If you want your cat always to stay healthy, you need to opt for a healthy diet that is suitable for his needs. Whether it’s dry or wet food, the important thing is the quality of the ingredients used.
Compare prices and reviews of the products we have included in our ranking and evaluate which food is right for you.
- Contains (1) 6.3 Pound Bag of Dry Cat Food
- Complete and balanced nutrition
- Provides all essential vitamins and minerals
- SmartBlend of high-quality ingredients in Purina Tender Selects salmon cat food starts with real salmon along with accents of carrots and peas, and vitamins A and E promote your cat's bright eyes
- High levels of protein in Purina ONE Tender Selects Blend adult dry cat food with salmon help support your cat's strong muscles, including her healthy heart, throughout her active life
- Is Purina ONE good for cats? This natural dry cat food with added vitamins, minerals and nutrients and no artificial flavors or preservatives delivers complete and balanced nutrition for adult cats
- Contains one (1) 7 lb bag of IAMS Proactive Health Adult Indoor Weight and Hairball Care Dry Cat Food with Chicken and Turkey
- Chicken is the main ingredient in this protein-rich cat food to help support strong muscles and to provide healthy energy for play
- Formulated with l-carnitine to help your indoor cat lose weight or maintain a healthy weight
- Seafood flavors for the taste cats love. 100 percent complete and balanced nutrition for all life stages
- Contains protein to support strong muscles. Tempting texture to please her palate
- Essential fatty acids to help support healthy skin and coat. Vitamin A and taurine to help support clear, healthy vision
- Fancy Feast wet cat food made without artificial colors or preservatives
- Crafted with real, high-quality ingredients to deliver 100 percent complete and balanced canned cat food
- Fancy Feast grilled cat food developed in partnership with our expert nutritionists to create a unique and unforgettable taste experience for your cat
- Purina Fancy Feast wet cat food made without artificial colors or preservatives
- Crafted with real, high-quality ingredients to deliver a 100 percent complete and balanced canned cat food
- Purina Fancy Feast pate cat food developed in partnership with our expert nutritionists to create a unique and unforgettable taste experience for your cat
- Formulated to meet the nutritional needs of adult indoor cats. Made with real poultry or seafood
- Delicious tastes cats love. Moist, tender texture to please her palate
- Provides 100 percent complete and balanced nutrition for adult cats. Essential vitamins and nutrients
- Cat food with gravy, made without artificial colors or preservatives
- Purina Fancy Feast canned cat food variety pack crafted with real, high-quality ingredients, like real poultry or beef, to deliver 100 percent complete and balanced food for adult cats
- An irresistible, protein-rich Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers cat food taste offering a gourmet turkey, chicken or beef cat food meal with an enticing aroma and a light, savory gravy
- Natural Purina dry cat food nutrition with high-quality ingredients like real turkey and real chicken as the #1 ingredient for a taste your cat will enjoy
- Hairball control cat food features a natural fiber blend to help control hairballs
- 25 essential vitamins for cats and minerals to support your cat’s overall health
Buyer Guide to Choose the Best Cat Food
Food is the main source of energy for the cat. Therefore it is necessary to choose the best one that does not cause deficiencies in its body. Better is the dry or the wet one, and is the packaged or homemade one preferable?
Let us clarify your doubts about how to use cat food with these tips.
Wet or Dry?
One of the first questions we ask ourselves when we try to understand which cat food to buy, concerns the choice between the dry and wet feed. Both options offer advantages and disadvantages.
Wet foods contain, on average, a more balanced quantity of fats, and they guarantee the right amount of water. Our four-legged friends seem to appreciate them more than the kibbles, but you have to consider how willing you are to spoil them.
There are studies and research that demonstrate how much a diet based exclusively on paté or morsels can weigh on your wallet.
In the long term, feeding your house cat with wet food can cost twice as much or even triple as compared to the dry feed option. Dry is undoubtedly the easiest to dose and can be left in the bowl to allow the cat to feed independently and without time constraints.
From the food point of view, they guarantee a sufficient caloric intake, but, due to the method with which they are produced, they almost always contain carbohydrates, not too suitable for feeding felines. The good news is that the quality of the products on the market is, on average, quite good.
Nutritional Values
Cats are essentially predatory animals, and many nutrients should not be missing from their daily meal. The supply of proteins is fundamental, but the fibers, fats, minerals, and the right vitamin contribution must not be neglected.
The dosage of these elements can vary depending on the age and the state of health of the feline.
Fats, provided they are offered with balance, perform some important functions: they guarantee the right amount of energy, particularly necessary for puppies, and, perhaps less known, they favor the absorption of some precious vitamins.
Felines, however, even more than dogs, derive the greatest energy intake from proteins. Any “vegetarian” experiment on your cat would be harmful to his health.
Muscles, bones, and ribs are formed thanks to the protein contribution of meals correctly. Vitamins and minerals are also fundamental, as are fibers, useful for regulating intestinal functions.
In this regard, it is worth remembering that the classic image of the kitten in front of the milk bowl is completely at odds with the cat’s dietary needs. Lactose is poorly digested by felines, as well as my dogs.
Dietetic and Complementary Products
When looking for the best cat food, perhaps among the offers of an e-commerce site or on the shelf of a supermarket, one must always make sure to choose products that constitute a complete meal, and not a simple supplement.
The national and European rules that regulate this market are quite precise and strict in the distinction.
Products dedicated to sterilized animals are available and widespread since many domestic cats undergo this operation.
It is almost commonplace that felines in this condition tend to gain weight. But the commonplace is partly confirmed by reality: males reduce the exploration of the territory and become more sedentary, reducing their calorie needs by up to 30%.
For females, sterilization excludes the possibility of pregnancy and breastfeeding, activities that require large energy expenditure.
For overweight cats, wet food tends to be less suitable. If you do not want to give up crunchies, you must pay attention to the type of fats they contain and, if possible, avoid saturated fats.
How to Feed Your Cat?
Nobody knows your home cat’s habits and tastes better than you, but it is always better to rely on the experts to understand what his food needs are and to recognize which is the best brand of cat food.
We have made an introductory journey among the best cat foods of 2022, but there are still some questions about how to offer meals to the cat: dosages, preparation, additions.
Homemade Lunch
According to most experts, preparing a cat’s lunch is not particularly complicated. It is an essentially carnivorous animal, but it is likely necessary to supplement its diet with vitamins and minerals.
The biggest obstacle to this choice, strange to say, could be your customer: it seems that not all cats are passionate about home cooking, especially if you have not used them since puppies.
Then there are two new food “fashions” adopted by cat owners: the so-called “raw food” and the “vegan” one. In the first case, raw and whole animals, such as small quails, are proposed to cats, in an attempt to reproduce the diet that felines would respect in nature.
There may be no contraindications for the kitty, but there are some hygienic and sanitary precautions that veterinarians suggest to pay attention to. The cats of the house do not live in a wild environment but in our homes and our beds.
The vegan diet should necessarily be supplemented with proteins and other artificially synthesized nutrients. It would be small violence to the nature of the cat, an ethical issue to consider.
Frequency and Quantity
Dog owners wonder about the times and the number of meals to offer to their four-legged friends, but with cats, there is an additional dilemma. Thanks to special dispensers that allow you always to keep dry food available, you can eliminate the mealtime and allow the cat to eat freely.
This method has its advantages, also because it seems to imitate better the eating habits that felines would keep in nature.
Some veterinarians, however, suggest alternating feeding methods. In addition to the dry food, always available in the bowl, it would be better to also offer morsels or wet pâté, possibly at the request of the same cat.
This practice would have at least three advantages: welding the relationship between the cat and the owner, changing the diet, easing the tension due to the strict meal times.
Different Ages, Different Needs
After about six weeks, it’s time to replace mom cat in feeding your kitten. Before the year, the animal is not yet an adult and has specific dietary needs.
Proteins cannot be missing, abundant (they must make up 15% of the overall diet, compared to 8% necessary for adults), but also fats, vitamins, and a particular amino acid called taurine.
If you decide to feed the cat with crunchies, you need to check that they are suitable for a puppy’s palate and his dental system. There are even those who propose to soften them with water, especially in the first months after weaning.
The quantity of food must also be proportionate: in the first weeks of solid nourishment, 70 grams per day may be enough, but distributed in three meals.
When a cat grows old, habits change, some pathologies appear, and food needs change. Although the life of our furry friends is getting longer, after ten years of age, we begin to consider the home feline elderly. Industrial products for older cats reduce caloric intake, therefore the amount of fat.
Frequently Asked Questions
When to Switch to Adult Cat Food?
The nutritional requirement of a kitten is very different from that of an adult specimen. Therefore it is essential to give your cat the most suitable food for its age.
This factor is extremely important for feline health, as the wrong food could irritate their digestive tract and cause various health problems. A kitten a few months old needs a lot more calories than a one-year-old feline.
After seven years, however, according to the various cases, it is advisable to adopt a type of diet that is very balanced and of even higher quality, with lower calorie intake and a higher content of proteins and vitamins.
When switching to a feeding regime for adult cats, it is good to keep the weight of the animal under control and regulate the administration of food necessary for its energy needs; this also depends on the lifestyle of the feline, whether lively or sedentary.
Obviously, in case of serious diseases affecting the digestive system, the kidneys, or the urinary tract, it is always better to consult a veterinarian. Always pay attention to the wording on the various packs, which must necessarily indicate the average age of the cat for which the food is intended.
What’s in Cat Food?
Knowing specifically what is contained in industrial cat food is not always easy. Each package should bear the actual origin of the ingredients on the label, but this is not always the case.
Some companies are transparent and use first choice ingredients, and many others make use of food industry waste. In principle, there should be no problems in the second case. Still, if the manufacturer brand uses many chemical additives and appetizers, then it would be appropriate to worry about the health of your cat and change the product.
Always make sure that the types of fish, meat, and cereals used in the preparations are well documented as to where they come from.
Many brands transform industrial food waste into refined menus for cats, but by checking well, the actual percentage of fish or meat present in the product can be very minimal.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of information not provided on the labels of many packs and therefore warned by brands that are not very transparent.
How to Store Wet Cat Food?
Cats are very demanding animals, and they love to eat always fresh or just open food. It can often happen that if the same meal opened the day before is proposed to a feline, he ignores it and does not like it.
The explanation is simple: the air has changed the smell of the food and therefore, has altered its consistency, even if the human eye does not perceive this change.
To prevent the cat from rejecting food that has already been opened, we advise you to opt for small single-dose packs to offer your kitty always fresh dishes.
In the case of larger boxes, once opened, close them tightly with plastic wrap to counteract the oxidation process. When it comes to wet food, remember that once opened, they must be consumed within 24 hours if you do not want to receive waste from your cat.
