Proper nutrition for cats

Feed your cat species-appropriate!

Species-appropriate nutrition for cats

The vexed subject of cat food. A thousand people, a thousand opinions on this.
However, to develop a feeling and be able to form his own opinion,
you should at least briefly deal with the digestive system of the cat.
Not much expertise is required for this.

Duration of digestion
Ingested food remains in the cat’s stomach for about 2-8 hours, is “processed” by gastric acid and from there enters the approximately 1 m long small intestine, which transports the food for about 1-2 hours towards the large intestine, which then also requires about 18-24 hours for excretion.

The importance of intestinal length
Depending on age, size and breed, the length of the intestine is between 1.0-1.7 m – which provides information about the natural feeding behavior of the cat. Animals that eat plant-based diets spend more time digesting than animals that eat animal-based diets. For this reason, the intestine of a carnivore (meat eater) is shorter than that of an animal that eats only plant components, since it does not have to digest for as long.

Necessary components in the diet
For the cat’s body to remain healthy, some substances are needed in the daily diet. The main component of the diet should be meat, that is, animal proteins, or proteins. Animal fat is not only an energy supplier, but also participates in the natural metabolism in the body. The cat’s body cannot utilize and digest too much vegetable components. Trace elements and minerals such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and many others must be present in the diet to get the metabolic process going.
Foods containing fish also provide a supply of important omega-3 fatty acids.
Vitamins such as vitamin B12 is responsible for stimulating appetite, general well-being as well as digestive system.

Water
As an original desert animal, the cat has learned to take in its fluid intake through food. Anyone who has cats themselves knows that you often have to encourage them to drink. So here the choice falls between high-quality wet food and fresh meat. This is because dry food deprives the body of valuable fluids and swells in the gastrointestinal tract, which makes digestion all the more difficult. In this case, long-term health damage is to be expected, especially if the kidneys are not sufficiently flushed due to little or hardly any water supply!

B.A.R.F. or wet food?
The decision must be made by each cat owner for himself. The fact is, there are things to consider with both forms of feeding. Feeding raw meat without further additives, just like an incorrect composition of wet food, can lead to considerable damage due to a deficiency or possibly an overdose of various substances. If one pays attention to a transparent declaration, a high muscle meat portion and only few, good innards (kidneys, liver, heart), sufficiently Tauringehalt (important!) and vitamins and trace elements, then one has surely long joy at its quadrupeds. Because just as we humans need to watch our eating habits, we have a responsibility to feed our cats species-appropriate food – they depend on us!