Cat food is food for consumption by cats. Cats have specific requirements for their dietary nutrients. Certain nutrients, including many vitamins and amino acids, are degraded by the temperatures, pressures and chemical treatments used during manufacture, and hence must be added after manufacture to avoid nutritional deficiency. We talk a lot about cats’ need for wet food. That’s because cats are natural carnivores and have a naturally low thirst drive. This means they often don’t drink enough water. Feeding wet food, toppers and treats gives cats supplemental hydration. So, does that mean dry food is bad for cats? Absolutely not. A high-protein, low-carbohydrate dry food offers many important benefits such as:

• Supports Cats’ Natural Grazing: In the wild, cats ate multiple small meals throughout the day. With dry food, you can leave their food out for cats to instinctively graze upon. This is not possible with wet food, which would spoil if left out too long.

• Helps Promote Dental Health: Chewing hard kibble may help prevent plaque and tarter buildup on teeth. However, whether you feed wet or dry food, you can maintain your cat’s dental health with regular teeth cleanings by your veterinarian.

• Easy and Economical: A bag of dry food typically costs less than the equivalent amount of meals in wet food. And, one bag can last a while. So, it can be a good option for cat parents on a budget.

Do Cats Need Wet Food?

If you’ve only ever fed your cat dry kibble, you may wonder if cats need wet food. In nature, cats derived most of the water their bodies needed from their prey. Because dry food has low moisture content, your cat needs to get water from a dish, fountain or wet food. Feeding a combination of wet and dry food, rather than just dry, is a great way to help your cat get more water. There are many benefits of including wet food in her diet.

When it comes to cat food, it can be easy to get confused between raw, dehydrated and freeze-dried, so to help make it easier to distinguish one from the other, we’re going to break each of them down for you. Freeze-drying is when a food is frozen and then placed into a vacuum where the water is turned into a vapor. After that, the food is then sealed in air-tight packaging to make sure it’s completely moisture free before being shipped to your local grocery store. Freeze-dried cat food is similar to raw cat food in that it hasn’t been cooked, but there are some key differences. Raw foods remain in their raw state, so they don’t have the moisture taken out of them and are therefore not shelf-stable. Raw foods may also lack key nutrients and they can carry a high bacterial and parasitic load. Dehydrated cat food is a lot like freeze-dried cat food in that both have had the moisture removed from them, just using different techniques. Freeze-dried food is produced using cold temperatures whereas dehydrated food requires low heat and because of that, the former tends to retain more nutrients than the latter. Freeze-dried cat food is basically a blend of meats and vegetables that have gone through a freezing and drying process to allow the shelf life of fresh ingredients to be safely extended. These special blends allow you to provide your feline friend with nutritious cuts of meat that don’t contain any fillers of preservatives. Alongside being free from fillers and preservatives, freeze-dried foods tend to be:

Most of us know that the cheap brands of dog food found in discount stores aren’t the best for our dogs…but why? The answer lies in the ingredients of these foods. Low-cost dog foods are low cost for a reason. They use low quality, more affordable ingredients. These foods load up on cheap filler ingredients like grains. Instead of using lean proteins they depend on unnamed meat “meals.” In comparison, high-quality dog foods utilize more whole, species-appropriate ingredients. What does species-appropriate food look like for dogs? It includes the following characteristics

Grain Free Cat Food: What You Need to Know

Grain-free cat food is just what its name describes — a cat food made free of grains. Common grains found in cat food include wheat, corn, oats, barley and rice. Most cats don't require grain-free food and cats with diagnosed grain allergies are unusual. In a study published in Veterinary Dermatology, corn was found to be one of the least likely sources of food allergy in a cat. Of the 56 cats in the study with food allergies, corn was responsible for four cases of allergy issues. Forty-five cats, meanwhile, suffered from allergies associated with eating beef, dairy and/or fish. So how can you know if your cat has a food allergy? Some possible signs of a food allergy include:

• Itchiness

• Excessive grooming

• Excessive hair loss

• Bald patches

• Inflamed skin

• Sores and scabs

• "Hot spots"