The thing with cat food

Note at the beginning: The content of this blog post applies equally to cats and tomcats. For the sake of simplicity, we use the term cat here.

here is no other topic that is so often discussed, revisited or criticised (especially on social media) as cat food. The huge selection and the jungle of labelling do not make it easy for us as cat owners to find the right food for our fluffy four-legged friends. And then, of course, there are a number of myths and rumours about cat food that persist among cat owners. We at stylecats have sought help from our community on this huge topic of cat food, read for yourself:

I am Marie, I run the Instagram account "nordflausch" together with my two fluffy Norwegian Forest cat girls Frigg and Freya and my cheeky Maine Coon cat Loki and was faced with the question myself: How can I support my cats in their diet in the best possible way and thus give them a long and healthy life?

After my Freya was struggling with persistent diarrhoea and vomiting, it turned out after many visits to the vet and examinations that she was suffering from a food intolerance. Through a so-called exclusion diet, we were also able to find out the culprits: Chicken and beef! And I'll tell you one thing: I hadn't realised before that cats can develop food intolerances or allergies, but Freya and I had to learn for better or worse. And what does the worried cat mum of today do? She signs up for training as a cat nutritionist to help her navigate this jungle of cat food options.

But please don't worry: you don't have to train as a cat nutritionist to learn the principles of healthy cat food that is suitable for your cat's diet.

food bowl can be seen. I'll explain them to you now! :)

Dry food, wet food or BARF?

This brings us to one of the most controversial topics right at the beginning and I have to tell you quite clearly: at my house, the main food for my cats is wet food. There is a simple reason for this: it comes closest to the original food our cats eat in the wild, without having to go to so much trouble to get and give food and without needing the extensive background knowledge required for BARF.

I can understand when cat owners use the simplicity of feeding dry food as an argument here. However, we should not rest on our laurels when it comes to the health of our animals. Because one thing is clear: the money and time that we may save by feeding dry food can be invested later in visits to the vet and if we realise this, prevention is always better than cure.

The first argument against feeding dry food is always that cats can develop health problems because the dry food contains far too little moisture and our cats can't drink as much as they need to in order to cover their daily fluid requirements. That's right! For every 1 kg of cat weight, we can reckon with a fluid requirement of approx. 30 - 50 ml. A classic domestic cat weighing 4 kg therefore needs between 120 - 200 ml of liquid. If we look at the composition of dry food, we can often read a moisture content of around 10 % from the declaration. This means that only 10 % of the cat's fluid requirement is covered by the food (12 - 20 ml). The rest (108 - 180 ml) must be drunk by the cat itself and this is not in its nature, which is why it naturally does not do so. The result is overloaded kidneys and renal insufficiency, which is still one of the most common causes of death in older cats.

In addition, the ingredients of the dry food are denatured during the manufacturing process, meaning that a considerable proportion of the nutrients are lost. To compensate for this, the manufacturer adds artificial nutritional supplements. In purely mathematical terms, this food is then able to cover a cat's nutritional requirements, but not to optimally support its body. And I also have to deny the persistent myth that dry food cleans our cats' teeth when they chew it. Due to the hard consistency of dry food, the dry food disintegrates after one or two chews and can then simply be swallowed by the cat. Many cats like to swallow the dry food without having chewed at all. So there is no trace of tooth brushing. Quite the opposite: the starch content in the dry food covers the cat's teeth like a film and forms an ideal breeding ground for all bacteria. In combination with saliva, this starch film hardens and can lead to tartar. Finally, it should be noted that a diet heavy in carbohydrates affects the entire organism of our cats. Starting with the composition of saliva and gastric juice as the first line of defence against all bacteria and viruses that enter the body orally, to the pancreas, liver and excretory organs such as the kidneys.

So what is my conclusion to the above question: If you have the possibility and the know-how for BARF (biologically species-appropriate raw feeding), then this is the most species-appropriate way to feed your cat. If you don't have this, then high-quality (!) wet food is the best way to optimally cover your cat's nutritional requirements. I would definitely avoid dry food as the main source of nutrition.

The declaration on the feed packaging

If we take a closer look at the back of cans of wet food or dry food packaging, we find a list of terms and percentages that make our heads spin. And the food industry doesn't make it easy for us here either. Only the following information is required by law to appear on feed packaging:

1. type of feed: single, complete or complementary feed
2. ingredients in tabular form with raw analysis data
3. indication of additives subject to labelling (e.g. synthetically produced vitamins)
4. production date and shelf life
5. net weight
6. recommended quantity for feeding
7. data of the manufacturer

That sounds pretty detailed at first, doesn't it? You're basically right, but manufacturers still have a lot of room for manoeuvre, as there are so-called open and closed declarations. A closed declaration basically tells you the ingredients, but leaves open what exactly is behind them. Here is a closed declaration:

Example 1:

Meat and animal by-products (of which 5 % beef), fish and fish by-products, minerals, sugar

As a counter-example, an open declaration follows:

Example 2:

Beef* 70 % (consisting of muscle meat, heart, stomach, liver and neck), drinking water 25.5 %, cranberries 2 %, dandelion 1 %, minerals 1 %, safflower oil 0.5 % *Beef proportions: muscle meat & heart together approx. 50 % (of which 2/3 meat and 1/3 heart), offal together approx. 50 % (1/3 each stomach, liver and neck)

The difference quickly becomes clear: in the first example we also know that meat is in the food and as it is in the first place, it will also make up the main percentage of the food, but the declaration only gives us 5% exactly. But what exactly is the remaining 95%? Personally, I would like to know, especially if I am faced with a cat with allergies and intolerances. The information in example 1 could of course contain significantly more meat than just 5%, but we can't tell.

Critical voices will now claim: Yes, but if we can't know, why is a closed declaration mocked as bad cat food? There could also be very good ingredients behind it! Well, the answer is obvious: in the food industry, it is an unwritten law to show what great ingredients are in the product on offer. This is a good way to advertise and customers like to see it, because everyone wants to feed themselves and their pets as healthily as possible. And if the product doesn't have much to offer? Then the manufacturer packages the content in the best possible way so that consumers at least believe that the content is good. If you have nothing to hide, you can clearly declare 100% of the ingredients openly. If you want to hide something, you take the path of least resistance.

Interpreting the ingredients

Important information, which can be found on every feed packaging, are the so-called "analytical ingredients" listed as a percentage. This involves the following data:

_Raw protein
_Crude fat
_Crude fibre
_Raw ash
_Moisture Together, these figures should add up to 100 %. The crude protein content indicates how much protein is contained in the feed, without making a distinction between animal and vegetable proteins. The value should be around 10 %.

The crude fat value is the fat content in the feed. Here too, no distinction is made between animal and vegetable fats. A sufficient fat content is very important, which is why it should ideally be 8 - 10 %.

The crude fibre value indicates how much indigestible substances are in the feed. The value should be less than 1 % for dry food and less than 0.2 % for wet food.

The crude ash value is the most difficult value for many pet owners to understand. Of course, there is no ash in animal feed. The value indicates how much substance remains in the feed when it is incinerated at 500 degrees and should be less than 2 %. A higher value indicates contamination or over-mineralisation of the feed.

Finally, a high-quality wet food may contain up to 80 % moisture. As described above, our cats are not physiologically designed to drink from external sources of fluid, but want to cover most of their fluid requirements through their food. If we feed our cat a wet food with a moisture content of 80 %, 80 % of the cat's fluid requirement is already covered by the food alone. A 4 kg cat therefore only needs to drink approx. 24 - 40 ml more.

However, not only the analysis data, but also the declaration of the composition provides many indications of the feed quality. As described, a distinction is made between open and closed declarations. In addition, a high meat content in cat food is the be-all and end-all of what we should pay attention to. The term "meat and animal by-products" should always be viewed with caution and, if in doubt, we should refrain from buying food with such a declaration. Although we find category 3 slaughter products under this term, which are generally suitable for human consumption and for the production of animal feed, we also find slaughter by-products that are suitable for human consumption but are not as popular as udders and rumen. This term also includes animal by-products such as bones, feathers and horn, which would be unimaginable for human consumption. It therefore quickly becomes clear: openness in the declaration creates clarity and always indicates a higher quality feed.

After all this struggle through feed declarations and their meanings, your head can quickly start to spin. I am aware that we all support our animals in the best possible way and many incorrect feeds are simply the result of confusing information from manufacturers, old myths that persist or, unfortunately, uninformed advice from outside. Finally, it should be noted that veterinarians are general practitioners and, as with us humans, there is a reason why there are specialists who specialise in one area.