Learn How To Read a Pet Food Ingredient Label - Pt 2

Grains and potatoes should be absent from a cat's diet but, unfortunately, they are cheap so they are included in many commercial cat foods. Think 'profit margin'. Grains/potatoes are cheaper than meat.

Stay away from food with gravy and sauces because they usually use high carbohydrate thickeners.

Soy contains phytoestrogens and soy also negatively influences the thyroid gland. Given how common hyperthyroidism is in the cat, soy has no business being in cat food. Unfortunately, soy is a common ingredient used by many pet food manufacturers - especially Purina - because it enhances their profit margin.

When considering allergies, the ingredient list is useful since we don't care how much of the offending ingredient is in the food. The bottom line is that we don't want any of the ingredient to be present. Fish/seafood, beef, lamb, corn, wheat, and soy tend to be the most hyperallergenic ingredients for the cat - especially fish/seafood.

By-products are always a controversial subject but it makes much more sense to feed animal-based by-products to a cat than it does to feed grains or potatoes. Therefore, do not shy away from the more economical foods like Friskies or 9-Lives if you cannot afford the more expensive canned foods without by-products.

I would much rather see a cat eating an all-by-product canned food than any dry food. This is because even the cheaper canned foods have the 'Big Three' covered:

1) high in water

2) usually low in carbohydrates

3) the protein is from animals - not plants

By-products are not necessarily low quality protein sources. In fact, they can be extremely nutritious. However, there is more variability when quality is being considered when compared to muscle meat.

The higher priced canned foods that I referenced above, have a muscle meat listed as the first ingredient. A muscle meat will be listed as “chicken,” or “turkey,” etc., not “chicken by-products” or “chicken by-product meal,” or “chicken broth” or "liver".

“Chicken meal” is technically a muscle meat but the term “meal” denotes that it has been rendered (cooked for a long time at very high temperatures) and is lower in quality than meat that has not been as heavily processed. A "meal" product is more commonly found in dry foods. By-products can include feet, intestines, feathers, egg shells, etc., which are less nutritious (less biologically valuable/digestible) than meat.

Avoid foods listing "liver" as a first ingredient. (Example: Purina's prescription diet DM canned for feline diabetic patients. There are far better options available that are healthier and not as expensive.)

Liver is a very nutritious organ meat - and should be present in small amounts - but it should never be the first ingredient as it is very high in vitamin A and possibly D and you don't want to feed too much of those vitamins. Liver is cheaper than muscle meat so it will increase a company's profit margin when used in high amounts.

Preservatives are important ingredients that we need to pay attention to. BHA, BHT, and ethoxyquin are extremely questionable in terms of safety. Please note that Hill’s has always used BHT, and ethoxyquin in many of their products although recently I have noticed that these chemicals have been removed from some of their foods. Be sure to check the current labels. Other companies abandoned the practice of using these chemicals as preservatives long ago – opting for more natural and safer methods.

Also, please take note of a recent deceptive move by Hill's whereby they have incorporated into their labeling the word "maize" as a substitute for the word "corn". Maize IS corn and since this company is well aware of the fact that consumers are becoming more savvy about pet food ingredients, they have decided to try to disguise the corn in their diets by calling it "maize". Hill's is hoping that consumers stay ignorant regarding the fact that maize is corn.