I used to work in a specialty pet store, and cats were my specialty. I was the expert on diet after spending much time researching various foods, reading labels, and talking to customers. I'll share what I learned, and explain why I recommend this food. Science Diet is one of the worst foods for cats, and right down at the bottom you'll also find Purina, Meow Mix, Eukanuba, and Iams. These have by-products, fillers (corn, soybean mill run, corn gluten, grits, or white rice).
Many of the better foods like Blue Buffalo, Artemis, Wellness, Instinct, Orijen, California Naturals, Innova Evo, Merrick, and my personal favorite Vet's Choice Health Extension are world's apart in quality and most are cheaper than Science Diet pound for pound in many stores.
These are the ingredients for a typical Science Diet bag minus the vitamins/minerals, just to give you an example:
Ground Whole Grain Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal, Animal Fat, Dried Beet Pulp, Soybean Oil, Dried Egg Product, Flaxseed.
Corn is a filler, and it's the number one ingredient. By products are things like beaks, feathers, etc. They're waste products. The only decent ingredients are down the ingredient list, meaning that they exist in a smaller amount then the first ingredients. Now, let's look at a bag of Health Extension that's both cheaper AND of higher quality:
Chicken, Chicken Meal, Brown rice, Oats, Dried Egg Product, Chicken Fat, Flaxseed, Menhaden Fish Meal, Herring Oil, Sweet Potato, Cranberries, Blueberries, Tomato Pomace, Natural Barley Malt, Apple Cider Vinegar, Goji Berry, Garlic, Astragalus, Ginger, Blue Green Algae + 6 kinds of probiotics.
The potato is a nice binder and good for digestion. The oils and flaxseed are good for the coat being rich in Omegs 3's. The probiotics regulate digestion. The eggs and chicken are good sources of protein. You might not *need* some of the extra ingredients like Goji berry for example, but they're better than fillers and at the very least harmless to cats.
I recommend this food because my cats love it, it's relatively cheap for a quality food, and the ingredients are top-notch. If you want better food, go with Instinct (which my cats love even better, especially the rabbit) but be prepared to pay much more. The absolute best would be to put your cats on a raw diet using pucks of meat prepared by various companies, or simply do it yourself if you've researched how to prepare it, but this is an even more expensive route.
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