The best balanced foods for cats

The cat is a wild animal perfectly adapted to life in a human home, but this feline descends mainly from the African wildcat (Felix libica), which hunts alone small prey such as mice and birds, the cat keeps intact its instincts of Predator and this also gives us a lot of information about how your diet should be.

The feeding of the cat is a determining factor for its health and it is our responsibility as owners to provide our pet with a balanced diet that covers all the nutritional requirements of its organism.

To facilitate this task, in this article we show you how to recognize the best balanced foods for cats.

The nutrients that a balanced feed for cats should contain

Although there are several human foods that a cat can eat, the truth is that it is impossible to cover all their nutritional needs through a homemade diet, because their requirements are far from ours.

Any balanced feed for cats must contain the following nutrients in its composition:

• Proteins: It is the most important macronutrient for the cat, in fact, an adult cat needs 2 to 3 times more protein than a dog. Obviously, these proteins must be of animal origin.
• Taurine: Taurine is an amino acid, therefore its content will depend on the protein content, however, the taurine intake must be reinforced, since a cat needs 1.000 milligrams of taurine daily for each kilogram of body weight. The deficit of this amino acid causes heart problems and blindness.
• Fat: Fats must be 40-50% of daily energy intake and must be of animal origin, especially cats need alpha-linolenic, linoleic and arachidonic fatty acids.
• Carbohydrates: They are an important nutrient but they should not suppose more than the 35-40% of the daily energy contribution, in fact the best balanced foods for cats are those that contain between an 5 and 12% of carbohydrates. It is important to use whole grains such as oats, rye, barley or brown rice.
• Vitamins: The balanced feed must contain vitamin A directly, since the cat can not transform the carotenes of plant origin, some B vitamins such as thiamine, niacin and pyridoxine will also be essential, since the cat organism can not synthesize them
• Minerals: The cat especially needs phosphorus, calcium, magnesium and potassium.

The quality of the nutrients in the cat’s balanced feed

If we want to choose the best feed for our cat it is not enough to make sure that it contains the nutrients that we mentioned above, it will also be necessary to consult the nutritional composition to look at the following aspects:

• The protein content must be at least 35% and the protein sources must be specified, do not buy any balanced food that contains “meat byproducts” because you really will not know what your cat is eating.
• You must ensure that it contains less than 10% in ashes, term that is used to refer to what would remain after burning the balanced food, that is, the minerals.
• It is also important that nutritional labeling specify that they have been included chelated minerals, because they improve the absorption process and are less toxic.

Always remember that the more you specify the content of the feed, the better, because it will allow us to properly assess the quality of it.

Substances that must not contain

A good balanced feed for cats should not contain the following substances:

• Sugar
• Artificial colorants
• Salt
• DL- Methionine
• Glycerol monoesterarate
• Vitamin K

These substances they are not nutritious or adequate for our cat, therefore, the fact that a balanced feed includes them, automatically decreases its quality.

What is the best balanced feed for cats?

We can conclude that the best balanced feed for cats is the one that meets the following requirements:

• It belongs to a premium range, which although it is the most expensive, is also the most energetic (exceeding the 4.000 calories per kilo of feed), therefore, more
• It is humid, because it requires less processing and consequently is of a higher quality
• It is properly tolerated by the digestive system of our cat and it is tasty
• It adapts to specific needs (obesity, kidney diseases, diabetes, urinary stones.)

It is also important to mention that the transition from one type of feeding to another should last approximately 7-10 days, the new balanced feed will be included in the diet of the cat progressively until it comes to represent the entirety of it.

If the food that we give to our cat has good digestibility and is of quality, we will be able to observe little fecal material and practically without odor.

If you want to read more articles similar to The best balanced foods for cats, we recommend that you enter in our section of balanced diets.