Questions about vegetables and fruit in cat food?

[BeautifulDexterBby]

Recently I’ve been using a website to help me find good cat food, catfooddb.com, and it’s number 1 recommended wet food is farmina pumpkin and venison. The carbs and proteins were good, however it contained sweet potatoes and apples. It’s 2nd recommended had a lot more vegetables and fruits, (bananas, spinach, what..?) so I was wondering if vegetables provide any benefit or not. I trust cat fooddb, but this is really making be reconsider their legitness. I thought vegetables weren’t good?

 

[maggie101]

My cats eat farmina canned but not the ones with fruit and vegitables except for pumpkin. Venison,quail,and duck with pumpkin. That's not thier only food. They also like earthborn. Vegetables are not needed in a cats diet but does not hurt them as long as you don't just give them vegetables. Tiki and werua are high protein low fat and use zanthium gum and locus bean which cats really don't need. Some foods have no gums. They get a wide variety. It is hard to find the perfect food so ihave stopped being so picky

 

[daftcat75]

On the #1 food, I'm more concerned about the addition of rice than the pumpkin.

Fruits and vegetables (with the notable exception of pumpkin or sweet potato which can be helpful for digestive issues) are largely useless in cat food. Cats lack the enzymes to utilize many of the plant-based vitamins and vitamin precursors (like beta-carotene.) The most you can say about fruit and vegetables in cat food is that they provide fiber and water. But the larger risk is misguided manufacturers believing they can replace animal sources of nutrition with plant sources. If you see the fruits and vegetables being touted as a good source of nutrition in your cat's food, you should run from that food. The manufacturer doesn't seem to understand that cats require their nutrition from animal sources.

I would file fruits and vegetables under, "probably not harmful, but probably not helpful either." They are just one more ingredient to wonder about if your cat is having butt or gut trouble with a particular food.

 

[Tobermory]

I find catfooddb.com to be a very helpful resource for looking up ingredient lists, calorie breakdown, and dry matter analysis, all factual information. I don’t use it for the reviews, although I may look at them as a starting point.

Here’s what I’d be thinking as I looked at the reviews: The apple in their #1 Farmina venison/pumpkin variety is 8th so that wouldn’t worry me too much. Looks like a decent food with high meat protein. Pretty low in fat so I’d need to keep an eye on kitty’s weight. Very low carb which is good. The second recommendation, Petcurean, does have a lot of veggies which, as daftcat75 points out, are not helpful. You don’t get to a veggie until about ingredient 10 but then it’s a long list. Lots of animal protein in the top ingredients. Good. Low carbs. Good. Medium fat. Good.

So this is what I mean. Helpful resource, but think it through. I aim for 50% or more animal (not plant) based protein, 20-40% fat, and carbs less than about 15%.

Oh, and it has to be something your cat will eat! So if you have to sacrifice some version of the “perfect” cat food for something they’ll eat, then that’s what you gotta do!

 

[BeautifulDexterBby]

Thank you for the replies, Daft, Tobermory, and Maggie! What you have told me makes sense. I guess that’s why db doesn’t make the score lower for food with veggies since it’s not very harmful. I’m very new to all of this, so this info was a big help!

 

[Juniper_Junebug]

I would file fruits and vegetables under, "probably not harmful, but probably not helpful either." They are just one more ingredient to wonder about if your cat is having butt or gut trouble with a particular food.

This has been my take on fruits/veg, assuming they aren't a source of the protein (e.g. peas, which I avoid). I feed my kitty Farmina boar and apple, not because I think the apple does any good but because it's gum-free, otherwise has good ingredients (so I think), and she likes it. And it's hard to find gum-free food she likes (and I like to have a few kinds in rotation to guard against shortages, which seem to happen these days from time to time).