Dry Food Myths Revealed!  

Common Myths about Dry Food

#1) Myth: Dry food is addictive. If a cat is given the choice between dry and wet, it will never eat wet again.

FALSE: Cats are generally creatures of habit, and a cat fed exclusively dry may prefer it and visa versa. Given both, the cat will pick what it believes tastes better, and this is more an issue of particular recipes than a dry vs wet debate. In this instance, Nutro Complete Care Wet tastes better than Blue Wilderness Dry - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7NlAk2KjLQ

#2) Myth: Dry food is higher carb and fiber than wet food.

FALSE: This depends on the particular ingredients of various recipes, and there are low carb/fiber dry foods available and high carb/fiber wet foods. See examples below:
Wellness Core Dry:
Protein: 47 / Fat: 42 / Carbs 11
Nature's Variety Raw Instinct Dry:
Protein: 45 / Fat: 49 / Carbs 7
vs
Hills Science Adult Wet:
Protein: 34 / Fat: 33 / Carbs 33
Royal Canin Calorie Control Wet:
Protein: 28 / Fat: 44 / Carbs 28

#3) Myth: Dry food contains more veggies, grains, and/or fillers, and has inferior protein sources.

FALSE: This depends on the particular recipe, and there are grain-free excellent protein source dry foods, and several grain poor protein (by-product) source wet foods.

Evo Turkey and Chicken Dry
Main Ingredients: Turkey, Chicken Meal, Chicken, Herring Meal, Chicken Fat, Peas, Eggs, Turkey Meal, Pea Fiber, Natural Flavors...
On a dry matter basis:
Crude Protein 55% / Crude Fat 24% / Crude Fiber 2.2%
vs
Friskies Lamb and Rice Wet
Main ingredients: meat by-products, chicken, turkey, wheat gluten, lamb, rice, soy flour, corn starch-modified, artificial and natural flavors, salt...
On a dry matter basis:
Crude Protein 50% / Crude Fat 11% / Crude Fiber 8.3%

#4) Myth: Dry food is unhealthy, and any all wet food diet is healthier, no exceptions.

FALSE: This depends on the particular recipe, and some wet foods such as those high in minerals and ash (due to high bone content), common allergens such as wheat, soy, and corn, and unhealthy ingredients such as "cheddar cheese" available on 9-Lives wet can be less healthy. There are studies that demonstrate that cats fed exclusively wet food were on average better hydrated than cats fed exclusively dry food, and improved hydration can help prevent UTIs, a common ailment. However, there are studies that show dental disease, the most common disease in cats, "was significantly more absent" in cats and dogs that were fed at least some dry food, such as in one of the largest scientific pet nutrition studies to date (38,776 cats and dogs in the study). Some of the most expensive dry food is also relatively inexpensive compared to even the cheapest wet, due in part to the reduced shipping weight, less likelihood of bags to get damaged compared to fragile aluminum cans, and bulk inexpensive packaging compared to wet (which for practical reasons typically isn't canned larger than 12oz). Thus combination wet and dry feeding can represent a healthier and more practical choice, at a similar price point.

It is possible to feed exclusive premium wet, and handle dental hygiene by other means such as finger brushes and pastes, and the alternative of raw feeding is believed by proponents to offer dental advantages over commercial wet due to the tendons and bones, so there is no one right or wrong answer.

That sounds like good advice. My two get one 5.5oz can a day between the two of them.

Regarding carb calculations, its easiest to use an online calculator, or I can try to dig up my spreadsheet a fellow forum member found for me which has a lot of common brands on it:
http://www.scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html

The online calculator works for wet and dry too btw, and saves the math/human error.

For the #s provided, that would be around 26% carbs. If its Hills prescription food, that's about the same percentage as most of their wet food which varies from 9% to 37% carbs, depending on the recipe:
http://binkyspage.tripod.com/CanFoodNew.html

Carbs are not TOTALLY evil, and cats can digest them fine, however they do not have the enzymes to digest large carb loads at once as humans can, which contributes to obesity and diabetes. So you don't have to aim for 0% carbs, and in fact that may not be healthy, but a wild cat will typically only have about 7% carbohydrates in their diet. Also, just as we know with our own diets, technically not all carbs are equal, and its usually preferable for example to have 'brown rice' than 'brewers rice' for example if you had to choose between the two, some carbs are common allergens (soy/corn/wheat) and other carbohydrates such as lactose (dairy) are often digested poorly.

While treatment for UTIs generally involves a diet change to dissolve the crystals, the majority are not conclusively linked to diet nor hydration as causes. Stress, retaining urine, genetics, hygiene, sedentary lifestyle, and other issues can be in play. As we know here on the forum, there are cats on exclusive wet diets that not only get UTIs but repeat episodes, but rarely do people jump to the conclusion "Aha! It was diet related" as is often the case when the cat was fed dry, when often times it was completely incidental. Feeding exclusively wet is also relatively uncommon, so statistically one should see far fewer cases of all-wet diet cats coming in w/ UTIs.

While hydration is great and I definitely recommend having 24x7 clean water fountains available as well as including some wet, but what food manufacturers have found is that urine PH plays an important role in avoiding crystal formation as well, and IIRC they also generally aim for lower magnesium/phosphorous/ash levels. Blue and Wellness both advertise their target urine PH now for example, and this is why prescription food is typically very low mineral and includes an acidifier.

I tried to express specifically that there is no "one" diet, and that raw feeding, exclusive wet, mixed, etc have pros and cons. I have seen blatant misinformation spread in the demonetization of kibble by wet/raw feeding crusaders that virtually refer to it as poison, and wished to address such false myths with logic, cold hard facts, and supporting studies.
These type of statements are exactly why I created this thread. Please see Myth # 3. Premium dry food as an example is not "junk food" as you seem intent on perpetuating, it can be premium well balanced food with excellent protein sources as seen in the examples.

And many cats go nuts for wet food, and as seen in Myth # 1, both of my cats completely ignored the PARTICULAR dry food in favor of the PARTICULAR wet food. You can see how excited Wesley is here for his wet pestering me as I mix it up for him on a plate.
See myth # 3. Dry food is no more universally alike than wet food is. You will notice that the dry food does not contain animal digest and that the wet food contains artificial flavorings.
I was going to correct you, but I believe you'll have more success removing human error using this popular online tool: http://www.scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html
This is a straw-man argument, based on the idea that the more moisture a cat consumes, the healthier it is. By that logic, if I were to create a soup recipe that were 95% water, it would be healthier than 78% water. What is important is that cats get their required moisture intake for the day, and I believe this is easily achieved with mixed feeding and attractive clean water fountains.

Virtually =! Literally. There are several grain-free dry foods available, as is currently fed to Wesley and Buttercup, although there are very few commercial wet or dry foods that don't contain vegetable matter even in grainfree, you just end up seeing peas/potatoes/carrots and the like which is fine as long as it is not in prodigious amounts. It is actually only their wet food that at times have grain (brown rice in particular), and this is not the end of the world, and some believe can in fact contribute to urinary health since rice for example is low in magnesium/phosphorous and can be used to tweak target urine PH (meats contribute to acidic urine and vegetables to alkaline).
We can all agree on that, and hopefully keep non-factual misinformation and overly broad statements that are not universally true to a minimum.

So your argument is that commercial wet foods and dry foods both often contain flavorings, making your point... what? That wet and dry food is generally the same in that respect? I agree! Minka, remember that you need to include all ash and mineral content into the tool for it to work properly.
I was comparing commercial wet and dry food, and pointing out that both are likely to include various plant materials even grain-free labeled products. Cats in the wild live very hard and very short brutal lives, are typically malnourished, and often eat food that is full of parasites or is buried and eaten days later full of bacteria because that is all that is available to them and so they are happy to have it. I imagine that cats in the wild are envious of Wesley and Buttercup's pampered lifestyle.

I'm sorry, I either missed that, or it was an edited addition after I had already seen your post, and I thought you were talking about your incorrect calculation for Captiva.

My numbers are not off, the reason for your confusion is listed as kcal %, taken directly from the chart posted earlier: http://binkyspage.tripod.com/dryfood.html You'll see the numbers are all apples/apples taken from that source for the wet and dry foods in the comparison.
If you honestly believe that feral cats are a model of ideal health and optimum nutrition... good luck with that. Feral cats do not have the time or luxury to supplement their diet with small amounts of anti-oxidants to help them with free radicals in old age. Indoor cats on commercial diets typically live into their mid teens, whereas feral life expectancy is 4.7 years.

I'm sorry Minka, but you are rapidly getting off topic, considering that any discussion about "dry food myths" only really makes sense in comparison to alternatives, which for most is commercial wet food.

If you want grain-free dry foods that are very low carb with nearly all calories coming from meat and fat, those are available as demonstrated. As shown earlier, processing ingredients either into a dry kibble or cooking it in a can does not have a direct bearing on what ingredients are used in any particular recipe. The only inherent difference are not ingredients, but moisture content and texture. There are wet foods that are chocked full of rice, wheat, corn, carrots, you name it, so clearly your argument is not relevant or exclusive to "dry food myths". Agreed?

To briefly touch on your other comment, generally speaking an abandoned cat kicked out of a home is referred to as a stray rather than a feral. I did not realize that you were intending to compare the nutritional needs of the domestic cat to a different species of animal, and am impressed that you have detailed knowledge of animals that lived over 100K years ago, and am a bit confused as to how you find that more relevant than comparing to a wild current day domestic cat (feral). Ultimately, in a comparison of commercial wet and dry food, it is moot.