Wet food is also lower in calories, so some vets may recommend it if your cat is struggling to maintain a healthy weight. Other vets disagree, arguing that dry food encourages cats to drink more water and that there’s little scientific evidence to promote the link between wet food and healthier kidneys. Because cats naturally drink little water, some vets prefer wet food since its higher moisture content keeps cats hydrated, which may help prevent kidney disease. Before choosing one form over the other, ask your vet what they recommend for your cat’s particular needs. Wet food or dry food: The two main forms of cat food are wet and dry. “Anxieties about grains, and carbohydrates generally, in cat foods are not based on real science and should not be the basis for selection of a cat food.” “Grain-free foods can be nutritionally excellent or terrible, and the presence or absence of grains themselves says nothing about the health impact of the diet,” says McKenzie. You may also notice that some cat foods are labeled “grain free,” but vets are wary of this marketing term as it doesn’t tell you much about food’s actual nutrition. But it’s best to ask your vet if they recommend a specific composition for your cat’s needs. Jennifer Berg, founder of Tribeca Veterinary Wellness, says “more protein than fat, and then very little of any kind of carbohydrate is what we feel is probably ideal.” Jennifer Coates, a veterinary expert at the online pet-supplies retailer Chewy, agrees that cats need more protein than many other species and stresses that the protein “should be sourced from animals.” And veterinarian Lisa Pierson has compiled a thorough, publicly available Google spreadsheet of the nutrient profile for hundreds of cat-food flavors if you’d like to see an individual formulas’ nutritional breakdown. However, some vets are more specific in their recommendations. “There is a range within which cats can thrive, and individual cats all have slightly different needs,” he says, adding that “nearly all commercial diets fall within these ranges.” For the most part, McKenzie says that’s okay since all food that meets AAFCO standards will provide a sufficient amount of all macronutrients. Nutritional breakdown: Unlike with human food, you generally won’t find a nutrition label on your cat’s food breaking down the specific quantities of carbohydrates, fat, and protein it contains. All pet food should have a nutritional-adequacy statement from the Association of American Feed Control Officials noting whether it meets the standards for growth (good for kittens), adult maintenance (for maintaining a healthy weight), or all life stages (any age). Cline, a certified veterinary nutritionist at Red Bank Veterinary Hospital in New Jersey. Life stage: “The most important part when you’re buying food for your pet is looking for the nutritional-adequacy statement and making sure it’s for the appropriate life stage for your pet,” says Martha G.
Read on for the criteria we considered, or click on any of the links below to jump straight to our top cat food picks.īest overall | Best meat-in-gravy | Best (less expensive) meat-in-gravy | Best shredded | Best for sensitive stomachs | Best for purebred cats | Best human-grade | Best raw | Best for senior cats | Best for kittens | Best (less expensive) for kittens
As explained in the criteria below, some of the determining factors will depend on your cat’s specific needs (often determined by their age), while others are more subjective (as cat owners know, picky felines often have their own unexplainable preferences). “Compared to the haphazard diet of whatever prey and scavenged dead things that feral cats can find, our pets have an excellent source of nutrition in conventional commercial cat foods.”īut even with that comforting guidance, there are still hundreds of cat food formulas to choose from, so I asked McKenzie and 11 other experts to guide me through the different options and explain why a cat owner might choose one brand or type of food over another. If you’re like me - overwhelmed by the options out there from grain-free and raw to human-grade and freeze-dried - veterinarian Brennen McKenzie, who blogs about science-based pet care at the SkeptVet, may help put your mind at ease: “The reality is that there is no one ‘right’ food, and most cats can thrive on a broad variety of available diets,” he says. Choosing the right food is a major part of that equation, and wading through a sea of marketing claims can make it a surprisingly difficult task.
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As the owner of a 10-year-old cat, I’m constantly thinking about how to keep her happy and healthy.
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