What Really Is The Best Brand of Dry Cat Food?

So, this has been a controversy for decades, maybe even centuries! What really is the best dry Cat food for our domesticated feline friends? If you're like me, you want to spoil your kitty with great food and delicious treats! Another controversy is wet vs dry cat food...just to get this out of the way, I'll explain a few things about both. Dry Cat food is very salty, has very little moisture content, and has been linked to kidney failure in Cats (and, depending on your kitty, dry usually isn't as tasty as wet), however, it is good for their oral health, and does provide a crunch like bone in the wild that wet could never provide! It is also usually much cheaper in cost as well, but usually doesn't provide as many nutrients, and often contains unnecessary fillers, unhealthy fats, and too many carbohydrates that aren't good for your kitty! Wet Cat food, however, is also extremely salty, but it is much higher in moisture content, and isn't known to cause kidney issues like dry. It's usually tastier, depending on brand and preference of your Cat, but is usually more expensive. The best thing to do of which I do for my spoiled boy is to buy the best brands of both wet and dry and mix them together! This way the wet will give a lot more flavor, moisture, and nutrients, and the dry can give some extra crunch! If your kitty is like mine in that he/she doesn't like wet, you can also soak it for a few minutes. It won't keep the teeth as clean and the gums as healthy, but it will be a lot easier to eat! Now that we've got that out of the way, let me explain to do what I believe is the best dry Cat food!

The brand I choose is what I believe to be the best. It is called...Pure Balance (the Chicken & Brown Rice flavor)! Very price-friendly, high-quality, and incredibly nutritious, Pure Balance provides a balanced, healthy diet consisting of, you guessed it, all-natural ingredients like real Chicken! There aren't many grains (only brown rice, ground barley, and what is called "grain sorghum". It's really nothing to worry about) and it is corn, wheat, and soy free, unlike most other dry Cat food brands...It claims to contain no artificial flavors or preservatives, and no fillers. Here's a few things I love about this brand...

Good for Kitty:
-All-natural ingredients, and it is made with real US, farm-raised Chicken as the first ingredient!
-No corn, wheat, or soy!
-No artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives!
-High in protein (34%), healthy fats (13%), and essential vitamins and minerals, low in unnecessary fibers (4%), carbohydrates, unhealthy oils & fats, and other ingredients that are bad for your kitty!
-Higher in moisture than most other dry food brands (12%)
-They also advertise it being good for vision and heart health!

Good for us Humans:
-Very price-friendly
-A bigger bag than a lot of dry foods (3.5 lbs for the smaller bag)
-Easy to get ahold of online or in-store!

Where can you find it?
You can order Pure Balance online, however, if you're able, I would highly recommend purchasing it in Walmart! It is the cheapest bag of Cat food, AND is the healthiest! SCORE!!! As for wet food, I prefer to feed Rachael Ray Nutrish (they're in small plastic cups), Crave, or...(I forgot the other name, sorry!)

Please don't hesitate to ask questions, and please let me know your comments or opinions down below!!

P.S. Here are a few pics of silly Sebastian, the best Cat ever who is extremely friendly, personable, VERY intelligent, curious (or better word may be "nosy" lol), an absolute lap-cat, despite being severely abused as a kitten! He's extremely vocal for a British Bombay, and I suspect there could even be a tiny bit of Siamese in him (or he could just be a weirdo lol)! He's currently 5.5, almost 6 years old, and all I can say is...WOW!

 

Very handsome..... My wife an I have 12 feline friends. It all started with a rescue. We fed fussycat wet food before the population boomed......now we feed purina catchow indoor and alternate with one of the wet foods that are on sale for the week. We have all spade and neutered now so no more boom. Lol

 

JustAFishServant Sebastian is a very lucky cat.
I feed my group of barn cats, Purina Cat Chow.
Of course they supplement their diet with field mice, barn rats & rabbits.
My cats come & go. Much too wild to pick up & they run away when approached.
Do we actually own our cats or do cats
own us? Lol

 

Yes I agree....... The million dollar question!

Would they shop for us the way we shop for them????

 

Smokey is a 5 1/2, almost 6 year old rescue I’ve had about 5 years. He now eats Purina pro plan. He had actually developed back to back urinary tract infections after finishing a round of antibiotics (he’s free range indoor/outdoor and had to initially go on antibiotics for a poisonous snake bite). More antibiotics for his UTI followed by another UTI, and I finally got a prescription for a dry food that cleared up his UTI issues without antibiotics (we were doing a revolving door of vet visits, poor guy). After about 2 years I switched him off the vet food to a non-prescription dry purina formula for urinary tract health. A year or so on that and no new UTIs so I stayed with purina and switched to a pro plan formula I order from chewy. There have been times I’ve tried more expensive brands and ended up having to donate to animal shelters because he is not only high maintenance but he apparently has preferences I guess.

 

Handsome indeed!

 

JustAFishServant Sebastian is a very lucky cat.
I feed my group of barn cats, Purina Cat Chow.
Of course they supplement their diet with field mice, barn rats & rabbits.
My cats come & go. Much too wild to pick up & they run away when approached.
Do we actually own our cats or do cats
own us? Lol

Very good question! I believe we purchase, rescue, take-in, or adopt animals to bring them into our homes as companions, but do they stay ours, or do they eventually take over??

Also, not really related, but, take Honey for example (or as my family calls her "Queen Honey")! She's a highly aggressive and playful runt Chocolate Rosetail long-tailed female domestic Betta (phew, what a mouthful)! And boy, is she bossy! Every time you even scarce take a look at her or barely crack open the door even before you take a single step inside, you'll enter the room spotting an absolutely adorable, playful, flarey girl dancing and playing hide and seek!! I am definitely her "caretaker", and I did rescue her almost 16 months ago from an abuse/neglect situation, so I guess I should be called "JustAHoneyServant" lol.

...p.s. right now she lives in a tiny 1 gal blackwater, but believe me when I say it won't be long! Like good ol' Vermilion (also rescued on the same day), she'll be getting a MASSIVE palace all to herself! It'll definitely be a heavily-planted blackwater, and may be anywhere from as little as 20 gallons to as big as 90 gallons (yes, I spoil her rotten! She'll get live food, treats, very expensive food, oh, and don't forgot her Cholla!)...sorry, got a bit off track there lol. Back to Sebastian and other kitties!!

 

I was a vet tech and am now in nursing school, but food was a major issue and we had a whole year long class dedicated to nutrition. Purina, Sci Diet, and Eukanuba are the top brands on the market. Sci diet does the most research, but the others copy very well.

Wet food having such a high water content actually makes it much harder to judge the nutritional value in dry matter, whereas you know the exact nutritional value of dry food. If you prefer wet food, you can always soak dry food in water. Dry food actually has never been scientifically proven to benefit teeth at all, although sci diet does have a specialty formula for dental care that has large pieces which hold together when bitten into, allowing the tooth to be scraped on the way out. Most cats don’t like this food because it’s obviously difficult to eat.

 

Good question. I feed a mix of wet and dry food. For dry food I've been using Purina Gentle. I'm sure there are better foods but it has worked for 12 years!

 

I was a vet tech and am now in nursing school, but food was a major issue and we had a whole year long class dedicated to nutrition. Purina, Sci Diet, and Eukanuba are the top brands on the market. Sci diet does the most research, but the others copy very well.

Wet food having such a high water content actually makes it much harder to judge the nutritional value in dry matter, whereas you know the exact nutritional value of dry food. If you prefer wet food, you can always soak dry food in water. Dry food actually has never been scientifically proven to benefit teeth at all, although sci diet does have a specialty formula for dental care that has large pieces which hold together when bitten into, allowing the tooth to be scraped on the way out. Most cats don’t like this food because it’s obviously difficult to eat.

That's very good to know, thanks! Yeah, I've never really known if the "oral health" thing was true or not, but every vet I talk to says it's true...And yes, I already soak dry food like I do with the fish, and Sebastian does like it a little bit better. He's been fed wet food his entire life, barely any dry food, but I did research and decided to basically do half/half. The only thing I don't like about Science Diet is that it contains a bunch of corn and whatever else Cats can't digest. I mean, would you ever see a Mountain Lion go to somebody's farm and eat a corn cob or rip a carrot out of the ground and munch on it? That's only my issue is that Cats digestive tracts are truly Carnivorous, unlike Dogs who have been bred for millenia to eventually become Omnivorous...I know the dry and wet food I use even has a small bit of garbagio in it, and that really the only way to give a Cat a meat-only diet (or eggs) is to feed them pure raw food...but I'm afraid if I do that he'll get sick from something on or inside the meat that I cannot see or possibly know about. So, really, my only hope is to give him food with as little garbage in it as possible, so that's why I choose Crave, Rachael Ray, Newman's Own, *sometimes* Merrick, and that other brand of wet food, as well as Pure Balance or *sometimes* Nutro dry food! Just my preference

 

Meow meow meow meow meow meow mix ")

 

here's Arnie.
he doesn't like wet food so we give him a little each day while we take away the dry food.
he gets fish twice a week from what we catch and occasionally other meaty treats.

 

This is brock... under the bed...hiding from the kids.
This...is Odin,on the kitchen table, yes,yes he is roughly 30lbs.
No we dont over feed him just just a husky fellow.

 

That's very good to know, thanks! Yeah, I've never really known if the "oral health" thing was true or not, but every vet I talk to says it's true...And yes, I already soak dry food like I do with the fish, and Sebastian does like it a little bit better. He's been fed wet food his entire life, barely any dry food, but I did research and decided to basically do half/half. The only thing I don't like about Science Diet is that it contains a bunch of corn and whatever else Cats can't digest. I mean, would you ever see a Mountain Lion go to somebody's farm and eat a corn cob or rip a carrot out of the ground and munch on it? That's only my issue is that Cats digestive tracts are truly Carnivorous, unlike Dogs who have been bred for millenia to eventually become Omnivorous...I know the dry and wet food I use even has a small bit of garbagio in it, and that really the only way to give a Cat a meat-only diet (or eggs) is to feed them pure raw food...but I'm afraid if I do that he'll get sick from something on or inside the meat that I cannot see or possibly know about. So, really, my only hope is to give him food with as little garbage in it as possible, so that's why I choose Crave, Rachael Ray, Newman's Own, *sometimes* Merrick, and that other brand of wet food, as well as Pure Balance or *sometimes* Nutro dry food! Just my preference

The oral health care with dry food is a hot debate! There’s just no actual research that had proven it; not to say it isn’t true yknow?

I knew someone would get to the topic of raw meat on this thread haha. Most vets I’ve worked under and in college say the risks outweigh the benefits, but I truly believe this is another hot topic debate that can be done well, if someone can really supplement the diet 100% with what they need, which is very difficult and time consuming but hey it can be done. Parasites are the biggest concern with raw food; actually the same reasons humans don’t eat raw food is why we don’t like feeding it to pets. It CAN be deadly. So, risks vs benefits? An individual’s preference.

Corn is such a hated food item. It is actually essential in a cat’s diet, oddly enough. It has lots of micro nutrients that cats and dogs actually need. No, not in large amounts. But did you see the MAJOR recalls on “grain free” foods? This is because they lacked ALL “fillers”, such as corn. It caused heart conditions like dilated cardiomyopathy, and killed tons of pets before we made the link.

 

In all honesty my cats are jerks and beg for meat...any kind of it, bacon,sausage,Turkey sliced or breast,hamburgers,steak....they will eat all of it.
I give it to them at least twice a day. They have their friskies cat food and I bought them cat grass for their tummy.
My one cat licks the cat grass and my other cat just complains until I let him outside.
He goes in the front yard eats the grass and comes back in.

 

I think the highest quality dry food is Origen/Acana. No grains at all, and meat is the first 15 ingredients, and they use “whole prey”. Plus probiotics, which are so good for cats’ digestive health.
But, holy cow, is it expensive!

I think some decent, less expensive brands are Nutro, Rachel Ray Nutrish (why do you have dyes tho??), Solid Gold, Petco’s Whole Hearted, and Petsmart’s Only Natural Pet.
Good lord, do I hate Blue Buffalo.

A decent, inexpensive wet food is the Fancy Feast classic pâtés.

*Commercial cat food rant*
Companies are so sneaky with hiding the quality of their food. Many cat food claim to not have fillers, saying that all the grains they dump in the food are food binders. This is garbage since only one binder is needed, and not much of it is needed either. Having corn, rice, potatoes, wheat, and tapioca starch all in the same food is excessive. Cats are obligate carnivores; they don’t need many carbs. None of the first 5 ingredients should be carbohydrates.
“Grain free” is good for cats, but not so much dogs. However, a lot of companies cheat by replacing the grains with potatoes, tapioca starch, or peas. It may be grain free, but it’s still loaded with carbs. Grain free is honestly nonsense and nothing but a gimmick. Grain free foods vary wildly in nutritional and calorie content. It’s pretty ridiculous. A label that makes sense would be “low-carb”.

*Cat oral health lecture*
Wet food is best because of its high water content; cats have a low thirst drive, and dehydrated cats frequently get UTI’s. That stuff about wet food rotting their teeth is false; the high carb content in dry food is actually worse. The best way to maintain cat’s teeth is to brush them with enzymatic toothpaste daily. The crunchy kibbles in dry food aren’t effective enough at removing plaque/tartar to substitute for brushing.

I give my cats dry food as the bulk of their diet, and use wet food as treats, given out generously. I have a fountain for them, and it really encourages them to drink.
They eat grass like cows.

 

I have a fountain for them, and it really encourages them to drink.

This is just something I want to emphasize as it is SO TRUE. Ever notice cats prefer to drink out of faucets instead of their bowls? Cats HATE stagnant water. They will drink so much more with running water. Outdoors, they typically drink from streams, not puddles.

 

This is just something I want to emphasize as it is SO TRUE. Ever notice cats prefer to drink out of faucets instead of their bowls? Cats HATE stagnant water. They will drink so much more with running water. Outdoors, they typically drink from streams, not puddles.

Fountains are awesome, but CLEAN THEM AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK. A lot of people I know neglect them, and they get nasty, as you all persons-with-lots-of-boxes-constantly-filled-with-water know very well.

 

My furry beasts eat Horizon Legacy dry for about 1/3 of their daily amount, and the rest is wet food, either Wellness or Canada Fresh. I try to buy Canadian when possible though it is hella expensive. They are worth it, right?? Of course they have a water dish too, but one drinks from a fish tank and the other from the shower. Years ago I fed Science Diet, but after getting a long spiel from a Persian cat breeder I switched to Go! which is good food and did make a noticeable improvement in my old cat's health (better coat, and far less hairball vomiting).
Cat spam!

 

Fishlore friends......attached is a photo of Gizmo. She is the small kitten with her Aunt Sally. She is 8 months old. We took her to the doctor yesterday. We noticed she has a back leg that was looking odd and she has not been favoring it as her other back leg. X-rays were taken. The leg in question has a mass below her knee. We have the xrays sent out for radiology to weigh in.

We ask that you keep us and Gizmo in your thoughts and prayers. We are expecting results maybe tomorrow or Monday.

 

Lovely pair of kitties, fingers crossed for a good outcome!

 

I'd just like to warn that feeding dry food caused my cat to "block" and he was not only in pain but almost died.

Luckily after intensive care lasting 2 weeks including an emergency operation resulting in a big bill he survived and is having a wonderful life on wet food.

The information is what was supplied by my vet. Pet insurance would not have saved me money as I did the calculations to test this.

I did some research and found other vets recommending wet food and strongly warning against dry. An explanation is that cats descend from desert animals that don't drink enough and expect to get their water requirements from their food.

My cats rarely drink though water is provided at all times.

All best wishes and good health to your pets.

 

I'd just like to warn that feeding dry food caused my cat to "block" and he was not only in pain but almost died

If you mean urinary block in a male cat, this is very common and is not related to dry vs wet, it’s related to what the contents of the food are. There is a wonderful science diet urinary care dry (and wet) food that we put male cats on if they have repeated blocking incidents, and it works wonders

 

No repeat performance so no need for a science diet and as said above I am guided by the professional that I trust.

All best wishes to you and your pets.

 

Yes they told me the price of that!

Well it is a prescription diet. Any prescription will be more expensive than a brand you can pick up at a grocery store, haha

 

I'd just like to warn that feeding dry food caused my cat to "block" and he was not only in pain but almost died.

Luckily after intensive care lasting 2 weeks including an emergency operation resulting in a big bill he survived and is having a wonderful life on wet food.

The information is what was supplied by my vet. Pet insurance would not have saved me money as I did the calculations to test this.

I did some research and found other vets recommending wet food and strongly warning against dry. An explanation is that cats descend from desert animals that don't drink enough and expect to get their water requirements from their food.

My cats rarely drink though water is provided at all times.

All best wishes and good health to your pets.
eThatQUO
eTheThaeTh

I'd just like to warn that feeding dry food caused my cat to "block" and he was not only in pain but almost died.

Luckily after intensive care lasting 2 weeks including an emergency operation resulting in a big bill he survived and is having a wonderful life on wet food.

The information is what was supplied by my vet. Pet insurance would not have saved me money as I did the calculations to test this.

I did some research and found other vets recommending wet food and strongly warning against dry. An explanation is that cats descend from desert animals that don't drink enough and expect to get their water requirements from their food.

My cats rarely drink though water is provided at all times.

All best wishes and good health to your pets.

That's great!! I hope your little one is doing better! I always knew dry food was terrible for Cats, yet too many people still feed it to them...I, personally, feed what I believe is the highest-quality dry Cat food that has the highest amount of real meats and the lowest amount of "other stuff" like fillers and unnecessary carbohydrates/fibrous foods. I then soak Sebastian's dry food approximately 12 hours before feeding it to him. Not just to soften it up but also to provide him with more liquids, just in case, you know? I then mix it with some of his favorite wet food! Anyway, I've been doing this for weeks now, and he's been very happy and healthy! His litter doesn't stink as it used to, his fur is looking a million times better, he's been losing a few unnecessary pounds that he had gained, and he is acting a lot better! I mean, he's always been the best cat on the planet with a dog-like personality, but he is still even acting better than his usual kind, sweet, cuddly, attentive, personable self!