Cost
When you think of feeding your cat, you want the best food for her, but the very best food can be expensive. The very best canned cat foods as noted by Consumer Search range in price from $1.00, 85 cents, to 55 cents for a 3-ounce can. The best 5.5-ounce can of cat food cost $1.60 a can. The most nutritious dry cat food cost $20.00 for a 5.14 lb. bag or $14.00 for a 6.6 lb. bag.
Qual
The selling points for these foods are that they are high in protein; most of them don’t have any grains in them, unless it is a better quality grain, and they don’t use by-products, but real meat’the good parts. One of the biggest caveats of lower priced can foods is that they do use meat by-products. When a cat food has by-products in it that means this ingredient wasn’t acceptable for people to eat. This could be sweepings from the floor of the rendering plant. Many of the cheaper products also contain glutens.
Dry
As far as dry cat food goes you may want to compromise with a good brand around $14.00 for 6.6 pounds. This is kind of a marker between the ultra expensive bag food and the cheap low quality stuff.
Meat
Remember that cats are carnivores; therefore avoid foods with grains in them. The exception might be brown rice in a really good canned cat food.
Type
Wet
Canned can food is more like what cats eat in the wild in that it has higher water content. It is closer in that way to their carnivorous diet. The wet/canned cat food promotes good hydration and your cat needs to drink less water. If you give your cat dry food it is best to giver him some canned food during the day too. Get a dry food that has low carbohydrate content and a high protein content. Always be certain your cat has enough water to drink.
Pres
Dry foods will have either natural or synthetic preservatives in them because of the need for a long shelf life. This includes the shipping and storage time; therefore, the shelf life is around twelve months.
Info
Read
When reading the cat food labels, hunt for foods that don’t have corn, wheat or soy in them. If you need to be more economical, find a food that uses less of these ingredients. The further down the ingredients list an ingredient is the less of it is in the product.
Safe
Certain recalls of cat foods have brought our attention in recent years to the issues of bad wheat and rice glutens. It is a good idea to keep up with what the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Food and Drug Administration are currently saying about cat foods.
