Things to Avoid in a Cat's Diet

Cats are the most common pet in the United States, so it's no wonder cat food is big business. It's also no surprise that not all cat foods are good for felines. Our domesticated kitties are not far removed from their wild cousins, and a healthy diet is a lot more like that on "Wild Kingdom" than on your breakfast table.

  1. No Good Grains

    • Cats are obligate carnivores, which means they have to eat meat to be healthy. Protein from meat provides many important ingredients that cats need to be healthy. Foods that use grains as the main source of protein may leave your cat deficient in vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Additionally, cats just can't really digest grains. Corn, wheat, soy and other cheap ingredients are just fillers to make the food cheaper. They don't provide any nutritional value at all. According to veterinarian Lisa Pierson, cats have no need for carbohydrates, and too many of them in the food will cause significant health problems. So, when choosing a food for your feline family member, skip the grains.

    Byproducts Be Gone

    • Many cat foods mention byproducts in their ingredient lists. These include bloodmeal, bonemeal, animal fat, and tallow among other parts of slaughtered animals. Byproducts are created at rendering plants, which Dr. Karen Becker describes as "giant recycling kitchens" where animals from many sources are processed. While byproducts aren't the parts of an animal that provide good nutrition. Instead, byproducts are sometimes nothing more than feet, necks, heads and intestines.

    Avoid Artificial Anything

    • Artificial ingredients don't add any nutritional value to your feline friend's food at all. Some ingredients are added just to encourage your cat to eat more, including sugar and salt. Although technically not artificial, these are not good for your cat. Artificial colors are sometimes added to make the food more attractive to you, but some colors have been linked to health problems in pets.

    Pass on Poor Preservatives

    • To be stable on the shelf, cat food needs to have some kind of preservative to stay fresh. Unfortunately, some of the cheaper preservatives, including ethoxyquin, BHA and BHT, can be dangerous to your cat. Instead of these unsafe preservatives, choose foods that are preserved with mixed tocopherols, rosemary oil, vitamin E or citric acid.