Have you ever thought about how to feed your pet? The point is not in the brand of products and is not in the form, but what composition Ideally should be in food for the cat. Probably not everyone attended this thought: most of the owners of cats are entirely trusted by feed producers. The composition of the product is not read everything, but in vain. Production of animal feed is a business where many manufacturers try to save, putting smaller, and getting more. Therefore, well done that owner that always reads the composition on the packaging, and knows what words on this list should be pleased, and which - to make it go to another pack.
History of manufacture
Dry animal feed, according to many, appeared recently, just about thirty years ago. In the post-Soviet reality, the flow of feed rushed, in fact, not so long ago - in the 90s of the last century. But the same dry animal feed is produced for 150 years! The first staged this case on the flow of an American James Spratt's ear, although the homeland was not the states, but England. The composition of animal food could be regarded as pretty primitive: flour, ground meat, beef blood and a bit of vegetables. All this was transformed into bone cookies.
Interestingly, literally like this product liked dogs (yes, yes, the first feed was made not for cats, but for dogs). Specialists were skeptically related to such nutrition, but the mechanism of fast food for animals, and called it sometimes, and so, was already launched.
The next stage is the 30th and 40s of the XX century. It can be said that the era of dry feed began at this time. In those years there were only two options for dry product: granules and balls. The granules were ready-made crackers or a cracked crumb, and the balls are the components that the breeder had to be mashed manually. But to say that large companies that supply this product to the market have made an industrial breakthrough for the benefit of our smaller brothers, it is impossible. Alas, the manufacturer simply got up to produced from production products.
For that period, despite the assurance of advertising, which already intensified the trading flywheel, dry food was not distinguished by balance, and it was impossible to call such food for animals.
And then the story was twisted even more interesting: Purin began to use extrusion in the 50s, and Mark Morris invented veterinary dietology. He managed to develop therapeutic feed, which he, at first, hesitantly twisted the special machine in canned food. Finally, Paul Yams made a huge breakthrough - he laid the philosophy of balanced feeding of cats and dogs. Thanks to him, truth was established: dogs and cats are carnivorous, and their food should be based on a full-fledged high-quality protein.
A clear graduation appears in the feed market in the feed market: economy and premium, super premium and veterinary diets come on sale. But marketing in this division was sometimes more: not all cat food corresponded to the stated on the packaging. In the 90s, fashion came to the holistic - the idea of healthy eating for animals began to delve. The basis of the feed was high-quality nutrients, eco-products, instead of grain, in non-green (meaning an animal protein) parts of the feed became more use of vegetables, herbs and berries.
Now the animal feed market is overflowing in some sense. The buyer, as statistics shows, follows the choice based on advertising, prices and the external attractiveness of the packaging.
And you should always read the composition, and completely know exactly what should be there, and what is not.
The main components of modern feed
The cat is a predator carnivorous. Digesting food from a man's table its digestive tract is adapted little. If you feed it with salt, smoked, fried, sharp, the animal will quickly quickly acquire diseases that will reduce his life.
Cat nutrition specialists insist on the following points.
- Quality products of animal origin - the basis of catfish. Food of the animal consists mainly of meat and sub-products, valuable by its proteins and major amino acids. Pet necessarily need polyunsaturated fatty acids that cannot be obtained without meat and fish food.
- Vegetables, cereals, vegetable oils are also important. Retinol and Niacin are those components, without which the kitty cannot grow normally and develop, look healthy. And if you feed the animal from the "Human Table", to track how much its nutrition is, is very difficult.
In Russia, strict veterinary and sanitary standards are put forward to the composition of animal feed. Feline food is allowed only from farm animals, from meat, which is suitable for food and man. Not only the quality of the foundation, but also organoleptic, biological indicators of feed is monitored. It is very important that his texture, smell, color - such an analysis is obligatory.
Consider the main ingredients of feed.
- Meat . The manufacturer has the right to call veal, beef, pork, lamb, kozdyatin. Well, if the pack is clarified, which meat is present in the composition. But not all manufacturers do that. If there is a rabbit in the stern, this word you must read on the packaging. But the bird (chicken) and the fish cannot be called meat. It must be written: fish, chicken, turkey, etc.
- Bird . The skin and bones of the bird are so called. If the manufacturer grumbled chicken bones together with meat, it is not a machinator - on the contrary, for pets this is a good source of calcium. Because if you read the inscription "Bird" on a pack with feed, note that in addition to the muscular part, there may be bone fragments, efficiently ground.
- Meat sub-products. These are the edible mammalian components that do not belong to muscle. Kidney or liver, for example. Udder and lungs, as you know, a person does not eat, but for domestic cats, these components are permissible.
- Poultry offal. Feet, heads, bird guts in chopped state can also get into cat food.
- Meat flour. So called raw materials, which is made of mammalian tissues. Meat and sub-products can be in meat flour. To oblige the manufacturer to indicate what exactly in this flour, and whose meat is used, the law did not decide. If the bones are added to this composition, "meat-point flour" is written. There are such options: "Flour from animal by-products", "bird flour" or "flour from bird offal".
- Fats and oils. Animals and vegetable fats are used to make food more attractive taste, so that its energy value increases.
- Vegetable components. As a rule, barley, corn, peas, rice, potatoes are added in the feed. They serve as a link for other ingredients, only in the second place they can be called a source of carbohydrates.
- Vitamins and minerals. The minerals contained in the stern, the manufacturer can describe this: a simple listing or transfer of specific substances with minerals. Minerals are always synthetic additives, vitamins are also artificial matter.
- Taurin . This is one of the substances that can be called synthesized laboratory amino acids. The cat's body must synthesize this element itself, but the domestic animals have a valuable substance in shortage. Kitness, which is hunted on rats and mice, the lack of taurine do not have. The rest must be obtained in the form of additives or, even easier, as part of feed.
Taurine strengthens the immunity, improves the work of the liver and kidney cat, normalizes the level of glucose in the blood, well affects the stomach, improves the state of the wool, strengthens the vision, and also provides a cat healthy offspring.
- Ash . Almost all the owners of cats that buy food for the first time, believe that the ash is a minibus. But in fact, this is called the measure of the content of minerals in cat stern. This indicator is estimated whether the number of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium and other minerals is balanced. For example, in muscle tissues of the animal (that is, in meat) ash more than in the bones.
It must be said that the law does not regulate the description of the ash content of the product - the manufacturer may not specify the ash content on the package.
To say that we live at a time when cats can get the perfect food from beautiful packaging - it means to lie. Before the optimal nutrition system is still far away. Alas, but the shelves of pet stores are filled with food saturated with starch. And our animals are forced to sit on a bad "starch diet". And the point is not that the perfect feed recipe is not invented, and the fact that the nutrition quality control for pets is poorly developed.
A huge part of the feed comes from the USA. For the control of pet food products, the TSM (center of vetertainy) is responsible. But the main concern of the center is to track the quality of food additives and therapeutic feed of livestock. The most negative point: before entering the market, the feed producer should not receive a permissive document. It is enough to meet the state requirements where feed is made.
Dry
We will analyze such a composition on the example of the economy-class products most in demand. Usually in the packaging of such feed there is beef, a lamb or chicken, but not more than 7%. Seven percent protein for carnivorous - what do you think is enough enough? Rather, in such feed, the meat serves as a flavoring agent that attracts the animal to food, but definitely not a protein source. But by the sub-products in such a stern is about 60%. Vitamins and minerals in it are very small, but the fats are present.
Additives that compensate for the composition of micro and macroelements, about 5%. Approximately the same as meat, and often more. About 25% in the composition of cheap dry food occupy cereals. This is the source of carbohydrates for the cat. The composition is nutritious, but not the most useful for the animal. A young cat with him to cope, but the patient, the old animal is not.
Dry premium feeds inspire more hopes for healthy food for a cat, but there is a nuance here. Many ingredients from such feeds lead to a rapid obesity of the cat, and if you do not organize him frequent games and walks, the animal will become fat very quickly.
As part of the dry feed of the highest grade, there are actually no sub-products. The natural formula of these compositions helps the cat as long as possible to remain healthy, vigorous, playful.
Wet
What should not be in wet feed, so this is cellulose, sugar, caramel, propylene glycol (an animal there is no need to absorb sweeteners). Artificial dye E127 - a provocateur of oncological diseases. The sub-products in wet food is usually very much, and they are not always attractive: it can be beef skin, for example. If the decoding of "meat" is, it is better than a generalization.
Cannedize
There is canned food that can use a cat every day, and there are those that are intended only for periodic food. Kids love mousses and pies, and adult cats canned with pieces of meat. The composition of this type of products is close to the composition of wet feed. If you combine in the diet of a pet food and canned food, it is desirable that they are from one product line.
Additional ingredients
Of course, the manufacturer wants, first of all, earn, and not feed a lot of cats. His task is to attract the animal to the bowl. And this can be done using flavors. So in the composition of the feed appears the extract of chamomile, ginger, rosemary, fennel. And so that the feed had an attractive look, and crispy crackers beautifully looked in a feline bowl, emulsifiers and thickeners add to the formulation.
But there are among additional ingredients and really good inclusions. For example, components that bind bile acids: statins, sequestrants.
They do not allow the stern to become a source of cholesterol in pure form, reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Recommendations for choosing
Before going to pet store, think, maybe you can organize your pet something more worthy than industrial feed? Read the book (or excerpts) Food Pets Die for Anna Martin, the animal feed industry has not been shown in the most visible form. But without books, you can simply include critical thinking: coming to an ordinary hypermarket, a person in a huge amount burst "chemistry", often without thinking about it. Do not believe in the fact that food for animals set on a commercial stream, more humane. However, if there is no alternative, it will have to buy something.
Let's see what experts say on this.
- About a third of the diet of cats should be wet or cans, the rest is dry food. Better natural feed, which is preparing from meat or fish, no and can not.
- Dry product is always abundant drink for a cat. If she lives on dry stern, and she is not enough for her drink, health problems will be very quickly. For the same reason, several times a week let's a petty feed or canned food.
- Food holistic is a top product for cats. The composition of balanced, preservatives and dyes are not, allergens too. But the cost of such a product is very high, and in the free sale to find it is also not easy.
The best feed is premium, top class compositions, holistic. Remember that if you buy an economy-class product, even the most advertised brand does not increase its quality. All trite: cheap food is good can not be. Therefore, the pet is responsible, and first make sure that it is fully prepared.
On how to choose the best dry food, see the next video.