advantages (other than being practical for humans).
In order not to have to repeatedly repeat myself here, I link to existing articles on the individual topics in various places; you can then find the detailed explanations there if you are interested.
As transparent a declaration as possible
Anyone who uses sensible ingredients has no reason not to tell buyers. On the contrary! A closed declaration is always a good reason not to buy a food in the first place, because in order to be able to judge whether a food is good or bad, you first have to know what is in it.
The fine print counts
Much more important than flowery, embellished product descriptions are the information on the “composition”, the “analytical ingredients” and the “nutritional additives”. Because the “advertising text” can tell you a lot, but with this information you can see (with an open declaration) exactly which parts of which animal are really in it (ideally with exact percentages), how high the crude protein, fat, Crude ash, raw fiber content, etc. and which additives (such as taurine, iodine, zinc, etc.) are added and in what quantities.
Prey animals as role models
The digestive system of cats is designed for prey animals such as mice, birds and the like. High-quality cat food consists largely of meat and high-quality animal by-products/offal (such as stomach, heart, liver). But be careful: For example, a food that advertises that it contains 90% animal content is not automatically better than one that contains e.g. B. only 70% stands. The first thing to do here is to look very carefully at whether the information refers to the total contents of the can (including cooking water/broth) or to the contents of the can excluding cooking water/broth! (Around 25% cooking water/broth is absolutely common!)
Even though cats are obligate carnivores, they eat e.g. B. also include fur or feathers, which means that a little vegetable (easily digestible such as pumpkin, zucchini, carrots) in cat food is not only completely ok, but is even needed by many cats for proper digestion (like For us too, fiber simply flows better. I have already explained in detail in the article linked above why the popular argument that grain is part of cats’ “normal” diet because they also eat the stomach contents of mice is nonsense. For example, on katzen-fieber you will also find a good explanation of why cats don’t need sugar – and why some manufacturers even mix it into their food.
Complete food
It is also important that the food is declared as complete food. Supplementary food, as the name suggests, is only intended as a supplement to normal food and is not suitable for completely covering the cat’s nutritional needs.
High-quality cat food – beyond the basics
High-quality cat food consists of meat, high-quality animal by-products/offal, some fiber and cooking water/broth. It breaks down as precisely as possible how many percent of what it contains. In addition to these “basics”, there are also other components that are thrown into the mix in online discussions when it comes to how good a food actually is.
Raw ash content
For example, I keep reading that the raw ash content is cited as a criterion for high-quality feed. Haustiger explains very well why you can’t easily tell the quality of the food from the raw ash content.
Iodine content
Among the trace elements, there is certainly none as controversial as the iodine content that a cat food should or must have. On the one hand, iodine is indispensable for the formation of thyroid hormones (T3 and T4), but on the other hand, iodine deficiency or an oversupply are also suspected of promoting hypothyroidism or – which is much more common in cats – hyperthyroidism. However, the exact triggers for this disease have not yet been conclusively clarified. There are also different recommendations as to how much iodine should be present in cat food, as Miriam from katzen-fieber has already summarized well. In addition, you should of course not forget that the iodine content is not just made up of the extra iodine added, but of this plus what is already contained in the food ingredients (e.g. seafood and seaweed are particularly rich in iodine).
Calcium-phosphorus ratio
While – naturally – owners of cats with thyroid diseases pay particular attention to the iodine content, the staff of cats who have already had to struggle with urinary crystals are often particularly concerned about the “correct” calcium-phosphorus ratio. However, as already explained in my article on struvite, there is also a lot of information about the “ideal” ratio and, last but not least, the pH value also plays an important role in whether urinary stone formation can even occur.
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