Feeding Your Cat
Understanding what your cat is designed by nature to eat
Understanding Your Cat’s needs
The cat, even more than the dog is a carnivore, this means that it derives its nutrition in the wild from eating prey in its entirety, not just the flesh but the bones, intestines and their contents, fur, hair, claws etc. In such a way it gains the nutrition it needs. Consuming bones, for example, gives many minerals that would not be found in flesh alone; the internal organs contain many vitamins not in muscle flesh and, as the prey is generally herbivore, its intestines will contain plant material, antioxidants and nutricines, those elements of food that facilitate important biochemical functions in the body.
In the wild cats feed when they can, they do not, of course, have a set meal time as the domesticate cat does. In the wild a carnivore like a cat will can go for a couple of days without looking for prey. And you may notice in your own cat that some days it will be more interested to feed than others. Owing to the way the cat has evolved and where it is different to a dog is that it will look for high protein food only and do without rather than have a low protein meal just in order to have something to eat. In this way a cat is extremely efficient at surviving in the wild – its body is always primed to take the maximum benefit from any prey meal it has.
Buying commercial food designed specifically for cats.
It is very important to feed your cat food correctly designed for it (not dog food or a vegetarian diet), unless your cat is a true hunter (ie it derives most of its nutrition from what it has caught - rather than just playing with the prey). The cat’s metabolism is different to a dog. For example, the amino acid taurine is present in a dog, so it does not need to ingest it, for a cat gaining taurine from its food is vital (blindness and heart failure are symptoms of a deficiency of taurine in the cat). This amino acid is easily to be found in brain, heart and skeletal muscles of prey animals and is added to commercial cat foods
Carbohydrates
Please read our article on feeding dogs if you want more details about carbohydrates. As with dogs carbohydrates are not part of a cat’s required food types. In the case of a cat the need is even less. In the wild a cat would take in a diet of about 6% soluble carbohydrate (1% in the prey’s flesh, a further 4-5% or so in the contents of its intestine). It has been argued that in a dry cat food, where to facilitate manufacture the food becomes 35-45% soluble carbohydrate, gives a cat too much soluble carbohydrate. The cat can eat this, just as we can eat doughnuts, but a cat constantly fed on a kibble type diet will eventually over-dose on carbohydrate and obesity and diabetes can be two results of this. Special enzymes, present in the liver of dogs, for example, help its system to respond to high levels of glucose, in a cat such enzymes are very much diminished.
Tinned Food
Luckily for the cat, because its appetite is far less than for a dog, it is often fed tinned food; owners feeling they are happy to pay the higher general price of tinned food over kibble. Tinned food is much lower than kibble in soluble carbohydrate. Some kibble in the diet does vary the cat’s meal and its more abrasive nature can reduce tartar build up on the cat’s teeth. Your cat is usually very good at monitoring its own intake of food, but again do not overfeed the cat, it either wastes food or will make the cat fat. Take your vet’s advice about how much wet, dried and raw foods to feed your cat.
Raw food
As with dogs some raw food in the diet is good for the cat. Tinned food owing to the nature of the canning process is sterile, and cats like dogs do need some bacteria in its diet – its gut is well developed to deal with this. Don’t let your fastidiousness about your food stop you from giving your cat what it needs nutritionally and what its body is designed to ingest. Allow your cat a good variety of raw meat and fish frequently. This is readily available now in fresh and frozen forms from pet food manufacturers, but also offal is available from the butcher and supermarket, with some butchers even offering unwanted animal parts such as lights (lungs) for free. If you have a local fishmonger, you may be able to organise a similar cheap or free source of offcuts - such as fish heads and tails.
In brief
Do not feed an exclusive dried food diet for your cat as this high in carbohydrate which your cat does not need.
Give a mix of foods for interest and nutrition
Introduce some raw food into your cat’s diet. This is the best fuel for your cat and its rawness means that vital enzymes have not been denatured by the heat of canning or extrusion (how protein is added in the manufacture dried food see)
Always supply fresh water with food.
Article by: The Pet Owners Association
The POA is grateful to Nottingham University Press for the use of their book Ruined by Excess, Perfected by Lack by Richard Patton
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