Commercial cat food
Sooner or later every owner of an animal comes up against the question: “What is the right way to feed my pet?” What is good for it and what is bad? In the light of that question the subject of dry food becomes a live one. Is it a cure-all or a killer? The argument goes on among animal lovers to this day, and everyone keeps his own opinion. Those who favour dry food point to the West; those against it speak of illness and of deaths. Let us try to look at the problem.
A good many new products have appeared in our shops of late, cat foods among them, and they raise a great many questions and opinions. We asked a specialist to clear the matter up: S. D. Klochkov, veterinary surgeon, Candidate of Veterinary Sciences, lecturer in the surgery department of the Saratov State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology.
Many millions of cats are kept as pets the world over, and they are fed entirely, or at the very least mainly, by their owners. People’s attitude to their animals has changed a great deal by now — we count them companions and friends. It is no wonder, then, that owners care about their pets’ health as they do about their own, and want the food to give them the longest and healthiest life it can.
Does mass-produced pet food meet the requirements of healthy feeding?
Some well-known firms — Mars Pet Care, for one, with many years in the pet food industry behind it — have a research centre where everything the firm puts out is developed, manufactured and tested. At the Waltham centre in England 110 scientists now work: veterinary surgeons, biologists, nutrition specialists, chemists and food technologists. And the knowledge and experience of those specialists go, of course, into developing and producing pet food, from drawing up the recipe to testing the finished product.
Does that mean these foods are safe and suited to what an animal needs?
Yes, certainly. They are balanced so as to contain all the necessary nutrients — proteins, fats, carbohydrates — in the best proportions. Mass-produced food lets owners feed an animal for the whole of its life without adding vitamins or mineral salts. It also reduces to a minimum the mistakes owners make in putting a ration together: it is hard for a layman to work out the amount of calories, protein, fat and carbohydrate an animal needs to make good the energy it has spent.
In that case, which is better: dry food in packets or “wet” food in tins?
First, the owner has to decide which system of feeding to keep to: ready-made food only, mixed feeding — ready-made food plus food the owner prepares — or home-cooked food alone.
Second, the needs of the particular animal have to be taken into account. In principle, adult animals are comparatively little susceptible to the diseases caused by inadequate feeding. But wrong feeding can tell badly on the development of genetic traits: a shortage of zinc or copper in the food, for instance, can lighten the coat, along with other unwelcome effects.
Inadequate feeding is dangerous for animals whose need for energy and nutrients is at its highest, and which have besides to eat considerably more food in proportion to their live weight. I mean growing animals and animals in milk, which react more sharply to any shortage of nutrients. So, if you have decided on ready-made food, you should know that, reckoned on dry matter, tinned foods are as a rule higher in calories and richer in protein, but contain less carbohydrate and roughage. The energy density of dry foods covers a fairly wide range. Many dog owners have observed that moistened food is taken as tastier, whereas with cats the decisive thing is the accent on the food they are used to. The choice of food, or the combination of several kinds, depends on the species of animal, on its age and on how much energy it spends. During reproduction, and during lactation above all, food of high energy density is recommended — “Whiskas Junior” for cats, for example. Ready-made food guarantees the animal the necessary amount of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium without any added mineral salts.
But feeding on ready-made food alone is expensive for the owner.
Keeping a cat is not cheap for a responsible person in any case. So in choosing a companion and a friend in an animal, remember that its keep will cost extra. Food cooked at home may perhaps seem tastier, but it does not contain many of the substances a healthy life calls for. And if you add up the cost of meat, vegetables, greens, grain, and the vitamin and mineral supplements, it turns out that healthy home food is no cheaper.
And do the vitamins survive in ready-made foods?
Fears that animals are short of many vitamins because these may be destroyed in manufacture are quite groundless. Vitamins that will not stand heat are deliberately added in excess before the food is heated, so that by the end of the process enough of them is left to meet the approved standards.
And what are ready-made foods made from?
Raw material of animal origin is used: meat, offal (lungs, kidneys, liver, heart), the flesh of fish and poultry, bone meal — all of it controlled by the official veterinary service — and raw material of plant origin: maize, rice and rye flour, oat flakes, fresh and dried vegetables.
Can cats be fed on exactly the same ration as dogs?
As characteristic carnivores, cats have particular requirements in the matter of nutrients: a high requirement for protein, and the vital importance of certain specific substances — taurine, arachidonic acid. Cats are also more susceptible than dogs to an excess of one element or another, vitamin A and calcium among them. Dog food therefore cannot supply everything a cat needs.
Owners say that animals get an upset stomach when they are moved on to commercial food.
That can happen if the owner has changed the type of feeding abruptly. Keep to a few simple rules and, as a rule, no such reaction follows.
And what are those rules?
It is a good thing if you start feeding mass-produced food to a kitten. Do not economise on the food of a growing animal. “Whiskas” for kittens suits a growing body very well from the age of 6 weeks. The animal should be fed at one and the same time each day.
If an adult cat is being moved on to a ready-made food — “Whiskas” or “Royal Canin”, say — it should be accustomed to it gradually. The best way is to mix the new food into the food it is used to: do not switch abruptly from one kind to another, but raise the proportion of the new food in the mixture little by little until it has replaced the old one entirely.
If you have settled on a mixed ration, then once the animal is used to it the feeding should be divided up: give the ready-made ration in the morning, say, and home-cooked food in the evening, or the other way about. The food should not be too cold or too hot.
Food that has not been eaten must not be left in the bowl. It has to be taken away, so that it does not turn sour or become infected with fly eggs.
A cat’s drink is water. It should be fresh, clean, and always standing where the cat can get at it. On dry food the body’s need for liquid rises considerably, so free access to water must always be there. Milk, by the way, is not a suitable drink for an adult animal: it contains milk sugar, which the stomach digests very badly.
And how is the food to be varied?
Animals like variety in their food. And although one can feed them the same ready-made food all their lives, a change of dish is always welcome. That is why there are foods of every sort: Royal Canin, Whiskas, 9 Lives, kitekat (dry and tinned).
Commercial food
Commercial pet food is a great convenience to owners. Conscientious owners, who want the best for their animals, have an enormous range of it and say they are spoilt for choice. How are you to know what is best for your animal? The most respected makers of premium and “natural” pet food agree on the whole with the vets: the best diet for a pet is the one you make yourself. Food prepared at home, carefully balanced for nutrients and using both raw and cooked ingredients, is the best thing you can do for your pet. Many of us, though, have neither the time nor the energy to cook. For those who rely partly or wholly on commercial food, here are some guiding principles for choosing a diet of good quality.
CONTENTS: the naming is strictly regulated and tells us what has gone into the food. “Chicken for Cats” has to contain at least 95% chicken (water excluded). In the same way “Fish and Goose Giblets for Cats” has to contain more fish (95%) than goose giblets, since fish is named first on the label. If the label carries “dinner”, “platter”, “entree”, “nuggets”, “formula” or similar terms, meaning that the product is made with meat or fish products added, the product has to contain 25% of the named source of fish or meat. That is, “Fish Dinner” must contain 25% fish. If more than one component goes into it — “Fish Dish with Goose Giblets”, for instance — those two components must make up 25% of the whole, and there must be at least 3% of the second of them. Products whose name carries “flavor”, such as “Beef Flavor Dinner”, do not in fact contain beef meat, but will probably contain beef waste or by-products that give the food a beef flavour.
WHAT IS A BY-PRODUCT? Even on premium brands of the Science Diet and Lambs sort you will notice that the first component listed is “by-products”. By-products may include meat, but more often they include gut, feet, hooves, beaks and other unwanted organs, spoiled meat, and slaughterhouse waste.
4 D: when a manufacturer states that it has used meat as a component, this is not the ordinary sort of meat fit for human consumption. If it were, the cost of the food would be prohibitive. Pet food may be made from the meat of animals that were injured, diseased, or already dead before the slaughterhouse: the “4 D”. It may include malignant tissue, or the tissue of stillborn animals, which is full of hormones. It may even be the meat of dogs and cats put down in animal shelters — as the San Francisco Chronicle reported and the American Veterinary Medical Association confirmed, though the food manufacturers deny it furiously.
COMPLETE and BALANCED. Food may be marked “complete and balanced” if it meets the standards of a controlling body such as AAFCO, the American Association of Feed Control Officers. The food standards lay down the required amounts of protein, fat, vitamins, minerals and so on, and extensive research is demanded of the makers. In fact, though, only the protein, amino acid and vitamin content is examined. AAFCO also issues standards setting out which vitamins cat food must contain and how much of each. How is the value arrived at? These studies are done on kittens, which are easier to come by, and on other species. Are they reliable? We do not know. And although any manufacturer can put together a food containing exactly the amount of every component the standards call for, the animal may still starve to death on it in the end. Why should that happen? Because the standards take no account of how digestible the nutrients are, or how well they go together in the animal. Some forms of vitamins and minerals, for instance, cannot be absorbed from the digestive tract. One vet is reported to have built a food out of leather from old boots, petroleum waste and wood waste, which nonetheless met the requirements for protein, carbohydrate and fat. Unhappily, given the components many manufacturers use, one has to admit that “The Old Boot” may be of better quality than any of them. The quality of a food trial is presented as the “gold standard”, the manufacturer’s favourite phrase. Yet when you look at the actual AAFCO standards, you find that a manufacturer has to feed a minimum of 6 animals on the test food and nothing else for 6 months. The most respected food makers, Iams, Purina and companies of that kind, test on hundreds of animals over a year or more. But it is easy to see that an unscrupulous manufacturer could run a poor-quality diet for 6 months without observing any harm to health, and then declare his food “complete and balanced”. Bear in mind that the standards are only a set of “minimums” and “maximums”, not of “optimums”. Commercial food is meant to be adequate for the average animal, and cannot reflect the shifting needs of an individual pet.
ADDITIVES. Practically every commercial food contains additives and preservatives. Some of the worst are BHA, BHT and ethoxyquin. Ethoxyquin is banned in food for people because it causes cancer. The chemicals most dangerous to the consumer may be added without being declared, or may be used in the field or in processing the grain, and they will never appear on the label. Probably most, if not all, of the animal fat intended for animal consumption has been treated with ethoxyquin.
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO? When you are choosing a commercial food for your pet, read the label. The percentages given for the moisture content of the various components are misleading, but they are the only figures available. In general, choose brands that state they are “natural”: imperfect as they are, they are still better than the rest. Some foods are now preserved with vitamin E more often than with synthetic preservatives. Those preservatives may still be present, but in smaller amounts. Avoid foods labelled “light” or “special formula” — manufacturers do everything they can to advertise their product, to say nothing of their attempts to devise formulas that cannot exist at all. Steer clear of the common, easily remembered brands; they are usually repackaged by middlemen. Cats need moist food every day, to lighten the working load on the kidneys. Above all, add raw meat, boiled grain and vegetables to the ration.
The decision is YOURS.