Picking the Right Cat Food

Taurine is an amino acid that helps animals (including humans) with brain development, eye health, reproduction, heart muscle function, and digestion. Sound pretty important? You bet. It is important to all animals but especially important to our feline friends.

What is Taurine?
Taurine is usually a non-essential amino acid. A non-essential amino acid is made by the body so it is not required to be in the diet. An essential amino acid is one that your body does not make, so you must get it from another source like food or pills. For a cat, taurine is a ‘conditionally essential’ amino acid. This means that cats can make some of it in their body but they need a supplement in their diet also.

What To Look For In A Food
A cat needs around 1000mg of taurine for ever 2.2 lbs of food they eat. Most pet food contains taurine at these levels; check the ingredients list in your pet food to make sure it has this supplement. If you don’t see taurine listed directly, look for ‘animal protein’ or listings of animal meats such as lamb, chicken, or fish. Taurine is derived mostly from animal proteins so a listing of ‘animal protein’ is just as good. Dry cat food will usually list ‘animal protein,’ while wet food will usually list ‘taurine’ in the ingredients. This is because wet food has a supplement added to it to meet taurine needs while dry food contains enough taurine naturally.

Home Made Cat Food
If you make your own cat food you may want to purchase taurine tablets or powder for your pet. For most cats, 75-100mg of taurine daily should do the trick. Taurine can also be found in raw meat and seafood but not enough to meet the 75-100mg recommendation.

What If The Diet Doesn’t Have Enough Taurine?
A cat who does not get enough taurine on a regular basis can develop conditions that cause heart failure, blindness, and reproductive problems. Dialated Cardiomyopathy, Central Retinal Degeneration, and still birth result from too little taurine in the diet.

If you want your cat to have a strong heart, healthy eyes, and good metabolism, taurine needs to be a key part of their diet. If you plan to breed your cat taurine is especially important. Breeding cats that don’t have enough taurine in their diet will have fewer live kittens born and fewer kittens to survive weening. You should be more concerned about your cat not getting enough taurine than you are about it getting too much. When in doubt, giving them a little too much is preferable to not giving them enough.


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *