10 Reasons Why You Should Not Buy Cheap Cat Food

1. The cheaper the cat food the worse it is for your cat and the more it will cost you in the long run with vet bills and complicated health problems. Cost is relative. Feeding a better quality food means your cat eats less and since it is more digestible your cat is absorbing more nutrition, producing less waste, and higher priced, but more nutritionally sound food is far more cost effective.

2. It might be better for a cat to eat inferior and mediocre cat food instead of no food and starving, but if the food is so low quality, you really do end up starving your cat.

3. BHA and BHT are cancer causing chemicals and you can often see this listed as one of the first four or five ingredients on dozens of cheap cat food products. BHA and BHT are cheap preservatives in some foods.

4. Cheap cat food is not high in protein. Your cat may seem to like the cheap cat food just because they eat it and make frequent trips to their dry food bowl. But maybe when your cat keeps eating that cheap cat food it is because they are so darn hungry from not getting enough protein they keep going back to their only food bowl hoping to feed their hunger.

5. Cheap cat food also makes your cat load up their kitty litter box. According to Care 4 Cats at http://www.care-4-cats.com/cat-food.htm

"The very cheapest pet food has a lot of ash as a filler, and the animal has to eat a lot to get enough nutritive value, producing lots of excrement. Better to buy less of a more expensive brand and save on cat litter costs too!

6. Cheap cat foods put extra fat into their foods so if cats have a nice shiny coat of the owners who are uneducated on ingredients are fooled into thinking their pet is healthy. Remember the old saying "Don't judge a book by its cover?" Don't judge your cat simply because the fur looks good. If they are not eating an adequate diet, eventually that good looking fur will stop looking good and get in sync with the look of their unhealthy insides.

7. By-products are often listed as one of the first three ingredients, and sadly it is often the first ingredient listed in cheap cat food. By-products are products that would not even stand alone to be considered food. By-products are disgusting and imagine if the company had to list exactly what the by products were? They could be beaks and feet and feather and bones and guts and eyeballs and on and on. It is just not natural and it is horrible to think that the biggest ingredient in the food you feed your cat is a waste product and not fit for consumption. NEVER buy cat food where by-products are listed as one of the first 5 ingredients. It is difficult to digest and does nothing nutritionally for your cat's health.

8. Corn fillers. Corn isn't cat food; it is another cheap filler that is difficult to digest. It is another reason cheap cat food is high in carbohydrates and high carbohydrate diets often lead to diabetes, kidney failure, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, obesity and many other complications in cats. Grains such as corn, rice, wheat and so on, should be absent or only minimally present in your cat's diet.

9. When was the last time you heard a veterinarian recommend a cheap cat food? Never. There are no professional pet journal articles mentioning you should feed your cat cheap versions of cat food found in both dry and canned form.

10. Just because you see the word beef or chicken or liver or fish doesn't mean the cat food even contains any of those items! There are industry standards in naming products and consumers are often fooled because of it. There is a difference between Chick cat food, chicken flavored cat food, chicken dinner, etc. According to consumersearch.com

"Of great concern to many pet owners is the quality of ingredients in cat food, primarily the type of protein source in food. Just as for human food, there are regulations regarding the labeling of cat food that can help consumers assess the amount of meat in the food. If a product is labeled "Beef Dog Food", for example, 95% of its ingredients must be beef. If it says "Chicken Dinner" or "Lamb Formula", it must contain only 25% of the meat. If the packaging simply states "Chicken Flavor", the food merely needs to taste like chicken to the cat; it does not need to actually have any chicken in it."

See the full story here:

http://www.consumersearch.com/www/family/cat-food/fullstory.html

According to Lisa A. Pierson, DVM, she says "In the wild, your cat would be eating a high protein, high-moisture content, meat-based diet, with a moderate level of fat and with only approximately 3-5 percent of her diet consisting of carbohydrates. The average dry food contains 35-50 percent carbohydrates. Some of the cheaper dry foods contain even higher levels."

Cats are carnivores. They don't crave dough and bread and corn muffins, what cats want is meat. So, feeding your cat a high carbohydrate cat food, whether it is dry food or canned food, is much like feeding it doughnut as its main meal with some corn meal gluten pie as dessert. Just because the cat food is shaped like cute little fish doesn't mean it has anything really to do with fish ingredients. What is also appalling is how often cheap cat food is colored with chemical ingredients proven to cause cancer, just because the color as to somehow be pleasing to our human eyes. You cat doesn't care what color its food is! Your cat eats to fuel its body and what fuels its body best is a high protein diet which is impossible to get from a cheap cat food.

So, do yourself a favor, and most importantly your cat, and stop buying cheap cat food and read the ingredients. Buy more than one kind of high quality cat food and let your cat have a varied diet that doesn't just consist of dry food, but a mixture of dry and wet food.

Be generous with your cat and let them experience deli cuts of meat, tuna fish packed in water, sardines packed in water, salmon and other high quality high protein foods. And for an extra special treat, wheat grass, also known as pet grass, is a favorite among cats to aid in their digestion. Make sure you only give them organic wheat grass to snack on too.

A good diet of high quality high protein cat food is the best way you can show your cat you love them and want them to be around for many many years.