Common Ingredients found in Cat Food

Cats SHOULD be eating fresh, healthy combinations of food, including protein, greens and so on. However, with most people feeding themselves junk every day, it's no surprise that poor cats are suffering as well. Cats aren't able to speak up for themselves. All they can do is eat whatever is served to them, even if it is pebbles of cardboard.

Here are some of the junky things you'll find in cheap cat food. I don't know if you can really call it cat food - it's more like "things you can convince your cat to eat".

Digest
Digest means "anything that comes from an animal that you normally couldn't ingest, but we made it ingestible by heating it or adding water to it". This means it includes chicken feet, horse hooves, cow horns, you name it. These are NOT things cats would eat in the wild, and they don't add much nutrition to your cat.

By-Product
By-Product is pretty much the same as digest. It is something left over in the course of making a real food. Chicken feathers, cow hooves, fish heads, you name it. They grind it up and plunk it into the mix.

Ash
Ash really isn't great for cats. Many vets feel that ash will cause urinary tract disease. It's best to find foods with as low an ash value as possible.

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