Six reasons not to feed dry cat food
January 11, 2008 by Lynette
Since I spent some time over my lunch hour talking to a lady about feline nutrition, I thought I’d post an easy one:
Six reasons not to feed dry cat food:
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Diabetes: High carbohydrate diets can lead to diabetes mellitus. Dry food, even “low-carb” dry food, is naturally higher in carbohydrates than most canned foods, as it requires a starch to create “kibble”. Dry food is also more processed by heat, and thus more glycemic than wet food - raising blood sugar levels.
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Kidney disease (CRF): Lack of moisture in dry foods leaves cats subclinically chronically dehydrated, compromising kidney health.
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Obesity: As noted above, dry food is high in carbohydrates. Low-carbohydrate diets have been shown more effective at weight loss while maintaining lean muscle mass than high-fiber foods. “Low-carbohydrate” dry foods have been shown ineffective at weight loss, as they are very high in calories.
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Urinary tract disease (FLUTD): Lack of moisture in dry foods increases urine’s specific gravity, leading to cystitis (urinary tract inflammation). Regular non-prescription canned food has been shown more effective at preventing recurrence of urinary tract stones/crystals than prescription dry foods.
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Gastro-intestinal disorders (IBD): Grains are not tolerated by many cats, causing diarrhea and vomiting. Excessive fiber may stretch and inflame the GI tract, leading to constipation and megacolon. Carbohydrate malabsorption has been linked to gastro-intestinal problems.
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Cancer: Heat processing of grains and potatoes creates acrylamide, which has been shown to cause cancer in animals. Many dry foods also contain preservatives such as BHA and BHT, shown to cause cancer.
FelineOutreach.org, CatInfo.org and CatNutrition.org are all great sources of information. Visit PetFoodCrusade.com for information on pet food safety.
Note: I neglected to mention hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease), asthma/allergic respiratory disease, dental disease, and heart disease… that would have made ten reasons - not that I personally needed more.
References include:
For more information, visit Feline Outreach.
[...] strongly related to diet. (On that, by the way, have a look at Lynette’s recent wonderful blog entry listing reasons on why not to feed dry [...]
Wow! I am going to have to reconsider dry food. I was not aware that heating the grains a potatoes in the food caused carcinogens! Thanks for the great information.
Julie
Cat Health Symptoms
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Thanks for this excellent information. I knew about the diabetes and IBD incidence in dry food fed cats but it took my male getting completely blocked to finally make me toss every last bag of dry! Even though I keep hearing about how feeding CD would be my cats best chance to avoid recurrences, I am hoping strictly canned or raw food will do the trick.Then it happened to two friends cats and I hope they too will dump the dry.I am hoping that even a lower quality wet food is better protection against this dreaded FLUTD than the most expensive dry. I am still trying to switch to raw but at least we have dumped the dry so slow progress but progress never the less.
AJ,
Unfortunately, you’re not alone! I’ve talked to many people about feline nutrition and you’re not the first one to be reluctant to change until their cat is blocked with urinary tract stones.
An all-wet diet is your best defense against recurrence, as indicated by recent studies:
http://www.felineoutreach.org/EducationDetail.asp?cat=Cystitis
(See, in particular, the “managing FLUTD” link - the first link under “for more information…”
Hi,
I am switching to an all wet diet for my cats…I have one that had developed struvite crystals last year. She was put on a prescription diet..and hated it. The vet suggests keeping her on it (although the dry formula is the only one she will eat (it is the royal canin)
Anyway, he says I can try to get her to eat a canned of a high quality such as Wellness or science diet. (she won’t eat these either.
Do you have any suggestions? I am looking for something with a low ash and magnesium level…but wet food .
Thanks so much.
Hi Rhonda!
I feel *any* wet food is more likely to prevent future stone formations better than a dry (even prescription dry) food. Personally, I’m not overly concerrned with ash/magnesium, as if they’re fed a wet diet their urine will be more dilute, washing out sediment. For more information on struvite crystals and other urinary tract ailments in cats, visit:
http://www.felineoutreach.org/EducationDetail.asp?cat=Cystitis
Take a look at foods like:
* Friskies special diet (comes in a variety of flavors)
* Nature’s Variety Instinct (not the Prairie)
* Evo 95% meat (chicken/turkey, duck, etc)
There are food charts out on the internet that may be helpful as you evaluate your options.
Janet & Binky’s charts:
http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/CanFoodNew.html
KatKarma’s charts:
http://webpages.charter.net/katkarma/canfood.htm
By the way, I personally disagree with referring to Science Diet as a “high quality food”. Science Diet (and Prescription Diet, both by Hills) generally have high grain content, particularly most of their foods contain a lot of corn. They also contain poor quality meats (byproducts and organ meat, little high-quality muscle meat). However, they do a great job at marketing their product including providing free food for vet students and animal shelters, and funding veterinary courses - particularly the one(s) on animal nutrition… so their reputation is excellent (even if their food isn’t, in my opinion)!
Best of luck!!!
Sophia loves her raw chicken medallion from Nature’s Variety, her chicken Wellness and her occasional crunchie treats which are Nature’s Variety Instinct Chicken.
I have four cats. Two - one boy and one girl have recently been diagnosed with FUS- urniaary disease. Boy had blood in his urine and wasnt peeing much, my little girl also two years old, isnt peeing much. they gave goy (the vet) antibiotics and antiinflamatory) they gave nothing to my little girl. I live on disability and they insist my cats have to eat these prescription diets, hills prescription diet - boy will eat the dry but not the wet, and purina ur prescription diet, I have to mix it with fancy feast and finger feed them to get them to eat it. Please anyone tell me if there are other foods I can give them. I dont like the hills food, it has pok in it, and even I wont eat pork. Are there any other foods I can give them that arent these prescription foods that they will eat? I am concerned because boy only eats the dry hills presscription. The girls do too but not very much any of them. I dont want to buy foods that will make them ill again, lord knows I cannot afford the vets again, literally. But why waste money on these prescription foods they dont like. Any other alternatives? I have tons of cat food Purina canned (fish flavored) not good for cats now that I know I wont give it to them but they love tuna. Please help.
Hi Diana,
I’m sorry to hear your kitties are ill.
For any cat with urinary tract difficulties, I would recommend NO DRY FOOD. There was a recent study, sponsored by Hill’s, which showed regular non-prescription canned foods are more effective at preventing recurrence of urinary tract stones than prescription dry foods! Cats evolved from a desert species and have a low thirst drive. If fed dry food, they dont’ drink enough water to compensate and the urine is too concentrated and can cause urinary tract problems.
So, eliminate ALL dry food.
For canned, I don’t feel the prescription is necessary - and it certainly doesn’t help if they don’t eat it! I would feed regular canned, food and limit the fish flavors as fish sometimes aggravates urinary tract conditions.
One brand that might interest you is the Friskies special diet.
For more information, visit:
http://www.felineoutreach.org/EducationDetail.asp?cat=Cystitis
Best of luck!
Lynette
Dear Lynette,
Thank you for your wonderful site and the time you must take to make it so remarkable.
We have three indoor cats and three outdoor cats (cats that have been dropped off by uncaring people, to fend for themselves in the forest) that adopted our family and who live very happily in our garage. Two of the cats are feral, but one, Dougal, we can pick up, pet, brush, and we sometimes bring him into the house, although he is much happier outside with other members of his Felinetroop.
We buy Wellness wet/dry food, Evo wet/dry, Merrick wet, Orijen dry, etc. Our problem is with two of the indoor cats. First Lily, who is diabetic, has converted twice, and is now again on 1 unit of insulin, b.i.d. She is 14 y.o. Secondly, our blind cat (juvenile cataracts), Hamish (we did have him operated on and lenses put in place, but because he has no vision centre in the brain, he still has problems with his sight in general) who was just diagnosed with urolithiasis. We feed our inside cats mostly wet food, but do give our three outside cats some wet, but mostly dry food and they do supplement with small creatures they catch in the surrounding woods. After reading about the dry food, it is being taken completely out of their diets.
My question is about Homeopathic and holistic therapies. I was informed that a company called “Apawthecary” has a product called “Tinkle Tonic” and that it is supposed to help control the formation of crystals in the bladder, do you have any information on the company and their treatments?Any thoughts on this would be most appreciated.
Hi Catherine,
If you are not already home-testing Lily’s blood sugar levels, I would urge you to do so. Eliminating dry food from her diet will likely reduce her blood glucose, and it’s likely she will no longer need insulin once the dry food has been removed. For more information, visit:
http://www.felineoutreach.org/EducationDetail.asp?cat=Diabetes
The single best thing you can do to prevent future recurrence of urinary tract crystals is to also feed wet food only. More information at:
http://www.felineoutreach.org/EducationDetail.asp?cat=Cystitis
As for “Tinkle Tonic” by Animal Apawthecary, I have used it for one of my cats, Afer. Afer tends to get cystitis (urinary tract inflammation), seemingly triggered by stress. She’ll often have a mild bout of cystitis after trips to the vet. So, I’ve begun giving her tinkle tonic prior to and after vet visits, and thought it’s only been one or two visits now that I’ve done so, she didn’t have cystitis after those trips.
Best of luck!
Lynette
Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins DVM has said on her website that feeding Hills c/d can cause calcium oxalate stones in the kidneys of cats. My own cat blocked and as Dr. Lisa Pierson DVM says at http://www.catinfo.org it is amazing how so many Vets leave cats with this illness on dry pet food. However Hills c/d is not good for cats. I know how difficult it is to change a cat’s food when it is already ill but if you could change your cat to raw food then raw food is a natural acidifier of the urine and your cat would not get cystitis, struvite crystals or calcium oxalate stones if fed raw food. Hills c/d did not cure my cat. Martin Goldstein DVM says in his book “The Nature of Animal Healing” that when a cat cannot pass urine always give it some Vitamin C/ascorbic acid ie one eighth of a teaspoon mixed in with some butter to get it over the initial blockage and then take it off dry food forever but even tinned food is very poor quality food and so if you can manage to change your cat to raw food that would be the best thing for it. Veterinary research I have blames the carbohydrate in dry food for bladder problems in cats and the lack of protein in pet food and says that a high protein diet actually dissolves struvite crystals and also blames the lack of water since as Dr. Lisa says cats fed dry food are chronically dehydrated. Having been through this terrible illness with my own cat I am very sorry to hear you too are going through it. I wish I had known what I know now and then my fabulous cat would still be alive but I had to search out loads of information and send for books to America since my Vet was at a total loss about how to cure my cat and wrongly told me dry food is not the cause.
[...] this isn’t news to me. I’ve written in the past about the dangers of dry food. I discovered most of the issues with dry food back in 2004, when I was struggling with cats that [...]
Hi - I wish I had found this site six years ago! I have one female cat who is 14.5 pounds and has been on weight control dry food since last November! It has been amazing how the vets (at least none we’ve ever taken cats to) have never ever mentioned that dry food is not good for the cats. I was purposefully feeding ONLY dry because I thought it would be better for the teeth! A longtime cat lover on a pets forum clued me in to Dr. Lisa and Catinfo.org, so we are transitioning from dry to wet now. Both of my cats are 6 and female and no problems yet other than the fat, fat tabby.
Hi Bellah!
Well, I didn’t have this blog six years ago, but thank you!
I’m glad you found the information here and on CatInfo.org before one of your kitties became diabetic!
Hi Lynette I just stumbled upon this site, I totally agree with you on all the things you have said. I have been educating myself on this matter for a year now. I have been at this site called Catster.com there are forums in there on feline nutrition, but do you think that we can convince some people in there about dry food? It is very sad to say the least. I sure wish you would chime in at this site. Some people just dont understand, even though we give them great links to read. Some only believe in Science and their vet. I only believe that our cats are carnivores period!
3 Cheers to you for writing this blog
Thanks for stumbling up my blog, Tina!
I can try posting a bit to Catster, but I’ll admit I get tired of bashing my head against a wall.
There is PLENTY of science and PLENTY of veterinarians that recognize cats fare better on a wet diet, but a lot of people do not want to hear that.
Oh, and Tina, if you’re still out there - friend us!
http://www.catster.com/family/461043