Can some cat food be harmful?

Answer 1

There are so many! Whiskas, Felix, GoCat, Iams, Meow Mix and all other brands that cover store shelves are absolutely terrible! They contain too little meat and many of them (particularly dry food) contain far too much grain and other high-carbohydrate ingredients.

Unfortunately big Prescription brands such as Hills Science Diet contain very little meat and too much grain (often first or second on the ingredients list).

Corns, grains and wheats (and all their variants such as Wheat Glucose) are nothing but cheap carbohydrate filler. Cats cannot digest carbohydrates at all and can cause all sorts of health problems (obesity, Diabetes, UTIs amongst others) if fed every day for a period of time. They serve no purpose for the cat at all. Stay away from food that has these in the ingredients list.

Answer 2

Sadly, the simple answer is: Far too many! Most pet food brands, even brands including, Purina, Friskies, Meow Mix, Fancy Feast, Whiskas, IAMS, Royal Canin and Science Diet (despite the price!) that are found on supermarket or store shelves (or heavily promoted by veterinarians) are incredibly poor quality, which in turn provides little or no nutrition to the cat.

The best and only way to determine if a certain brand or food is good or bad quality is looking at the ingredients, and learning what the ingredients mean. Cats are strict carnivores, so get all their energy from Protein and Fat which is abundant in meat. The best cat foods are the ones with a very high, named meat content (labelled as Chicken, Turkey, Rabbit, Lamb, Tuna, etc.) as the FIRST ingredient, or first three. The ingredients list is always listed with the heaviest weight being first, and it is even better if the meat content is shown as a percentage (such as 50% or more).

Many brands of dry and low quality wet food are packed with corns and grains. This is cheap carbohydrate filler that the food manufacturers use as its a cheaper source of protein than meat is. Cats are strict carnivores, so can only get their nutrients from meat-based protein, not plant-based protein. Grains, not only are completely indigestible, is one of the main causes of obesity, diabetes and other health-related problems in cats. A cat's stomach cannot digest such complex carbohydrates, and most of the time it gets stored as fat, or passes through the cat's system (which creates smelly and runny stools and bad gas). Some cats will vomit whole biscuits back up on a regular basis because their stomach cannot process it at all.

Not only that, but some certain foods commonly found in low-quality pet foods can cause food Allergies in cats. Here is a small list of what labels to avoid:

• Yellow Corn, Corn Gluten Meal and Soybean Meal are also one of the most common causes of allergies in foods.
• By-Product Meal are the leftover parts of the animal (lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, some fatty tissue, and stomach and intestines). Not very good quality, but better than corn.
• Fish/Meat Meal is terrible; its the rendered (moisture and fat removed) "waste" tissues of an animal. Very low quality which has little Protein in.
• Soybean meal is soy that is added to cat food for the protein benefit, but because its a plant it gives barely any nutritional value whatsoever. The possible allergic reaction to soy makes it an ingredient to avoid. Many cat foods have banned any soy product being used in the their foods.
• Beef Tallow is essentially rendered fat. This gives the food a bit of flavour.
• Animal Digest is a broth made from unspecified parts of animals. The animals used can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. This can include roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse.

Also, stay away from labels that have food dye in them. These are: added color (red 40, yellow 5, blue 2, and other color).Added salt is another one to avoid (too much salt over a period of time could seriously harm a cat).

However, there are many high quality brands that are completely free of these ingredients, including grains and have a high meat content: Wellness, Blue Buffalo, Orijen, Bozita (90+% meat and can be bought from zooplus.co.uk), Applaws (70+% meat and comes in both tinned and dry), HiLife (60% meat), Feline Fayre, to name a few.

Answer 3

Yes because it depends on what food you are feeding. Some brands of cat food have been recalled due to salmonella poisoning, for example. Always research that brand of cat food you want to feed.