Your cat is a pure carnivore. This means that your cat must meet her nutritional needs by
consuming other animals. Her natural diet would be birds, rodents, and rabbits. She would not
be catching fish or hunting down cattle. She derives little to no nutrition from plant-based
sources and should have little to no grain, fruit or vegetables in her diet. In the wild, your cat
would be eating a high-protein, moderate-fat diet with only about 4-9% of her diet consisting of
carbohydrates. Dry cat food contains 35-50% carbohydrates. Chronic high carbohydrate diets
can lead to obesity and diabetes.
Learn how to read Pet Food Ingredient Labels
Not all cat food ingredients are the same. Meat should always be the first ingredient on the
label. Don’t judge the contents of the can by the “name” of the flavor. Many “chicken” flavors
contain beef and fish and vegetables too. Remember again that your cat is a pure carnivore,
but would never kill a cow, never pick a cranberry, and never catch a fish (let alone a tuna
which is a 400lb deep ocean fish). Salmon is the worst kind of fish to feed, as it is very high in
histamine. This is why cats often vomit after eating salmon. The first ingredient should never
be grain. Look for real meat as the first ingredient and remember that they are listed in order
of weight. Manufacturers often split up all of the individual carbohydrate components so that
each grain is a lesser weight than the meat product. But if you add up all the grain products in
the diet, you are left with more carbohydrates than meat.
Dry food is convenient, but not ideal for your carnivore cat
Water is vital to your cat’s health. Cats on a dry food diet are often chronically dehydrated.
This can lead to many health problems, including bladder and kidney disease. The natural prey
of a wild cat contains between 65-80% water. Dry food averages 10%, and canned food 78%.
Since cats were originally a desert species, they do not have a strong thirst for water, and it is
their natural instinct to derive most of their water from their diet. The reason that dry food has
been pushed all these years is for human convenience, not for our cat’s health.
Transitioning Dry Food Addicts to Canned Food
People often assume that since their cat loves dry food and turns down wet food when it is
offered, that they will never change. The key is to do it slowly and patiently. Also, people can
become discouraged when they switch their cats to canned food too quickly and their cat
develops loose stools or vomiting, so they abandon the idea and switch back to a dry diet. It is
best to take 2 weeks with the transition and incorporate the new food into the diet a bit at a
time. Never let your cat go longer than 24 hours without eating though. Here are some tricks:
• If your cat has been eating dry food on a free-choice basis, take up the food and establish a
schedule of twice-daily feedings. Leave the food down for 30 minutes. Once your cat is on a
schedule, you will notice that he is more enthusiastic about food.
• Cats prefer their food at “body temperature”, but do not warm the food more than once or
twice, as this will promote bacterial growth.
• Mix a small amount of chicken or turkey baby food with the canned food to flavor it.
• Crush a small amount of dry food and sprinkle it over the canned food.
