This post is also available in : French German Italian
There are hundreds of food brands for us ; cat food is sold in the supermarket, in specialized stores, or at the veterinarian.
We find wet food, dry food (kibbles), or still semi-wet. Prices can be multiplied by nine between the cheapest and the most expensive product.
In Europe, Nestlé Purina (Félix, Friskies, Gourmet, Vital Balance in supermarket, and Purina in specialized store for example) and Masterfoods (Whiskas, Kitekat, Ronron, Sheba in supermarket, and Royal Canin in specialized store) realizes roughly 2/3 of the sales ; the rest is divided between the own brands of the distributors, Procter and Gamble (Iams), Colgate-Palmolive (Hills), and some rare independent small companies.
How can the humans find themselves there ?
- By showing common sense : quality has a price. A wet food containing less than 8 % of meat and ingredients of low quality will be cheap, but won’t have the same nourishing properties as a more expensive food containing at least 25 % of meat developed with good quality ingredients.
- By inquiring : veterinarian, specialized literature, specialized web sites. You can give us factory feedstuffs, or prepare us yourself our meals (BARF or cooked dishes); this last option requires however good knowledge in feline nutrition. A cat is a strict carnivore, and his food has to bring to him, in percentage of dry material : 30 to 40 % of proteins, 10 to 15 % of fats, less than 45 % of carbohydrates, as well as several vitamins and key nutriments as taurine and arginine. Wet food will have a bigger proportion of proteins than dry food.
- By making the best choice for us : your human has to take into account his budget AND your health ; he must however know that by saving up on the quality of the food, he can maybe find himself with veterinarian’s more important expenses in a few years.
Claire chose to feed us mainly with top-quality wet food ; we just get some kibbles for night, but they’re also top-quality. We’ll explain you in another article why she chose this food brand for us.
In the meantime, here are three books that we recommend you to read about pet food ; we don’t know if there are translations in your human’s language.
In French : 
In English : 
In German : 
We only eat Gourmet or Sheba cat food and they have to be chicken as we won’t eat other flavours. The gourmet cans are our favourite although the gourmet chicken and gravy pouches are good too. We also eat (if we’re starving) Sheba in foils and their chicken in gravy pouches. Hannah also loves freshly cooked chicken.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
Great post! Thanks for sharing! 🙂 xx Roxy & Tigerlino <3
Great post- I need to get this book.
There’s what should be and what there actually is in this world!
Some “humans” are able to prepare the arrival of their cat or their dog, as parents prepare for the coming of a baby.
We never had a chance to be one of those. Frimousse had settled in our house less than an hour after we first met.
Litter, food, we had to cope with the situation.
As far as RouXy is concerned he was our new neighbours’ kitten when we moved in some 13 years ago. We could not imagine he would take such a big place in our house and in our lives. His “humans” just fed him and when he joined Frimousse he had dinner with him.
One year later Tigri arrived and shared the same meals.
And cats are as children. When they have a habit it’s very difficult to change. Manufacturers are well aware of that. Additives are used to make sure animals and children are addicted to THEIR food.
If we were to have another cat, after Frimousse is gone… But there won’t be another cat since we have to think of our cat’s life after WE are gone…
Great info as usual! We eat an all canned food diet, no kibble. We don’t get the top quality food all the time – with 5 of us it is hard for Mom and Dad to afford the expensive food for all of us all the time. But we do get it some! Mom also feeds us raw when she isn’t being lazy.
Toxic croquettes sound awful! Great post! MomFOD never lets us have “carageenan” either, which everyone sneaks into pretty much every canned cat food. Infuriating because i have to miss out on all the flavors! – Crepes.
My human reads labels of the cat food she buys for us all the time! She is very careful about what she gets, and it is usually from a smaller manufacturer.
Our humans are just happy when they find something we like and will eat. We are now eating Hill’s C/D- Stress formula and our canned. Well, at least some us. Thanks for your good report. Calista Jo is blowing kiss to Zorro. XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
pixie & zorro….we haz been a purina familee for yeerz…N we due meen yeerz….even de dawgs eated it bak when….we trust their name N their productz….. ♥♥♥
What good advice. Using common sense and reading labels will help you make good decisions about what to feed your cats.
I eat a mix of grain-free canned food and some high-quality dry food. I’m kind-of finicky and don’t give mom many options about what I’ll eat. This mix keeps me healthy.
Excellent advice! Good food does equal good health. Great recommendations for reading too. There is a lot of misleading information about pet food out there and the way it is labeled doesn’t help much. It is really interesting to see what brands are available in Europe.
Great advice. The book looks interesting too 🙂
Purrs xx
Athena and Marie
Gweat posty. But weez wanna innerject dat cats need 85 % meat pwotiens, bein’ da obligate carnivores we awe. Weez wish we new ifin those books wuz available in english, cuz they wuld be sumfin’ ommy wuld be wantin’ to add to hers library.
Luv ya’
Dezi and Lexi
This is a complicated subject. There is so much info online it’s hard to know what to believe. I trust our holistic vet and fee a combo of raw and grain-free wet cans. No dry ever except as treats.
I only eat Purina Felix wet food and it has to be fish based!! But I do eat some Hills Science Plan kibble AND when the Staff cooks fresh chicken I am there waiting for it!!! 🙂 Thanks for the great post!
no matter what else is on that label, it better read ‘Friskies”…we are not gourmet eaters here, we usually turn up our n noses at the most healthy food which makes our pawrents crazypants! MOL
Fascinating – and thanks so much for the book titles. They look VERY interesting. It’s so important to feed the very best food to your furry family members you feel you can afford.