Making sure you feline friend has a healthy and balanced diet is important to improve their quality of life and in turn making sure they live a long and happy life. If you’re only feeding your cat wet food or their diet mainly consists of wet food, you need to make sure that it’s of high quality. This means taking a look at the wet food packet or tin before buying it. This blog will provide you with the information you need to make sure you choose the right wet cat food for your cat.
Should Cats Eat Wet Food Every Day?
You can feed your cat wet food every day as it can provide various benefits. However, make sure you check the suggested servings. This information is usually available on the back of the packet and your cat’s weight calculates the amount of wet food they can get per day. In addition to this, we have an onboarding questionnaire where we collect various bits of information about the cat/its lifestyle and calculate the correct amount of calories that should be fed per day.
What Are the Benefits of Wet Cat Food?
Wet cat food can provide loads of benefits for your feline. One of the most significant benefits is the high moisture content. The high moisture content ensures that your cat gets the necessary water intake to stay healthy. Some of the other benefits wet cat food provides include weight management, easier to chew, and it’s rich in protein.
Fuzzballs wet food has a minimum of 70% meat content, the rest is made up of various essential vitamins and minerals and broth. Additional benefits we advertise include; improved heart health, natural weight management and better digestion.
How Much Protein Should Wet Cat Food Have?
Your household cat is a carnivore which means their diet must consist of high protein levels. So, when choosing a wet food for your cat, make sure that the crude protein percentage is 21.65%. Be sure to choose a trusted cat food brand, ideally one with higher protein levels.
What to Look For When Choosing Wet Cat Food
When buying wet food for your cat, it’s important not to take the first packet you come across. You need to take a look at a few different things to make sure it’s of high quality and will provide your furry friend with all the nutrients and proteins they need. Here’s what to look for when choosing wet cat food:
Opt For a Complete and Balanced Diet
Some wet cat food is intended for supplemental feeding only which means it doesn’t cover all the nutritional and protein needs of a cat. Look for something on the packet that says “Complete cat food” when choosing a wet food.
Getting balanced wet food from the supermarket can be challenging. This is why our wet food is the best and safest choice since it includes taurine, Vitamin A, and Vitamin B, which you would normally have to buy separately as other wet foods don’t include it.
Choose Species-Appropriate Protein Sources
Ideally, the first ingredient named should be animal protein sources. This includes chicken, chicken fillet, turkey, beef hearts, rabbit, and more. High-quality protein means both highly digestible and balanced.
Lower-quality wet food has meat and meat by-products, poultry by-products, meat meal, fish meal, and fish by-products listed as protein sources. Even though they are still species-appropriate we cannot expect high digestibility since the source is not named.
Check For Unnecessary Ingredients
In a high-quality wet food, each ingredient is nutritiously valuable for a cat. While grains serve as energy sources for cats, they are not necessary in a cat’s diet and are added mainly to reduce the price instead of more expensive ingredients, such as meats and organs. Some of the commonly used grains include corn, wheat, oatmeal, and rice.
Guaranteed Analysis
The Guaranteed Analysis is a section on the labels of all pet food, including cat food. This section is regulated by law and provides information about the nutrient content of the food. The four nutrients that are always listed in a guaranteed analysis are crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre, and moisture.
Other nutrients such as ash, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, taurine, and different vitamins may also be included in the Guaranteed Analysis, depending on the product and the country. Choose a wet food with high protein and moderate fat content. For less active cats and cats prone to weight gain less fat is recommended. Healthier choices are vegetable fibre and a higher amount of animal protein.
What Ingredients Should I Avoid in Wet Cat Food?
Even though wet cat food provides the nutrients your cat needs, some brands can still add some ingredients that you should avoid. Some of these ingredients are mostly added to increase shelf life or to make the food cheaper. Here’s what you need to avoid when buying cat food:
Artificial Preservatives
Chemical preservatives like Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA), Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT), Tertiary Butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), propyl gallate, and ethoxyquin have been linked to various health issues. These artificial preservatives might not be stated on the packaging at all. Instead, they are stated as antioxidants in the list of ingredients.
Artificial Colours and Dyes
Red 40 is one of the most commonly used artificial colours. Some studies have suggested that Red 40 and behavioural issues are linked. Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 are also commonly used and have also been linked to allergic reactions and behavioural issues. Lastly, caramel colours still pose a potential risk even though this colour is not a synthetic dye.
Some Flavour Enhancers
Meat and animal fat are naturally flavourful for cats, so since the ingredients in a high-quality wet food are not processed nearly as much as in dry food, there’s no need for added flavours or other enhancers. These flavour enhancers are usually used if the food is high in carbohydrates, plant protein and other biologically unappealing ingredients for cats, the manufacturer has to use flavour enhancers to trick a cat into eating it. Therefore the use of flavours should raise a question about the wet cat food’s quality.
Added Sugars
Added sugar affects your cat's dental health and contributes to weight gain. It not only affects your cat's teeth and weight, but it also does not have any benefits for cats.
Salt
Cats have a low tolerance for salt. Also, buying wet food with high salt concentrations can lead to kidney and urinary problems.
Carrageenan
This additive, derived from seaweed, is used as a thickener and emulsifier in wet cat food. Carrageenan can cause inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract which can lead to various other health problems.
