There’s more to it than you might think!

By Midge Raymond

What to feed cats may seem sort of basic, but in my decade-plus of adoption counseling and uniting humans with their feline family members, it’s clear that what (and when, and where, and how) to feed cats is something of a mystery to most of us. Yet what we feed our felines is so important for their wellness and longevity. So these next two columns will cover how best to feed our cat families — and this may depend on many factors in your life and household, not to mention the cats themselves. Having raised five cats over the past 20 years, my human partner and I have tried dozens of foods in order to find the ones our cats approve of. In the end, the cats are in charge (we knew that), but we humans do need to provide the healthiest possible options.

The most important thing to know is that cats are carnivores, which means they need high-protein diets. “You have an obligate hunter living in your house,” says Billie Jo Vinson of Wellness Pet Supplies in Ashland. “Cats are not genetically different at all from their wild counterparts — the things cats should eat are only what they hunt, and grass. So the closest you get to that, the healthier they will be, the less health issues they’ll have, less teeth issues, kidney issues and so forth.”

Yet if you look at the ingredient labels of pet foods — and you should — you’ll see that many products do not match what’s best for cats. The first several ingredients in your cat’s food, whether wet or dry, should be an animal protein — not a grain, a carbohydrate or a byproduct such as “chicken meal.” 

As an example in dry food, the first two ingredients in Meow Mix’s Indoor Health Cat Food are whole ground corn and corn gluten meal — neither of which belong in a feline diet. By contrast, the first two ingredients in Carna4’s cat kibble are chicken and chicken liver, both of which supply the protein and essential amino acids cats need. 

Always try to avoid carbs, grains and any byproducts or “meals” — at least as the first ingredients, if not altogether. “Most of the time when you look at those (commercial) brands, there’s not actually any real food in it,” says Vinson, who recommends the 2023 documentary “Pet Fooled” on YouTube for more information about the ingredients in popular commercial pet foods. “It’s all byproduct and meals. If people knew what ‘meals’ was they would protest in the streets. It can be a lot of things — it can be roadkill. So it can say ‘chicken meal,’ and include roadkill, or expired meats from your grocery store with the plastic, Styrofoam, everything.” 

Vinson, an animal nutritionist studying at the Academy of Natural Health Sciences in New Jersey, has a hierarchy for the best nutrition for cats. The optimal feline diet, she says, is raw food — with the next best being lightly cooked, then dehydrated, then canned, then dry baked, then kibble.

Kibble is last on her list because it’s “the lowest form of food for them,” Vinson says. “That’s usually what a lot of animals are on, some kind of kibble. Make sure you add in food that has moisture, like canned food. And if you’re doing kibble, do a higher quality food like Carna4.”

The problem with kibble, Vinson says, is that “you have to have a starch to hold it together. That starch turns into sugar. Sugar is an inflammatory food, and it kills your gut biome.”

“Wet is very important for kitties to get that moisture in their diet, especially with male cats so they don’t get urinary tract infections,” says Melody Spiegel of Melly Cat Rescue. “Always do wet in addition to dry.” 

Vinson feeds her two indoor cats raw diets. Her cat Jack has been on raw since the age of two, and Bagheera since about 10 weeks of age. “My cats just don’t go to the vet. They just don’t. We have zero eye issues, zero ear issues, zero skin issues. They still need their teeth brushed because you can still get plaque — they aren’t out there hunting, so they’re not getting fur and feathers as a fiber and a scraping of the teeth.”

Yet not all cats can eat a raw diet — cats with feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), for example, can’t handle the bacteria present in raw food — so always keep your cat’s individual situation in mind when deciding what to feed. Also, raw food must be kept frozen, then refrigerated before serving, and in a region that experiences power outages and the possibility of wildfire evacuations, it’s a good idea to keep a less-perishable backup food around. (In case you missed the column on how to prepare your feline go bag, check it out here.)

And it can be a challenge to get cats used to a raw diet, especially if they’ve previously been eating kibble. “In a perfect world, raw food would be great,” says Spiegel, “but not every cat likes raw food, and not everybody can afford to do that.”

A raw diet can be challenging for humans as well: “It just grosses people out, to think of it,” Vinson says. “But for those who eat meat, there is no difference. Just think of it in the same way. It just has organs in it. That’s really the only difference.” 

Organ meats are necessary for cats, as they contain taurine, an essential amino acid for felines. Cats cannot produce taurine on their own, so they must get it daily through their food. Often humans think they’re benefiting their cats by feeding them such “people food” as tuna — but in fact, they’re putting their cats’ health at risk because human foods don’t provide adequate feline nutrition.

And if you’re bringing home kittens, keep in mind that because they’re growing, kittens need much more nutrition than adult cats do — and they also have sensitive stomachs — so feed them a diet meant for kittens, not adult cats. Mieshelle Nagelschneider, author of “The Cat Whisperer,” advises, “Kittens should be exposed to various types of cat food flavors and textures. If they’re not, they may later refuse to eat anything but what they were conditioned to eat as kittens. Cats can be finicky about food.”

Terri Frazier, cat foster program coordinator at Friends of the Animals (FOTAS), says food that is “grain-free is absolutely the best for your cat.” And most important when bringing home a new feline, she says, is to find out what the cat’s been eating, as changing a cat’s diet suddenly can cause stomach issues. “If you’re going to change to something else, change slowly,” Frazier says. “Use the food that they’re on and gradually add the new food over a week or so.” Her advice for new feline parents: “They should buy as good a quality as they can afford and sustain.” 

For FOTAS foster kittens, “we choose, just because we have financial constraints, a medium-grade kibble, Purina Kitten Chow, and NuLo kitten canned food,” says Frazier. “We had been using Wellness, but it’s a little spendy — but it’s a good quality food.”

At her rescue, Spiegel says, “We do a variety of wet food — it just depends what gets donated, what we can afford, how many kitties we’re feeding. I like Blue Buffalo, it’s a really good brand for wet and for dry, especially for kittens, and Weruva BFF.” For dry food, she says, “we do a lot of Whole Hearted from PetCo. I also like Taste of the Wild. Costco, the Kirkland brand, is also a pretty good quality food, and it’s more budget friendly. I try to do as high-quality as I can afford for kibble.”

If you consider both the fussiness of cats and the myriad products available — not only canned food and kibble but also lightly cooked, dehydrated raw and dry baked — deciding what to feed your cat can feel overwhelming. But looking at the ingredients and knowing what your cat needs to be healthy is a great first step. Not all cat foods are created equal — and neither are all budgets and lifestyles.

And remember that the goal is to have a healthy, thriving cat — not to be perfect. “It’s not all or nothing,” Vinson says. “I know people who will do one meal of kibble, and one meal raw. And that will come down to budget, or convenience — they work long hours, they have to leave the food out. I will always give you ‘here’s how it should be done,’ but it also has to fit into your life. Some is better than none. If you add a little freeze dried (raw food) to the kibble, and that’s all you do, the health (of your cat) will increase, the vitality will increase.” 

“The most important thing is to read the ingredients,” says Spiegel. “The cheaper it is, the less healthy it’s probably going to be. It’s just like us eating fast food. The better quality ingredients you put in, the healthier cat you’re going to get.”

What about finicky eaters? What about households with three cats who each like different foods? What about free-feeding? Stay tuned for next month’s column, where we tackle these topics. 

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]. 

Ashland resident Midge Raymond is co-founder of Ashland Creek Press and author of the novels “Floreana” and “My Last Continent” and co-author of “Devils Island.” Email suggestions and questions for Catty Corner to her at [email protected].