Dry food VS wet food : genuine question

Hello everyone,

I come here as a newbie in cat nutrition details with a naive question. I hope you'll be able to give me reasonable and clear answers, as it seems to be a touchy subject ...

I've been wandering a bit on this forum as I just got my first kitten and I'm always open to advice and ideas to act best towards her. We're French living in France, and I was struck by a clear difference in opinion between what vets / breeder told us here about food and what most people defend in this place - and if I'm not mistaken, most of users here are from the US

Here I see fierce defender of wet food over dry food. By fierce, I mean that I read that dry food is almost cruel to give to your cat, it should be banned, you never should give it to your cat, it's almost as horrible as declawing, etc ... I've mostly seen people violently speaking against dry food and few rational explanations apart from "it doesn't contain enough water".

Around us - sis is a vet in training, and we met a couple of caring breeder who gave us advices - and on the "French" website I went, it's quite different. Some people defend dry food only diet, some defend half/half, most people say that you should feed your cat mostly dry food and from time to time wet food - and that is also what the breeders and vet sis said. Of course, everyone agree on one point : that dry food should be high quality dry food. No food from your average supermarket. At least Royal Canin or Hills, the right kind for you cat - neutered, kitten, health issue. And the breeder recommended to us the "Now!" dry food - only meat, imported from Canada. And everyone says you should give free access to water to your cat, of course.

Now. I'm not an expert and this difference in opinion left me perplexed but I tend to get defensive in front of heated, passionate and radical answers. I'm much more receptive to reasonable explanations

What is your opinion ? What did your hear ? And what are the rational arguments for/against dry/wet food ?

These articles explain the difference between dry and wet food and the pros and cons of each.
http://www.thecatsite.com/a/choosing-the-right-food-for-your-cat
http://www.thecatsite.com/a/choosing-the-right-food-for-your-cat-part-2

Now! is an alright food. I would recommend that over Hills or Royal Canin, but there's another similar formula (not sure if they're the same brand) called Go! which is meatier. You really learn to read the ingredients as you go - a first step when I pick up a bag of food is to see what the first three ingredients are, since they're in the food in higher concentrations. Thumbs up if they're all meat/protein sources. Thumbs down if they're corn, oatmeal, rice, or any kind of grain or gluten right off the bat. More moisture, more protein, and fewer carbs makes cats feel fuller longer and not needing to eat as much (obesity is common for free-fed dry food eating cats), and I've found they make poops less stinky, less frequent, and we don't need to feed as much. Even the difference between a high-carb and high-protein dry food can make the difference seem like night and day.

A lot of people here do rally for dominantly wet or raw (check the raw forums if you're interested in this route!) - dry has fewer benefits in that sense. Wet foods tend to provide protein and moisture better than dry, and moisture is one of the biggest needs a cat won't satiate on their own because they typically get it from their prey. A lot of cats don't drink enough water to begin with, even with tempting water fountains and watering down dry food, which leads to dehydration and UTIs, neither of which are good news for cats. It may be one of the few arguments where wet food trumps, but it really is a huge and legitimate concern for cat owners that their cat stay hydrated. My cat drinks a lot of water, so I'm less worried about her, but my boyfriend's cat has kidney problems after 9 years of dry feeding and wet food only as a treat and we really have to make sure he gets water into him or he'd probably shrivel up!

I personally feed two wet meals a day, and leave about 1/4 cup of dry for my two cats to pick at during the night if they didn't get their fill of wet (our male is 10 years old and needs to put on weight, but he won't gorge himself on wet food when it's available, and we're sort of transitioning out of dry free-feeding). 3-5 days a week, depending on the brand of wet food they get and how voraciously they eat it, I toss in some pieces of raw meat - chicken breast, gizzard, heart, liver, sometimes sardines, or duck. I don't mind feeding some dry because I don't want them to snub their noses at any particular food in case we need to change it at any point, or let's say my boyfriend and I split up and he goes back to dry free feeding his cat - I want both our cats to be adaptable to move back and forth, so they get a variety of flavours, brands, and types of food.

Thank you both for your answers. The articles were very instructive ! And i've seen Go! too, it seems to be the same brand than Now!

Correct me if I'm wrong now.

The conclusion is :

Wet food is generally healthier that dry food, though the most important thing is that the food is high in protein and low in carbs. The main concern about dry food is that cats don't get enough water.

Now, in my very own case, our 9-weeks old kitten is drinking more than enough so, for the moment, it doesn't seem like something we should be worried about. We've been told that kittens need to eat often and few, around 5 meals a day. The main problem is : both my partner and I work. He comes back home for lunch for the moment to not let the kitten alone too long, but the day will come when he'll stop doing it everyday. And event like that, we can't feed her often enough it seems, and wet food shouldn't be left outside for more than 30min according to the articles ...

So I think we'll stick to dry during working days. Our kitten is reasonable with her food. We can put her daily food all at once in the morning and she'll eat a little here and there, regulating herself pretty well, so it seems alright. I'll try to carefully choose the best dry food

And we'll try to find some wet food to give her on Saturday and Sunday when we're available to feed her often. We'll be able to give her more wet food when she is older and can work with 2 meals a day.

Does it seem an okay solution ?

I am going to give one more article to read.
http://www.thecatsite.com/a/tips-to-increase-your-cat-s-water-intake

While it is true that kittens should eat as much as they want, you can still incorporate wet food now. You could feed wet at least twice a day, before work and after work, and leave out a measured amount of dry food during the day while you're gone and overnight.

You are correct in your conclusion that wet food is healthier because of the sole fact that it increases your cats water intake. Although it may seem like she is drinking plenty of water, cats just do not drink enough to make up for the water content that they should be getting from their prey. 

Good for you for doing research and wanting the best for your cat! 

What I did when my cat was a kitten was feed her a small can of wet food in the morning before I left for work, left some dry (high quality) cat food out during the day while I was gone and gave her another small can of wet food for dinner when I got home. Now that she is an adult and eating only 2 meals a day, I eliminated the dry completely. That may work for you and your partner. AND your cat will get some extra water every day.

Pretty much! Young kittens tend to be in buffet mode anyway, so feel free to free feed while they're young and growing regardless. If you have the time, you can offer some wet before you both leave for work and then after work/before bed. I think having a kitten is great because you can introduce them to a variety when they're poking around and trying everything.

Depending on the temperature in your home (if it leans to the cooler side), you could leave wet food longer. It's been quite cool here lately, so I've left wet food for as long as 8 hours. I actually had a concern about leaving wet food out while we were gone, and some users said they could leave it for the better portion of the day without it having any ill effect on the cats - however, this was speaking in terms of adult cats. If you'd prefer not to take the risk with a younger cat, don't feel pressured to leave food out longer than the recommendations you've seen or may have received from a vet.

Thank you all for your answers

I think we'll try to introduce her to wet food this week end to begin with, and then maybe consider giving a small wet meal once or twice a day.

Our appartment isn't cool unfortunately

Actually, it's quite warm and our windows aren't secure for the moment so we can only open to cool a room when we're here and we secure the kitten in another closed room.

BipSoucolline said:

 
Hello everyone,

I come here as a newbie in cat nutrition details with a naive question. I hope you'll be able to give me reasonable and clear answers, as it seems to be a touchy subject ...

I've been wandering a bit on this forum as I just got my first kitten and I'm always open to advice and ideas to act best towards her. We're French living in France, and I was struck by a clear difference in opinion between what vets / breeder told us here about food and what most people defend in this place - and if I'm not mistaken, most of users here are from the US

Here I see fierce defender of wet food over dry food. By fierce, I mean that I read that dry food is almost cruel to give to your cat, it should be banned, you never should give it to your cat, it's almost as horrible as declawing, etc ... I've mostly seen people violently speaking against dry food and few rational explanations apart from "it doesn't contain enough water".

Around us - sis is a vet in training, and we met a couple of caring breeder who gave us advices - and on the "French" website I went, it's quite different. Some people defend dry food only diet, some defend half/half, most people say that you should feed your cat mostly dry food and from time to time wet food - and that is also what the breeders and vet sis said. Of course, everyone agree on one point : that dry food should be high quality dry food. No food from your average supermarket. At least Royal Canin or Hills, the right kind for you cat - neutered, kitten, health issue. And the breeder recommended to us the "Now!" dry food - only meat, imported from Canada. And everyone says you should give free access to water to your cat, of course.

Now. I'm not an expert and this difference in opinion left me perplexed but I tend to get defensive in front of heated, passionate and radical answers. I'm much more receptive to reasonable explanations

What is your opinion ? What did your hear ? And what are the rational arguments for/against dry/wet food ?

Click to expand...

Hi there and welcome to TCS

I have fed my cats dry kibble off and on through the years of pet ownership, and will say that there is a place for (high quality) dry food in a cat's diet, provided it doesn't make up the majority of the diet and that a cat is getting their nutritional requirements for protein from meat, first and foremost. As cats are obligate carnivores, they require meat in their diet. Dry food can contain meat but it is a dehydrated form with the moisture removed, may not be a sufficient amount, and can contain a lot of grains, or carbs that have replaced the grains, in grain-free dry kibble. The other issue with dry food is the lack of moisture. If a cat is good water drinker then this can offset the lack of moisture in dry food. But if a cat doesn't consumer enough water,  then an all-dry food can be very bad. 

Late last year, I transitioned my cats from free-feeding kibble to a high quality wet canned 3x per day. The still get a bit of high quality kibble, but for the most part their diet is wet canned. This switch was done partially on account of my male tabby Max, who had been dealing with constipation on and off for the past two years. Dry kibble had caused him to gain weight and develop difficulties with digestion and elimination, which brings me to another problem with dry food. As dry kibble is higher in calories than meat, cats that are free-fed kibble, will develop problems with weight gain sooner or later, and possibly diabetes if the weight gain becomes out of control due to inactivity. Some cats have a high metabolism and can process a lot of food without weight gain, but they are rare. As your kitty is young, now is the perfect time to introduce wet canned food as he hasn't developed any particular attachment to a particularl food yet. 

As for type of dry food, you want to feed something that is high protein, low carbs and doesn't contain a lot of synthetic ingredients. In other words, something that is as natural as possible. These foods are few and far between, but they do exist. Nature's Variety Instinct makes both good wet and dry food. Orijen Cat and Kitten and Wellness CORE are decent secondary choices for good grain-free dry kibble. Dry kibble made by Royal Canin and Hills however, are examples of not good foods. Royal Canin features a lot of corn, wheat, soy in both their dry and wet formulas.

As for when to feed and how much, as your kitty is quite young yet, you don't have to worry too much about caloric intake at this stage. But once he hits a year old (or maybe sooner), you will want to start thinking about portion control of feedings to ensure that he gets what he needs based on his ideal weight. Something you will want to discuss with your vet when the time comes. If your apartment is on the warm side, then I wouldn't leave wet canned out for very long. If your kitty is enjoying his food, you shouldn't have to worry about it not getting eaten.

Here are a couple of my go-to sources on the subject of feline nutrition:

http://catinfo.org/

http://www.littlebigcat.com/category/nutrition/

http://feline-nutrition.org/

http://healthypets.mercola.com/

The aim on all of these sites is to push for species-appropriate diets. catinfo and littlebigcat are both run by vets (Dr. Lisa Pierson and Dr. Jean Hofve), and Mercola is the domain of Dr. Karen Becker. All 3 of these vets share a holistic view on nutrition. feline-nutrition.org has plenty of articles written by vets and/or containing vet-written-source info.

Also, I would look into France's governing bodies in regards to pet food. Unfortunately here in the USA, there is a very incestuous relationship between pet food companies and the agencies that are supposed to be looking out for our pets' best interests in the area of nutrition, which tends to muddy the waters quite a bit. It is that way with human medicine too, I'm afraid.

I find it helps to equate the information to people. Dry food is akin to eating dry cereal. It's processed the same - only the "meal" ingredients that go into kibble (as opposed to the stuff in our cereal) are previously cooked in big rendering vats to cook everything down and remove stuff that shouldn't be there given what goes into the rendering vats. So these processed/cooked "meals" are highly processed ingredients that go INTO the food, which is extruded to produce the kibble, and baked at high heat to form it. So it's cooked twice (and is then sprayed with stuff to make it tasty - for cats, that's rendered fat). So while yes, the main issue is the lack of water content, the other issue, IMO, is that it is so highly processed, and vitamins are essentially stripped via the processing, and have to be all added back in (just like cereal). Because of the processing, it uses synthetic vitamins, and it's harder to digest (apart from the lack of water the organs need to process food inside the body). IMO, this is why dry food is not a good sole diet for a cat, even if kitty drinks "enough" water. I wouldn't want to live on dry cereal drinking water. :dk:

Wet food is somewhat like canned stew or spam. Again - highly processed, but not nearly as much as kibble, as the ingredients that go into canned food are actual "food" and fat that weren't already cooked.

So just thoughts for your consideration.

Your kitten is just learning how to eat and what food is. Whatever you decide to feed, do take this into consideration: http://consciouscat.net/2012/06/14/rotation-diet-for-cats/

And bear in mind that you can include the feline equivalent of fresh fruits and veggies for humans by feeding treats of raw or seared meat, and even without feeding actual bone (like the small parts of chicken wings), you can give her teeth a good work out with chicken gizzards. If you keep these to 15% or less of her diet, there's no need to worry about balancing it nutritionally. Just putting this out there in case it hadn't been considered.

Thanks everyone for your precious advice and links.

We tried this week-end to introduce our kitten to wet food, while keeping a few free kibble around. She tried it right away and seemed to like it. But she eats very little of it for the moment, then she switches back to kibble, or just wanders away. She really is used to eat often and little. Then we have to remove the wet food because it stayed out too long - actually she herself refuses to eat it after it stayed out for too long. By the end of the week-end she ate a bit more of it though.

Anyway, we'll continue to give her a bit of wet food when we're home and see if she wants/starts to eat enough of it that it can count as a full part of her diet

You can encourage her to eat more of it by putting tasty "toppers" on top. For instance, crushed kibble.

You can keep excess from the can fresh by putting it in small storage containers: meal-sized portions and freezing those. Just put the frozen baggies into a bowl of warm water to thaw a few minutes before feeding. They thaw quickly if you smoosh them flat prior to freezing.

Think of it this way. You want a child that's been eating only cereal to eat salad. It looks different, smells different, has a different texture. It may take a lot of salad dressing, cheese, croutons, bacon bits, etc. to entice the child to eat the healthy salad. Over time, you can reduce the enticements, and they'll come to crave the salad.

I would definitely say that wet food is the way you want to go. It is healthier (higher in meat, lower in carbs) and it helps get the cats to their water requirements. 

Also, once they're on dry food it's a pain to get them off, since they love the dry food so much.

Just want to add this has been very helpful! I'm about to adopt two kittens for the first time and have been looking here for advice, wet vs dry seems the big topic so thanx original poster for getting my questions answered!

I'm not a canned food fanatic, but you might want to take away the kibble when you feed canned food.  Also, give her only as much canned food as she will eat at a sitting (or maybe two).  You're right about leaving wet food out too long.  I feed my cat a small amount of canned food that she generally eats within an hour or two and a 1/4 cup of dry food.  She'll usually finish that in a day.  Every cat is different.  BTW, Lisa Pierson is frequently mentioned as an expert on feline nutrition.  Her website is valuable, and I read it periodically, but she is a big time soldier in the war on dry food, so proceed with caution.