The quality of many foods is very similar, the difference is whether it is suitable for your cat owner, which can be inferred from the performance: for example, whether the stool is soft, whether the cat likes it or not, and which one is cheaper during the promotion! For example, “Which cat food is cheaper, but the nutrition is relatively balanced, which is conducive to the healthy development of my cat owner? “
First of all, a fact needs to be clarified: cat food is not an excellent food for cats, it exists only for the convenience of humans. The theory is: if economic conditions permit, the staple food cans and freeze-dried (soaked in water) are mainly used. If you have no money, you can also make homemade food.
In fact, it is not difficult to make homemade, Taobao search [Alnutrin silver powder], read the manual and add 5% internal organs, and then add this powder according to the proportion is OK, there are many related tutorials on the Internet, one search is a big one Bundle. Although homemade pays a lot of attention, even if you only use one kind of meat, it is much better than ordinary cat food (at least it avoids urinary system diseases caused by long-term water shortage! Especially the male cat family is strongly recommended!). If you want cat owners to get healthy ingredients, you can either spend time or money, you can’t have everything.
This article is mainly about cat food, so let’s first introduce the types of cat food to you:
1. Types of cat food
4D food: refers to cat food made from dead, sick, dying, and disabled raw materials, and cat food that eats these inferior raw materials Hazardous to pet health.
Commodity food: It refers to cat food made from animal carcasses and internal organs, which contains a lot of food attractants, so cats like to eat it, but its nutrition is far less than natural food.
Natural food: refers to cat food that does not contain animal carcasses, animal by-products and other materials, does not use food attractants, preservatives and other harmful substances, and the original food has not undergone chemical treatment. Synthetic agents, additives, BHA, BHT artificial colors and artificial flavors, but with the addition of chemically synthesized vitamins, minerals and trace elements.
Second, cat food recipes
The list of cat food recipes is arranged in order according to the weight of the ingredients .
The protein in the ingredient list after the ingredient list refers to animal protein/vegetable protein, and the fat refers to animal fat/vegetable fat.
In other words, it doesn’t mean that a grain with high protein means more meat. Maybe half of the protein in it is made up of vegetable protein.
Lower carbs the better! Carbohydrate Estimation: 100% minus water (usually 10%), protein, fat, fiber, and ash.
In general, the more detailed the source of the ingredients, the better.
For example, “turkey” is more specific than “poultry”, “chicken fat” is more specific than “animal fat”, and “brown rice” is more specific than “grain”. If the businessmen really used good ingredients, he would be afraid to write them down and let you know? If the ingredients he used included organic lamb, would he just write about lamb in general, you taste, you taste it.
About Meat Meal.
Meat meal is simply a smelting product.
The meat meal itself has been heated at a high temperature for a long time. When the meat meal is used in the production of cat food, it is equivalent to a long heating process of meat meal compared to fresh meat, protein deterioration and more waste. It is not conducive to the absorption of cats, and will also increase the burden on the stomach, liver and kidneys.
In other words: in a factory that makes cat food, meat meal is already meat meal when it enters the factory, and fresh meat is still a piece of meat when it enters the factory. So the important reason why meat meal is not as good as fresh meat is this.
So a big rule of thumb when choosing cat food is to choose a cat food brand you can trust. The meat meal they use is relatively pure, not all meat meal is like that.
High crude protein does not mean more meat, and it may be the overuse of plant protein.
The absorption rate of plant protein by domestic cats is much lower than that of animal protein, not only that, but the actual experience gives us a fact: Protein is often the culprit behind making cats soft.
Although carbohydrates are not good, they are not as likely to cause soft stools. That’s one of the big reasons why eating cravings tends to make loose stools and NOW doesn’t.
There are three main sources of plant protein, one is grains (mostly in grain-containing formulas); the other is legumes (mostly in grain-free formulas); the third is purified protein powder.
Grains: (rice, purple rice, red rice, barley, wheat, brown rice, oats, etc.), in fact, the protein of grains is not high, and the highest protein content is oats, which is only about 15%. The protein of meat meal is generally as high as 60~80%, so adding grains is a “thankful” type, not only can’t increase the crude protein value, but many people reject grains when they see them, but grains have the advantage of reducing costs. It is not as easy to cause soft stools as beans.
Beans: (peas, green beans, lentils, chickpeas, black beans, etc.). The protein content of dried beans varies from 15 to 35%. Beans are actually not cost-effective for ingredients, but they can make up part of the crude protein value and make the ingredient list look more beautiful, which is a common trick for many grain-free foods.
Purified protein powder: (pea protein, protein powder, protein concentrate, potato protein, casein, whey protein) this thing But it’s amazing… If you don’t understand, you can search for “protein powder” on Taobao yourself, and you will know what it is. Its protein content is almost above 70%, and even as high as 80%, if the parentheses The ingredients of these purified protein ingredients are very high in the ingredients list, so be careful.
Tapioca starch: (does not belong to the above categories, but is widely used) It has a very low protein content and is mainly used as a cheap filler for cat food.
Finally, summarize several key criteria for food selection:
1. Among the top-ranked raw materials, the more animal meat, the better, and the higher the ranking, the better .
2. Meat/whole meat/fresh meat> Meat meal (minced meat) > Meat with ambiguous expression.
3. The lower the proportion of grain and starch raw materials, the higher the quality of cat food. (Rice is the first cat food in the ingredient list, don’t buy it)
4. In the ingredient list, such as: peas Protein, protein powder, protein concentrate, potato protein, casein, whey protein and other purified protein powders are at the top, don’t buy!
5. If you don’t know how to choose cat food, then I recommend choosing some well-known and well-known brands, such as desire, icana, go, now, Baileys, Nutris, Blue Jue, Formo, etc., have fewer pits.
6. The problem of soft stools also varies from cat to cat:
The prices of common hypoallergenic food in popular food are recommended from high to low: peak jerky, Baileys high protein (note that The recent bug problem), Blue Jue kitten food, NOW (not potato food, don’t listen to the rumors of half-jar swaying) Jin Su, Anamat red bag. Meishi does not recommend it, because the sugar beet pulp will be dependent on it. Green Formo does not recommend it, too many fakes.
The price of hypoallergenic food in niche food is recommended from high to low: Jiahui (needs additional calcium), Grizzly Grizzly (not recommended as a staple food, suitable for families who do not feed much cat food) , Ross rawz, Owen bake grain-free chicken (formerly known as Ao Yunbao), purizon Dejin, Farmina N&D series (only this series is recommended), Spanish NG rabbit meat flavor, Spring, German Zunda.
Last Last:
Cat food is only a compromise between economic and time constraints, If possible, please give cats better food:
(in descending order of nutritional value) raw meat > homemade cat meal > full can feeding > staple food freeze-dried > natural cat food.
If there is no better economy, the choice of cat food should be as good as possible, and don’t spend a lot of money on medical treatment, which will torture the cat and the owner. Don’t lose the big because of the small.
