Dry Vs. Wet food...is one really superior?

Dry food does NOT clean their teeth. Eat a mouthful of pretzels then tell me how clean your teeth feel., Get it?

Vets are rarely trained in feline nutrition. Ask them. They'll tell you. My vet (been going there for 30 years) has been always engaging in ongoing training options, and when I told him I was making my own cat food, he asked for the recipe. I gave it to him, hoping for some advice as to anything I might have been missing, and he now is giving out my exact recipe to other clients who want to make their own cat food.

Dry cat food is inherently wrong because most of it is grain-laden crunchy crap for an animal who is an obligate carnivore, which means they MUST eat meat. Cats need a high protein, low carb diet. They are designed to eat other animals, not crunchy grain bits. I've seen dry food where the first ingredient is CORN!

There are a lot of wheat-free dry foods these days, but a canned food with nothing except animal parts, water/broth, and vitamins/supplements is obviously the healthiest thing to feed your cat.

As a foster kitten training tool I do use some grain free dry (like 4-5 pieces a day per kitten) to keep them off counters, from eating plants, etc. You know, basic stuff their future owners will be thrilled that they are trained to not do!

Edit: Here's my currently, ever evolving recipe (I do cooked, not raw):

3 lbs of chicken thighs, after cooking and de-boning

1 cup homemade chicken broth (no added salt) I make it from the bones of the previous batch of chicken thighs

2 hardboiled eggs

2000 mg wild salmon oil

400 IU (268 mg) Vitamin E

50 mg Vitamin B-complex

3/4 cup bonemeal

2,000 mg taurine

3/4 tsp Morton Lite Salt with iodine

4 ounces of liver

Cook meat, remove the bones, then grind all ingredients together at least twice

The cats hoover it up like it's gold!

But..we've figured that it takes about 12 man hours to make 25 pounds of cat food, plus the cost of chicken and supplements/vitamins. That translates to about $20/pound, based on the average of what we bill for our time. So...feeding a high quality, grain-free canned is what we will be doing from now on...

The best (non-raw) diet for cats is a high quality grain free canned food.

Dry foods are harsh on a cat's kidneys. The cheap ones contain a LOT of fillers, and even the quality ones have to use carbs of some sort as a binder to make it stay in kibbles. When cats eat large amounts of dry food, it sucks moisture out of their system to wet the kibble down and digest it. Since many cats don't like drinking water, this leaves them in a state of perpetual dehydration, which damages the kidneys and bladder. Dry food does NOT clean a cat's teeth. It's not hard enough. All it does is crumble up and get stuck between their teeth, causing plaque. Even the very best brands of dry kibble really are not that good for cats.

That being said, low quality canned foods are also a bad thing. They contain fillers, sugars, and other crap that can cause runny smelly poop and bad teeth.

A quality, grain-free canned food provides the best commercial diet you can get. It contains the moisture they need, to protect their kidneys. It does not have artificial sugars, so it won't hurt their teeth. And it contains optimal nutrition. Also, canned ingredients are less processed than dry food ingredients, so they can get more out of it.

All that being said, the best diet for any carnivore is what it was meant to eat- raw meat.

Folks, It is not just food that is causing cats to develop serious medical problems. Do some reading on the vaccinations. They are not necessary on an annual basis especially if your cat is strictly indoors. I will not get into a debate on this or the wet food vs. dry food issue. In my case I can't afford to feed my cat the expensive food. Please do not hit me with the question of why did I get a cat in the first place if I knew I couldn't afford to take care of him. Well, what would you do if a cat showed up at your door starving? I do my best to provide him a balanced diet I can afford. Yes, you can feed them both wet and dry foods. Yes, you should find a food that is affordable for your budget that does list the first ingredient as either fish, chicken, or beef. And the person who said drinking is a learned behavior and not natural doesn't know what they are talking about. Cats along with any other animal will drink water since it's basic to physiology of any organism. I agree they do get a lot of their water by consuming prey in the natural environment. House cats are neither indigenous nor are they natural. House cats were bred for that purpose from either a European or African wild cat. The concept is similar to dogs where most if not all dogs have the wolf species as distant ancestors. Another pet peeve are those cat fanatics that think they have all the answers and will judge those that do not or cannot afford to buy the very best for their pet. Please don't throw your opinion at us without considering the fact that all people have different circumstances in their lives. It is not for you to judge. And, by the way, those expensive toys you buy for your cat, they could care less how cute or colorful it is. Have you ever heard of marketing. Pets Marts are big business and do you really think they give a s@#t about the welfare of your cat. What they care about is the profit they can make on a colorful toy they sell for $5 as opposed to rolling up a piece of plain old paper and throwing it for him to retrieve and play with. Those colorful toys are only their to stimulate the human. I could go on and on but you surely have more important things to do than read my opinion. LOL, I do thank you for your time to read it and get this far. Have a wonderful day and give me a thumbs up for the effort.

I'm not "dead set" against dry food. The ideal diet is a little dry and canned each day and raw a few times a week. All dry diets can lead to more liver/kidney problems and UTI's in male cats. Dry food does NOT keep the teeth clean any more then you eating dry pretzels.

As long as you are feeding quality food and not the cheap junk foods (dry or canned) your cat will be fine eating some of both kinds daily.

Wet food is most similar to a cat's natural diet and best suited to its physiological needs. To maintain adequate hydration a cat, like any animal, needs to consume enough fluid. That is one of the big problems with dry food.

Cats by nature have very little natural urge to drink because they are supposed to get their fluid from their prey. When you feed the cat a dry diet instead of a wet diet the cat does not compensate by drinking enough water to compensate for the fluid deficit. So the cat is always in a mild state of dehydration.

Because the urine is therefore more concentrated their is much more chance for the cat to develop stones or excess crystals. And these can kill a cat by causing urinary tract blockages.

Another problem with dry foods is that in order to make the kibble at least some carbohydrate food must be present to make it stick together. And carbohydrates have none but an extremely minimal place in a cat's diet. Cats are obligate carnivores and their natural diet contains under 5% carbohydrate which they ingest from the stomachs of their prey or from eating the occasional grass.

And almost all dry cat foods are loaded with carbohydrates not only because of the kibble-formation issue but because they are cheap. Most dry commercial cat food is made from the cheapest stuff the manufacturer can get away with. Mostly waste from the corn industry.

Dry food does not clean a cat's teeth. Cats don't even chew the way we do and even if they did do you think eating that stuff would clean your teeth?

I feed my own cats premium grain-free canned cat food and a home made raw diet.

Here are some articles for you to read so that you can draw your own conclusions:

http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm

http://www.catinfo.org/

http://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition/the-carnivor...

http://www.bornfreeusa.org/facts.php?more=1&p=359

kidney and bladder stones are supposed to happen much quicker when feeding lots of dry food, and those diseases are very common in cats. also i am fairly sure dry food supports obesity in cats.

i live in a place where there is no commercial cat food available so i have to cook it myself and my cats love to eat it and are healthy, on top they eat what they catch outside which is probably is the healthiest for them. evreryone once in a while we do get dry cat food from somewhere, and i observe that my cats are so crazy for it, there must be some sort of addictive additives in it.

and even if i feed them only small amounts of it they seem to physically blow up in those times, not gassy, they just look fat compared to what they usually look like, my cats are not too skinny, the contrary, they already look fat to neighbors here because people don't treat their cats the same way here in south east asia as they do in europe or the us.

i don't have any problem with fat cats just as i don't have a problem with fat people but i'll accept that it may well be unhealthy.

That's funny people are against dry food. My cat won't eat wet (of any type, brand, or price-point). When I asked her vet about it the vet said that dry is better for the cat's teeth and without wet my cat is less likely to become overweight.

I stopped worrying about it after that and just put the dry out for my cat, who is happy with this arrangement.

Dry food causes a lot of health problems like obesity, crystals and kidney problems. Cats need grain free canned or raw. This is why

http://www.catinfo.org/

That website also tell you how to switch kibble addicted cats to canned.

Kibble does not clean their teeth. It sticks to their teeth. Saying it cleans their teeth is like saying if I eat pretzels they will clean my teeth.

Vets are not nutritionists just like how doctors are not.

I have three cats and they like both of them, so I mix both the wet and dry food together and they seem to love it. It is a great balance.

I prefer dry food because wet tends to make cats poop runnier. Also wet food is more expensive and I don't see anything wrong with the dry. But I do think the brand matters, you can't just buy any cheap food from Walmart. I only feed my cat Blue Buffalo.