Pet Care Club

For those who love their pets...

Dry Vs. Wet—Which Are Healthy Cat Foods?

We all want to feed healthy cat foods to our feline friends, but there are so many choices when we look at the store shelves that it is often confusing as to which one is best.  The biggest controversy is whether dry or moist cat food is the best.  Let’s compare the two.

Dry foods have their advantages and are considered by one group of cat owners as healthy cat foods.  Dry foods store well and create less of a mess in the litter box.  The crunching helps keep your cat’s teeth clean and many cats like the crunching sound.  In addition, many people choose dry food so their cat has access to food whenever it is hungry.  Dry food does not spoil like canned food does.

A second group of cat owners feed their feline friends only canned (or wet) foods.  Wet foods are often considered the healthy cat foods of choice because they do not usually contain as many grain fillers as dry.  Wet cat foods also provide much greater water content than dry foods, which helps with the cat’s urinary track health.  Feeding your feline friend wet foods also gives you a chance to provide variety on a regular schedule, something that many cats prefer.

When choosing healthy cat foods, you also need to consider the disadvantages of both dry and wet foods. With dry cat foods, cats will be digesting more fillers than is a natural part of their diets.  On the other hand, wet foods do not provide the teeth cleaning that dry foods do.  Urinary tract diseases are more frequent in cats eating only dry food.  Cats who only have wet foods available must eat at a scheduled time or risk their food going bad.   Wet foods do not store as easily as dry foods; but dry foods do not provide the variety available for a full range of nutrients.

Most veterinarians will say that healthy pet foods consist of a mixture of both wet and dry foods.  Feeding a mixture of a partial can of wet food mixed with the dry food will help provide a healthy diet for your feline friend.  This, however, requires throwing away, and therefore wasting, some of the dry food after a certain period of time so it does not spoil. It is preferable to feed your cat a partial can of wet food in the morning and then provide a bowl of dry food and a bowl of water for him to free feed throughout the day and night.

Taking the time to research cat foods will help owners provide tasty as well as healthy cat foods for their furry friends.  Once that decision is made, they can concentrate on the other needs of their cats.

 

< Back to Cat Care Articles