Germans are notoriously pet-loving, and they are also in the matter of pet eating and drinking, especially cat food. In their view, among the various cat foods, dry food is the most cost-effective cat food.
For the shovelers with many cat mouths, the emergence of full-price grain has solved the problem of small cats, adult cats, old cats and other difficult to adjust.
In order to know whether cat food is nutritionally comprehensive and safe, Germany's most authoritative third-party testing agency, the German Commodity Testing Foundation (hereinafter referred to as "German Testing"), has conducted laboratory tests on 25 high-selling full-price cat food on the German market, including cat pet brands such as Weijia, Purina, Andch, as well as the affordable cat food (between 4 cents and 4 yuan per day) operated by German local supermarkets, which is what we call commodity food.
Before the experiment, the testers selected these cats: weighing 4 kilograms, slightly overweight and throwing away, which is the same weight as the common german cats. Let these cats live in an apartment.
They then began to calculate how much cat food and nutrients the cats needed, and checked whether the full-price cat food could meet the cat's nutritional needs. Because they are full-price cat food, they must provide their cats with all the nutrients they need as their only source of nutrition.
Each cat should consume about 226 calories per day. Based on this calorie, the testers calculated the amount of protein, amino acids, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, chlorine, trace elements, vitamins, fats, and unsaturated fatty acids that the cats consumed. In addition to this, they measured the cation-anion balance and assessed the in vitro digestibility of the protein.
After calculating this data, they also checked the recommended feeding amount written on the outer packaging of the product to see if it could meet the caloric needs of these cats and cats with other needs. A little more detailed, they checked whether companies wrote down the amount of water on the product packaging, as well as feeding recommendations for different cat breeds, activity levels, or age groups.
In addition to the nutrients and feeding amounts mentioned above, contaminants are also the focus of testing, including heavy metal components such as lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, and mineral oil.
Finally, check whether the packaging is well sealed, whether the packaging material is recyclable, and whether the product label is clear and easy to read.
We have selected a few sensitive topics to share with you:
Is there any food attractant for cat food?
Before the shoveler gave the cat to eat cat food, the cat was quite happy to eat raw meat, but once fed the cat food, it was simply out of control, the cat was addicted, only loved to eat cat food, and then ignored the raw bone meat.
As a result, many shovelers suspect that cat food has been added to the food, causing the cat to eat nothing else after eating cat food.
In China, food attractants have actually been controversial. If the cat food is of good quality and nutrition, but the taste is not good, in order to let the cat eat these cat food, adding a food attractant can help the cat eat.
However, if the manufacturer uses a large amount of starch to forge fake meat against his will to make garbage cat food, and then adds food attractants to trick the cat into eating, it will be harmful to the cat.
German tests also focused on food attractants, and it is recommended that cat food should not be used as a food attractant. They tested and found that there were no flavor enhancers or aroma inducers in the dried food tested, which would not lure the cat to eat or make the cat addicted.
At present, there are still many cat food in China with flavor enhancers. As follows, the 2 cat foods use pet feed compound seasonings and flavor enhancers respectively, which may make the cat's mouth more and more difficult to change the food later.
x Jia Ocean Fish into Cat Food: Pet Feed Compound Seasoning
X family kitten full price cat food: taste enhancer + brewer's yeast powder, one is not much
Note that some cat food that advertises "imported, natural" may also have the addition of food attractants. For example, the imported cat food that positions natural grains in the picture below has both natural seasonings and saccharomyces cerevisiae.
xx Treasure Chicken Salmon Whole Cat Food: Natural Seasoning + Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Different from Germany, the country also classifies pyrophosphate, animal hydrolyzed protein, yeast and yeast extract as food attractants, and cat owners can look at the cat food ingredient list to identify.
Pyrophosphate
Pyrophosphate is a compound commonly found in cat food as sodium pyrophosphate, which is very food-attracting.
XX Na 1 brand indoor cat food: chicken liver hydrolyzed powder + pyrophosphate, the food attraction effect is bursting
Animal hydrolyzed proteins
Animal hydrolyzed protein is the hydrolysis of animal protein into amino acids to produce an umami taste. It is mixed with pyrophosphate to produce a stronger food-attracting effect. The expressions "chicken liver hydrolyzed powder" and "hydrolyzed protein powder" are more common in the ingredient list.
XX High Chicken & Egg Grain Free Formula Whole Cat Food: Chicken Liver Hydrolyzed Powder
Yeast and yeast extracts
Yeast and yeast extracts can produce umami and meat flavors due to their high glutamic acid content. At present, it is widely used in the pet food industry, and it is often expressed in the ingredient list as "brewer's yeast powder", "dried brewer's yeast", "dry yeast" and so on.
X choose grainless deep sea fish salmon full price cat food: brewer's yeast powder
In this regard, Tiger Meow's solution is:
Do subtraction
· 1 · Choose cat food that does not contain food attractants, or that has fewer types of food attractants.
· 2 · Choosing a food attractant is ranked higher in the ingredient list, which can reduce the intake of the food attractant. Because the raw materials in the ingredient list are arranged from more to less content, the further back, the lower the content.
· 3 · Squeeze in more time to make raw meat and bones for the masters, this is the real natural food.
Can the protein in dry food satisfy cats?
This is indeed a big problem. We all know that cats are meatless carnivores and need a lot of protein.
Among the 25 full-price cat foods tested in Germany this time, animal protein mainly comes from chicken, duck and turkey.
However, if you feed the cat according to the recommended amount of some cat food, the cat is prone to protein deficiency, which directly leads to: the cat has no muscle, fat increases, and becomes sluggish. Therefore, when actually feeding, it is better to feed more than the recommended amount; and to choose cat food with high protein content and clear protein source.
According to the requirements of China's national recommended standard "GB/T 31217-2014 Full-price Pet Food Cat Food", the protein content of adult cat food must ≥ 25.0%, and the protein content of kitten food, pregnant cat food and lactating cat food must ≥ 28.0%. When choosing cat food, the higher the protein content, the better.
And, to see where these proteins come from, animal protein is best. However, many imported cat food now like to add pea, lentils, chickpeas and other legume plant proteins to the raw materials to increase the protein content, as shown in the following figure:
It is recommended that protein in dry foods, animal protein sources account for at least 50%-60%.
Also be careful about how animal protein ingredients are expressed in the ingredient list, some of which are problematic.
chicken
Take the most common chicken as an example. Proteins containing the following chicken ingredient names are passable and can be purchased:
Chicken √
In addition to chicken, there are also by-products of chicken, such as chicken heart, chicken liver and other internal organs.
Chicken (dehydrated, ground) √
Chicken that has been deeply processed into cat food.
Chicken powder √
Dried and grated chicken.
Freeze-dried chicken √
The fresh chicken containing water is pre-frozen at low temperatures, and then under vacuum conditions, its moisture is directly sublimated without liquid to obtain dried chicken.
However, as described in these chicken raw materials, the quality is very poor, there is no guarantee, do not buy:
Chicken powder X
All parts of the chicken, including meat, even scraps such as bones, beaks, feathers, etc.
Poultry protein X
By-products produced by poultry slaughter, such as beaks, feathers, etc. Meat is not included.
Animal by-product X
It can be a good thing such as chicken liver and chicken heart, but it can also have scraps such as beaks and claws, so be careful of this ambiguous expression.
Therefore, one looks at the protein content of at least 25%, and the other looks at animal protein as the main protein source.
In the next issue, we will look at the organic cat food that has been blown into the sky, and the cat food that is nominally "grain-free and gluten-free", will it overturn? Stay tuned!
To be continued
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