New kitty food vs old fat cat food?

I’m glad you’re looking into feeding a species appropriate diet of wet food. Though I must admit I don't understand why you are starting a kitten on a prescription food right off the bat. Not to mention... every precription food on the market is unhealthy and made with fillers that are not good for your cat.

I highly recommend removing all dry food and feeding all 3 of your cats, adult and kitten a species appropriate diet of wet canned or raw food only. Remove all dry from the home. As for kitten food vs. Adult food... there really is no such thing in wet foods. Kittens just need more protien than adult cats because they burn so many calories while growing. And if you check the labels you will see that kitten food and "regular adult" food have about the same amount of protien in them. They just liketo label things with "kitten" so they can charge more. :o(

So you can feed your kitten and adults the same wet food... just offer your kitten more of it more often.

It is also true that many many brands of manufactured cat foods claiming to be "healthy" really are not. In fact they are made of the lowest ingredients possible.

I'm not saying that a cat can't live off them... just the same as you could live off hot dogs forever, but better choices can and should be made.

I would not venture to say that any manufactured food is "best" for a cat but a grain free organic food would be good. And canned is certainly better than Dry in all cases.

I personally feed a Raw Meat and Bones based diet to my cats and they are very healthy on it. I HIGHLY recommend it. Once I got the hang of it and felt comfortable with it it's a snap to prepare. It's something you might want to consider someday. They are obligate carnivores after all and must derive ALL their nutrients from meat based sources. They are unable to absorb them from any other source. Despite thousands of years of domestication they remain strictly carnivorous. True and honest meat eaters and that is what they need most. Protein from meat!

If raw is not an option for you be aware that there are three Categories of Pet Foods:

-"Grocery store" foods – (Generic Brands and cheap name brands) Those foods found in grocery stores and mass-market retailers are made with lower-quality, less-digestible, inexpensive ingredients and are therefore a cheaper alternative. While easy on the pocketbook, "grocery store" foods normally do not provide your cat with the healthiest, most nutrient-dense ingredients.

-Premium foods – (Iams/Eukanuba, Purina One, Hills Science Diet, Nutro and such) Foods often found in grocery stores, pet stores, and veterinarian offices that contain higher-grade ingredients, but still include many elements of "grocery store" food, such as artificial colors, artificial flavors, chemical preservatives, and "filler" ingredients such as corn and wheat products, by-products and even animal digest. Yuck! Premium foods are usually more expensive than "grocery store" foods because their ingredients are sometimes of a higher quality, and are therefore somewhat more beneficial and digestible. But don’t be fooled, some of those same so called Premium brands are sometimes worse than grocery store foods, but they charge prices like they are better. They aren’t!

-Healthy foods – (Wellness, Eagle Pack, Drs Foster and Smith) The newest addition to the pet food market - provide pets with the highest quality, healthiest, and most nutritious ingredients. They are typically available for purchase online or direct from the manufacturer. Some better retailers are starting to carry them now. Complete Petmart carries a few healthy brand foods. Foods in the Healthy class - contain nutrient-rich ingredients. Formulated to provide optimum health benefits for pets, these foods often use real meat as the primary protein source, carbohydrate-rich whole grains like brown rice and barley and whole, fresh fruits and vegetables. They should not contain artificial preservatives, flavors, or colors. They will almost always be fortified with additional vitamins and minerals, and will use the best natural sources for fatty acids to help build healthy skin and a beautiful coat. Because healthy foods use high quality ingredients, you should expect to pay a little more than you would for other types of pet food. Remember, though, with healthy foods you can feed less since healthy foods are more nutrient-dense than other types of food so it often evens out or cost’s les than feeding foods filled with cheap non-nutritional by-products fillers.

With all that information in mind, when you are choosing a new cat food, study the ingredients. All ingredients on pet food labels are listed by weight. Meaning whatever ingredients are listed first on the list, there is more in there. The first ingredients listed should be whole meat ingredients, protein sources, such as Chicken or Turkey. NOT just the word “meat”! Who the heck knows what that is? The word Chicken Meal is ok, but it should be a secondary ingredient, not first. Meal is the meat dehydrated and ground into a powder.

The ingredients also should NOT include any by-products or animal digest whatsoever. Those are disgusting left over animal parts that are scraped off the filthy floors of meat and poultry plants. They should just go into the trash but they put them into pet food instead. EW!!!!

Also make sure there are no artificial colors or flavors. And make sure there is no BHA and BHT used preservatives. These preservatives have been shown to cause cancer in both cats and dogs. Bad Bad stuff and it’s in almost every cat treat on the market. :(

So, in summery of the ingredients… if you see the words by-products, Animal Digest, the word “meat” alone, Corn, Corn Gluten, Wheat Gluten, or BHA or BHT… stop reading, put down that product and move on to the next.

Be aware that when switching to a Healthy, Holistic or Organic food, you will pay for what you get. Good foods are not cheap. They are pricey and will cost you on a per bag basis much more. Just like steak costs more than hotdogs. But again, you will be feeding a better food and improving the over all health of your pet. Which in turn leads to less vet visits for illness now and more importantly later in life in their Geriatric years. You will also feed less of this food on a per animal basis because a smaller amount of food contains what your cat needs. Overall healthy foods are well worth it, if only for the piece of mind that the ingredients are better for your cat than cheap crap.

You can start your search here if you are not ready to try feeding a Raw diet:

http://www.onlynaturalpet.com/

If you want to buy in a store, Complete Petmart is a good store and carries quite a few natural, organic, and holistic blends. Also check with your local feed stores. Old Mother Hubbard Wellness Brand is a great holistic food I feed. As is Eagle Pack Dry Cat food. Merrick canned is also a great source of nutrition and they will be coming out with a dry line this summer.

I highly recommend people take the time to research for themselves, but the information I have given should get you off to a good start. Good luck choosing a new food for your cats!

********IMPORTANT*******Don’t forget to switch your Pets food slowly over a period of 10 to 14 days, if you can. Mixing 25% new to 75% old. Then 50/50… then 75% new to 25% old. And finally switch over to 100% new. Take it slow as not to upset their digestive system.

Side note… Please don’t feed Iams / Eukanuba. It’s ALL fillers, byproducts, animal digest and CRAP. Read the ingredients! There is nothing good for your cat in that food. Not to mention they conduct the most appalling animal testing you have ever seen. http://www.iamscruelty.com/ to see the terror they create.

Foods I can recommend based on personal experience -

Drs. F&S Food Link - http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/NavResults.c...

Wellness Food Link - http://www.oldmotherhubbard.com/wellness/cat_index...

Eagle Pack Holistic Select - http://www.eaglepack.com/Pages/HS_Home.html

Merrick Foods: http://www.merrickpetcare.com/

You can find more great food options at http://www.onlynaturalpet.com/

****DO NOT FEED IAMS!**** http://www.iamscruelty.com/

How about feeding them all apropiate food??? The reason you need diet food is cause you have been feeding dry foods aka kitty crack. The diet food doesn't work anayway as it is like feeding a diet potato chip instead of regular potato chips. The cats have to eat more cause they aren't getting enough of what their bodies need. You can leave canned down all day. Please read and check out the links at the bottom

Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health

Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.

Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingrdiant a muscle meat like chicken or meal or other things?

http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Read_a_Pet_Fo...

Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms

The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process them. Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in

Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.

You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bpo_ch4a.php

Please read about cat nutrition.

http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics.html

http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.htm

http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm#Dry_Food...

ok you have some half truths here wet food - if it says CHICKEN MEAL or LAMB MEAL or specifies what kind of dead animal it uses you know there are not cats and dogs - however it can be animals that were euthanized (eg a lamb that was euthanized because of a broken leg) the only way you can be sure is if it says HUMAN GRADE MEAT..... the Mystery ingredient you are wanting to avoid is "MEAT MEAL" or "MEAT BY-PRODUCTS" the word "meat" can mean any animal that they rendered that day, although most pet foods do not use rendered cat or dog - you cannot be too careful - this can be in DRY or CANNED (wet) cats CAN digest corn BUT its low digestabilty and since cats are TRUE carnivours it is not a good protein source for cats... corn IS NOT the main ingredient in all dry foods BUT it is the main ingredient in all crappy foods liek those sold in grocery store or wal marts - if you go to a pet food supply store and read the ingredient lists on the better foods you will be impressed - yes they cost more BUT because of higher digestability your cat will eat less -poop less and have fewer food related health problems later in life table food does not have the proper balance of minerals needed by cats that the premium level food do have....(if any table food - chicken and rice are best) milk is a no-no and so is fish - cats are lactose intollerant AND calcium contributes to urinary tract problems kittens can benefit from SMALL amounts of canned a day, at 6 months you can feed canned once or twice a day but NEVER as much as the can suggests - each feeding should only be 1 teaspoon of canned - you can help improve urinary tract health by adding 2 teaspoons of water to this to increase water intake for your kitty feeding too much canned will ruin their teeth - they need some dry to scrape their teeth clean and should have access to dry food round the clock (cats tummies digest better if they eat small amounts several times a day)

Go to a local per food supply and ask if there is a dry food to sustain all your needs.

If I were you, I'd leave the Diet food in place, and substitute the essental fats for the kitten by feeding him raw chicken mince and a high protein / high fat dry food. do this in a seperate room. Egg yolk is also good for the kitty every so often.

Hope it helps.

Fruits are the immediate way to obtain vitamins, proteins, and electrolytes, so over body may easily absorb them. Found in the case of plant some of the straight eatable but some need to cooked well for enhance their taste.

Fruits have seeds; "vegetable" is a non-scientific word for expanded edibles

its true left overs are better

but, ur just going 2 have 2 feed them at the same time, watching them then taking the food away.,

This will help your cats loose weight as it wont there all the time

all you have to do is train your cats to not eat the kitten food and train your kitten to not eat the diet food

they are both crap give you cats left overs if you want them to be super healty and strong