# Specific Brands of High-Protein Cat Food?



## Jet Green (Nov 28, 2005)

Not knowing any better, I've been feeding my cats Friskies and Kitten Chow since I got them (they're 11 months old). After reading all the info on this forum and elsewhere, I'm now completely sold on moving them to premium food and reducing the % of dry food in their diet.

Since I still want to give them a little dry food, I found a feed store that sells Innova EVO, which has 50% protein. My cats have sampled it and seem to like it so far.

But I'm still looking for a high-protein canned food. I can't find one! Every brand I see, even the premium brands recommended by the people here, has a minimum protein content of only 10-13%.

Is there a way of calculating protein that I don't know about? I even found a list, I think on About.com, that listed several brands with protein content up to 50%. But when I visit those brands' web sites, they say 10%. Am I missing something?

I would really appreciate any recommendations for specific brands of high-protein canned food, and where you buy them. Thanks!


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## vanillasugar (Nov 11, 2004)

Wet food and dry food measure the nutrients completley differently  There is a calculation you can do to figure out the correct "dry matter" percentages for nutrients of wet food, to properly compare them to dry. I unfortunatley do not have this calculation on hand, maybe someone else will?


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## Jet Green (Nov 28, 2005)

Aha! That's exactly the info I needed. Thanks to your tip, I found this page: http://www.maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm
which had the formula.

I experimentally bought a brand called Solid Gold at the feed store. It has 10% protein on the label, but following the formula, it's really 45% of the dry part.

This was probably in at least one of the sticky articles, but I didn't know what I was looking for when I read them, and I did a lot of skimming of the technical parts. Thanks, Vanillasugar!


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## roseeden (May 18, 2005)

I thought most of the canned are relative high protein.

As far as dry food is concerned, I highly recommend Drs. Foster and Smith kitten food. You have to buy in bulk around Christmas time to save on shipping and handling.


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

Shengmei, Dry kitten food is still very high in carbohydrates and calories. My cat Spotty is overweight and the take home information I got from the vet reccommended that he eat canned kitten food but I am not to feed dry kitten food. 

Innova Evo, The only reason I won't feed that to my cats is because it is extremely high in calories, almost 600 calories per cup. Apparently in a concentrated dry form they can't seem to make a low carb food at least moderate in calories. But at least the Innova Evo is low in carbohydrates, about 7%, unlike dry kitten food. Canned kitten food is lower in carbs than regular canned adult cat food.

Yes , canned food is very high in protein. That 10% is misleading and people who misunderstand that argue that canned food doesn't have much nutrients, but that is so extremely far from the truth. Canned food usually has about 22% dry matter and if you were to calculate that, it would come out to be about 45% protein. Want to feed a canned food with even more protein than that? The answer is canned kitten food, or one for all life stages. I believe Innova Evo makes a canned formula as well.


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## Jet Green (Nov 28, 2005)

I'll have to look again at the canned food brands in the feed store. I had dismissed them all the first time because of the 10% protein. I finally grabbed two cans of Solid Gold only because the clerks were being helpful to a creepy degree. They gave me free samples of the Innova stuff and then stared at me all expectantly while I browsed. I figured I'd better buy something! :lol: 

The easiest option for canned food would be Nutro, since they sell it at PetSmart. I've seen some people here recommend it. Is it generally considered a high-quality food?

Thanks for the tip on the Innova calories, moggie. I didn't even think to look at that but one of my cats is a little pig, so it might be a problem down the line. I'll check and see if there are other brands that might work better.

It would great if I could find both wet and dry food at PetSmart, because then I could avoid the creepy feed store altogether! What we do for our cats...


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## Jet Green (Nov 28, 2005)

Well I tried out the Nutro kitten formula last night. One cat loved it so much, he purred while eating it! But one turned her nose up at it, and the others were lukewarm. I'll try some different flavors, and gradually cut back on the Friskies. Hopefully they'll adjust.

The big downside is the cost. At PetSmart, you can only buy the kitten kind in individual Fancy Feast-sized cans. The adult cans are regular sized, but still only sold individually. I'll look around on the Internet and see if I can find it cheaper in bulk. (Any recommendations?)


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## TAsunder (Apr 6, 2004)

Innova and Innova Evo are fairly high protein. The formula is pretty simple, subtract the % moisture from 100, then look at the remainder which will be something like 15-30% and then take the protein % and divide into the remainder. So if it's 20% remainder and it says 10% protein, that means that it's 50% protein in terms of the non-wet-portion.

Evo dry does have a lot of calories, but don't let it deceive you. I would still rather give a cup of evo than a cup of something with lower % protein and a lot of grains with less calories. Think atkins diet... that big slab of steak is a lot of calories too.


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## Jet Green (Nov 28, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> Think atkins diet... that big slab of steak is a lot of calories too.


I hear you...I'm the only person I know who _gained _weight on the atkins diet.  

Here's a question (not something I intend to try, just curious): If you were going to go with only one type of food, would a premium dry food be better than a low-quality wet food, or vice versa?


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## TAsunder (Apr 6, 2004)

Jet Green said:


> I hear you...I'm the only person I know who _gained _weight on the atkins diet.
> 
> Here's a question (not something I intend to try, just curious): If you were going to go with only one type of food, would a premium dry food be better than a low-quality wet food, or vice versa?


Hmm... I'd have to check the ingredients of the wet food. I might still go with wet due to long term health implications of insufficiently hydrated cats.


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

Jet Green said:


> TAsunder said:
> 
> 
> > Think atkins diet... that big slab of steak is a lot of calories too.
> ...


I do believe that a lower quality wet food is better than a premium dry food simply because the canned food more closely resembles the natural diet of cats than dry food. High protein, moderate in fat, low carbohydrate and high moisture. Cats are designed to consume water from their food. While they should still have water as a supplement they don't naturally drink as much water as they need. Plus with wet food not being too high in calories your cats are less likely to develop health problems as a result of obesity. I think the worst indicators of low quality wet food are things like artificial colors or nitrates that are found in stuff like bacon, sausage and stuff. I'm not really against by-products unless it's the only source of animal-based protein, and the company doesn't want to use any good meat cuts, I know that cats eat quite a bit of mouse by-products in nature, but I know that's not a popular belief on this forum. I think it's best to find something nutritious that the cat enjoys eating. If you have to because of finickiness, you can sacrifice quality to a certain extent with the wet food and if you do feed any dry food at all, feed only the premium quality ones. Best to try a variety of flavors and brands of wet food until you find something both you and your cats approve of. You can also feed a variety of brands for the sake of variety.


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## zippy96444 (Mar 7, 2006)

*Innova or Evo, which one is better?*

I know there has been discussion on this, I am now feeding a mixture of Wellness, Nutro and Innova. I am doing this to finish up the Wellness and Nutro because I want to put my cat on Innova. Today, I got a sample of Evo and he liked it. WHich one is better for my cat, and is it okay to try varieties of food like I am doing? He tends to be a bit overweight according to the VET, not me. He is a year and about 15 pounds. He is just a big cat, I can see his waist and hip bones. He doesnt really like wet food, and he does drink a lot of water, everytime I go to the kitchen sink! He has his own cup there to drink from. Talking about spoiled! :catmilk 
I just found a place today that carries the canned Innova, I might try that, but I have tried every other brand and he will eat only a little, about 1/4 fourth of a can and the rest will go to waste.


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## Jet Green (Nov 28, 2005)

*Re: Innova or Evo, which one is better?*



zippy96444 said:


> I just found a place today that carries the canned Innova, I might try that, but I have tried every other brand and he will eat only a little, about 1/4 fourth of a can and the rest will go to waste.


I hear you, my cats are the same way. I ended up trying a number of the premium brands, and they will hardly touch them. I finally gave up and went back to Fancy Feast.  At least they eat it, though.


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## Sky Eyes Woman (Feb 26, 2006)

moggiegirl said:


> Apparently in a concentrated dry form they can't seem to make a low carb food at least moderate in calories.


I would guess that's because just like people food, cat food is mostly made up of three things: protein, fat and carbs. 

And just like with a human's diet, when you decrease the amount of one of those things, you must increase the amount of the other two to compensate.

Decreased carbs = higher protein and higher fat, therefore higher calorie content. 

I'm also going to go out on a limb here and say that the cat or person on a low-carb diet will still consume about the same amount of calories as they would on a low-fat diet but the total volume of the food consumed will be less on the low-carb diet. I know it was like that for me when I was on Atkins. My cats also eat less of the Innova Evo than they did of any other brand of dry food.


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## roseeden (May 18, 2005)

I know that kitten foods are generally low-carb, high protein, and high fat...

They also tend to add DHA in kitten food.


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