I have a 3-4 month old bobtail kitten who was rescued from a grocery store and then given to me by a friend about a month ago.  I’ve already taken him to the vet/gotten him used to used to using the litter box.

I am now turning my focus to his food.  I’ve been feeding him both canned and dry food, and I’m very happy with the canned food, but I think I could pick a better dry one.  My main concern is that I want something that’s healthful and doesn’t have a ton of preservatives and bad stuff.  I’ve been feeding him the Whiskas kitten food that my friend gave me when I got him, but now that the bag’s almost done I’d like to get something else.

Any recommendations?

I used to feel guilty that I couldn’t afford to buy my cats the more expensive brands of dry food, until the problems with contaminants in pet food happened a year or two ago.  Whiskas, my main dry food at the time, had no problems with contamination, which was a huge relief. 

Purina One is my other regular brand, for the last two months. I have always kept at least two, usually three, brands of dry food out for my cats to choose from. That way, if the store is out of one kind, I don’t have to run all over town to find it, or risk upset tummies from a sudden change in food.

I read the ingredient labels frequently to make sure I know what my cats are eating, and to keep an eye on any changes. Whiskas used to be distributed by Kal-Kan, but sometime in the last year or so, this has changed to Mars, Inc. Experience tells me the formula will probably change, and not for the better. (Anyone remember good ‘ol Friskies, before Purina bought the brand?)

I rotate the third dry food between PetSmart’s store brands and “better” brands on sale at the grocery store. Lately, I notice a trend toward “natural” and “wholesome” dry foods. The only real change I can see so far is that they’re leaving the dye out.

One more thing I like about Whiskas: I’ve noticed the individual pieces of kibble are larger in size than most of the other dry foods on the market, so it requires more chewing. This may help with dental hygeine and tartar control. My fifteen year old cat has been eating Whiskas for most of his adult life. Last year, even though he was long overdue for a dental exam, the vet remarked that his teeth had very little tartar and no decay. 

That’s my two cents worth, anyway!

Oh, btw, preservatives aren’t always bad. One preservative is used as an anti-aging nutrient for humans. BHT, I think.  There was a good article on how to read an ingredient label in a cat health newsletter I used to get. You might try Googling “how to read cat food ingredient label” (or something more concise… sorry, I’m tired and not able to say what I want with precision.)

Most veterinarians now recommend that dry food not be a primary source of nutrition for cats and I actually recommend that my clients feed only very small amounts of dry food (on the order of 1/8 cup/day per cat), with the majority of the diet consisting of a poultry or rabbit-based canned food.  If you check the Vet Chat archives, you’ll find a column I wrote that addresses cat nutrition.

Dry food per se doesn’t stop the formation of tartar.  It was a common misconception that dry food was somehow better for dental health.  As descendents of desert dwellers, cats are designed to get their moisture from their food and they are not designed to eat the carbohydrate-heavy foods that are what most dry foods are.  I recommend that cats be fed a diet that is less than seven percent carbohydrate.  The lowest carb dry food (Evo by Naturapet) is about 8 percent carbohydrate.  The reason for the seven percent recommendation is that the common prey species of cats are all less than seven percent carbohydrates, when analyzed.

There is an excellent website “Janet and Binky’s List” that lists the carbohydrate, protein, fat and calorie contents of canned and dry foods.  To get you started : http://www.geocities/com/jmpeerson/canfood.html

I have five cats at home and each kitty gets three ounces of canned food twice daily. Those five cats share 1/4 cup of Evo that lasts about three days.

Cats who are dry food junkies are “carbo loading,” so generally are heavier than normal and they tend to eat constantly.  An excellent website for helping with the transition from dry food to canned food is http://www.catinfo.org

Michele Gaspar, DVM, DABVP (Feline)