I know what good nutrition is for people and I can read the labels and decide what I should be eating.
But what criteria should I used for buying cat food? I have always just picked a mid-priced commercial brand trusting that they would all provide the basic nutritional needs, and any food that my cats would eat is good food.
Is there any difference nutritionally between cheap brands and premium brands? Or is the difference basically how much they spend on marketing to appeal to humans?
I have had cats for years and never thought about food much except when I had a cat with cystitis and he had to have special food that I could only get from a vet.
TL, DR: Meat is good, moisture is good, grain and veg is not.
Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they need to eat essentially a meat-only diet. Most commercial cat foods are corn/soy/grain based with a bit of meat or meat by-product in it. While there are the appropriate levels of protein etc in the diet, it’s not as bio-available for cats as it is for other animals and it can cause health issues down the road. Not always, of course, many cats have lived good long lives on Friskies and Dad’s and other “crap” food.
But a high-grain diet can have an effect on kidney health, on obesity, on allergies, and I seem to remember reading something about possible heart effects too (though that may be dogs, come to think of it). Many commercial cat foods have things in them that sound good to people (the whole "stew concept, with gravy and veggies). Most of that is indigestible for cats and just ends up in the litter box.
At any rate, since I have 15 cats I try and get the highest meat, lowest grain product I can afford for dry food, (which actually isn’t all that great either, cat kidney health requires a lot of water) fed free choice, and supplement each morning with a good canned diet mixed with water so they get cat food soup. Gross, but they love it. I also have water bowls everywhere, and a fountain as well to encourage them to drink.
I’m convinced there are flavor enhancers like salt and who knows what else they can and do add to cheap food to make it more palatable to cats, analogous to how it works for humans. I would not at all assume that “will the cat eat some” is the ultimate test of nutritional value. There is obviously some marketing to humans; I mean, why would they add food coloring to cat food?—you can rule those brands right out.
If you look at the ingredients of highly rated cat food, for example some of the brands named here, it does read like actual food plus vitamins and minerals, nothing in there I wouldn’t eat, noting of course it is very high in protein and very low in carbohydrates. If I were you, I would rather err on the side of getting the high-quality dry plus canned food even though it is expensive.
My rule of thumb has always been: if it can be bought at the grocery store, it’s crap. Although, I haven’t even looked at the pet food aisle in a grocery store in about 10 years, so maybe that has changed.
If you want the ultimate in nutritious cat food, take a look at a raw diet, like Darwin’s. It really isn’t all that expensive compared to other cat foods, and they deliver it. We get 20 pounds every four weeks, for around $130.
It doesn’t say it on that page, but each package is two pounds. So for, say, the turkey flavor, if a cat eats about 6 ounces per day, that works out to $2.62 per day. I mean, yeah, that’s probably expensive compared to Friskies, but competitive with higher-end canned foods. And you get the peace of mind that your cat is eating what it’s supposed to eat, rather than garbage.
We just went through this after we adopted two cats from the Shelter. www.catinfo.org was a wealth of information for us and between the vet and several other websites we now feed the Boys wet Friskies and Tiki Cat wet foods. They are no longer eating dry food as it has been shown to cause a lot of health issues.
We are evaluating raw food ad once I have a bit more info.