In order to provide your cat with a balanced diet, find a brand that has been designed specifically to address her basic needs. Look for products with high levels of water content and AAFCO certification.
Protein diets provide energy and promote immunity in cats. They also aid in tissue repair, maintaining a healthy skin, coat, and nail care routine while giving energy boosts and offering immunity protection.
Royal Canin
Royal Canin was established by a French veterinarian named Jean Cathary in the 1960s. Within several years, Royal Canin quickly emerged as one of Europe’s pioneering pet food companies, becoming known for introducing extruder-based dry cat food in France before expanding rapidly throughout Europe.
Royal Canin has become renowned for their advanced formulas designed to address specific health needs such as weight loss, diabetes and urinary health in pets. Veterinarians typically recommend them and their products have higher price points than mainstream brands. Royal Canin has received numerous awards for its nutritional research as well.
Quality ingredients are also an attractive feature, offering your cat an array of choices tailored specifically to their individual needs. In addition, therapeutic diets may also help maintain health if diagnosed issues such as gastrointestinal distress, renal dysfunction or glucose control are present in your pet.
However, it’s important to remember that many ingredients found in cat food may not be ideal due to metabolic inefficiencies associated with processing plant proteins and starches. Thus it’s better to examine its nutrient analysis than its ingredient list when purchasing cat food; we highly suggest you peruse lab reports of foods you might purchase through The Clean Label Project as an invaluable source for doing just this.
Hill’s Science Diet
Hill’s Science Diet offers science-backed nutrition to cats of all ages and lifestyles. Their lifestage foods meet the specific requirements for each stage in a cat’s lifecycle while their Prescription Diet line serves health conditions or special dietary requirements. Their pet food is sold globally in over 86 countries with their research and development center located in Topeka, Kansas employing over 220 veterinarians, animal scientists, technicians and Ph.D nutritionists!
Hill’s Prescription Diet c/d canned cat food has been specially designed to support urinary health and reduce symptoms by 89%. It features a balanced blend of proteins from meat, chicken and pork by-products as well as fiber to aid weight management. Furthermore, its low glycemic index reduces digestive issues while its abundance of omega 3 fatty acids promote skin and coat health.
Hill’s offers wet food formulas and dry food options for dogs of various ages and breeds, packed with essential vitamins and minerals as well as soluble and insoluble fiber blends for digestion support and regularity. Highly digestible formulas without artificial colors or flavors make Hill’s an excellent option. Unfortunately, like other pet food brands, Hill’s has experienced recalls; most recently they recalled multiple Science Diet and Prescription Diet wet food varieties due to high levels of Vitamin D.
Orijen
Orijen provides high-protein pet food that’s designed specifically for cats. Their recipes feature no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives while using locally sourced meats and fish as ingredients.
WholePrey diet philosophy attempts to replicate the natural animal diet found in the wild for cats. This approach includes providing fresh and raw proteins such as muscle meats, organs and bones along with low glycemic fruits and vegetables in small batch production for maximum protein density. Furthermore, company products contain higher percentages of protein than most pet food brands on the market.
ORIJEN Fit & Trim provides an expertly balanced combination of fresh turkey, cage-free chicken, herring, mackerel, eggs and bone broths, liver and cartilage as a high protein, low carb diet for your cat. Furthermore, this food is filled with vital taurine, an essential nutrient for felines.
The company’s high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet for older cats is an excellent way to maintain healthy weight while decreasing muscle loss. Its recipes draw inspiration from wild-caught salmon, herring, mackerel, sardine and trout that cats hunt themselves; additionally, this food does not contain artificial preservatives or artificial flavor enhancers and also offers plenty of fatty acids as energy sources.
Blue Buffalo
Blue Buffalo takes great pride in its small-batch production methods. Established in Wilson, Connecticut by Billy Bishop to feed his Airedale terrier healthy meals in 2002, the company quickly rose to become one of the top selling pet food brands with their BLUE Life formula and eventually sold to General Mills (known for brands like Totino’s, Pillsbury and Haagen-Dazs). In 2018 Blue Buffalo was sold back over to General Mills who continue using small batch production methods with the sale going through to General Mills who own many iconic American brands as Totino’s, Pillsbury and Haagen-Dazs).
BLUE offers an assortment of dry and canned food suitable for all life stages, breed sizes and lifestyles in its line-up, including multi-cat health recipes as well as high protein ones to assist weight management and indoor cats; in addition, there are products tailored specifically to sensitive stomachs or skin allergies.
BLUE products use only premium ingredients that have been carefully chosen by experts and do not include any red flag ingredients such as carrageenan, unnamed meat meal, corn, wheat or soy as well as artificial preservatives. Many products feature chicken, turkey or beef as the source of protein for cats.
However, some BLUE products contain excessive carbs which may lead to digestive issues for some cats as well as unwanted weight gain in others. Products in their Wilderness and Carnivora ranges contain lower levels of carbohydrates for optimal weight management in felines.
