What's the best diet for a cat?

I feed blue spa lite to my cats they like their dry food.

You have been brought up in a wonderful household and it is absolutely wonderful to know your cats have been eating wet, tinned cat food. The current advice on what to feed remains the same. Wet, tinned cat food is the best for your cats.

Normally, people get on the defensive when it comes to what is the best food to feed their cat. Some swear by a certain brand, and some will only feed dry or wet. In short, there are two camps when it comes to feeding. The dry food camp and the wet food camp. You will see a lot of arguments and debate between both camps here, as witnessed by the answers you are getting. Also, another new camp is emerging and fast growing and they are the RAW food movement and sometimes you will also hear what is called a BARF feeding, Bone and Raw Food diet or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food diet.

What you need to do is to do your research and weigh each camp's argument as to which one you are more comfortable with and what makes the most sense. You need to understand what motivates the pet food industry, (profit!), and what motivates pet parents to buy their product (price/cost, advertisement, vet advice, self research, cat's health while being on the product, etc)

When you are well informed, you will ultimately make the right decision on what is best. So, do a lot of reading and in depth research. It's really not easy feeding our pets now. If you are unaware of the March 2007 Huge Pet Recall in the US, I would suggest you look into it. You will never see pet food the same way again.

The contributors above have already pointed out many valid reasons why not to feed dry food. Do visit the links given and read about them.

For now, just do what you have been doing since you were little, keep on the good tradition of feeding your cat wet, tinned food. And good luck with your new cat.

Good for you. Having had a cat get diabetes from eating dry foods and having adopted diabetics and having them go into remossion when taken off of ther kitty crack, I have become a nutrtion nag! There is no reason to ever feed dry foods

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 ingredient a muscle meat like chicken or is it meal or other things? Learn what meal and other things mean here.

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

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 of food allergies probably from the grains. Constipation? Dry food, not enough moisture. Blockages? Again not enough moisture in the food and you are risking something serious. People on this board say feed fiber but this is a cat not a dog and cats are obligate carnivores unlike dogs an they don't eat cereal and don't need fiber.

The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food (Cats are not naturally big drinkers) 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 all or grains at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food as it uses a muscle meat as the first ingrediant. 9lives, friskies whiskas are lower grade canned but still better then dry and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.

Many foods are not mentioned here but if you read the labels you wiull know if it is qualaty. The price offers no guideline.

The optimum food to feed cats has no grains whatsoever, cats have no use for them and many have trouble processing them as well as the carbs. IBD is another disease that is rapidly becoming common amoung cats because of the inappropriate diets being fed.

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? Why do people constantly repeat this old wives tale and put teeth over the organs like the kidneys?? (I have no clue) http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...

Please read about cat nutrition.

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

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

http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.ht...

Cats are carnivores, and as such do not need the fillers/carbohydrates found in dry food. Dry food is wonderfully convenient but many cats do pay a price. Yes, some cats do live long lives on dry, but there is a huge risk. Why not feed healthier foods? See the links already given to you, and look for a canned food that doesn't have fillers like wheat, corn, rice or soy.

A dry food only diet is actually very bad. Most dry foods are high in carbohydrates and they don't contain the moisture cats need for vital organ function. And contrary to what some believe - and what some foods claim - dry food does NOT "clean the teeth".

Another thing to remember is you really shouldn't "free feed" your cat. Cats, like humans, can eat out of boredom so food should just be given to adult cats twice a day - not left out all day to graze upon.

Important to is to choose a food with MEAT as the main ingredient - not corn. A general rule is if you can find it at your grocery store or WalMart it is NOT something you should be giving your cat. Yes, premium foods are more expensive but since they're nutrient-dense the cat will eat less of it and be satisfied. And the cat's body utilizes more of the ingredients in foods with less fillers so you end up with less poop. Less poop, less scooping, less litter box changes - so you're using less litter. Add to that the fact that the healthier you feed you cat the less likely it will become obese and develop related illnesses - diabetes, heart disease, etc. So how are you really "saving money" feeding it garbage?

A big trend nowadays is feeding raw diets to pets. You can do so by preparing your own food (see below) or trying one of the commercially prepared raw diets. Part of my cats' diet is Nature's Variety Organic Chicken raw diet that comes in a bag of frozen medallions. Considering how good it is for them it's surprisingly afforable - really costing no more than canned food.

Dry food, with wet food only as an occasional treat. Dry food is specially formulated to have all of the nutrients a cat needs. They can eat it exclusively for life, that's how good it is.

i got a cat i mine has wet and and dry together but i dont give her any treats

one best suggestion is that u go to the vet and ask about it as here u would get diffeent answers like dryfood, wet food etc..

if u go to a vet he/she will give advice of which food is better and which is not.

he/she will answer this better than me.

^ ^

just tell ur cat, "sorry, no fish today"