In today’s society of designer pets, chickpea-based diets and rights for inanimate objects, it should come as no surprise to readers when I write than many pet owners are moving their pets onto vegetarian diets. Instead of tackling the issue of rights and the subject of ‘what people should do’, it is my job to give you the facts so you can make your own informed choices.

Cats are carnivores. From their bones, teeth and claws to their senses, stomach and bowels, cats are ‘designed’ to hunt, kill, eat and excrete meat. In the wild, almost 100% their nutrition comes from meat. However, let us bear in mind that, in the wild, meat is the only source of the nutrients that cats require to be healthy. This is no longer the case for a felis catus…

Although domesticated cats cannot get all their essential nutrients from a vegetarian diet alone, we humans have developed clever supplements which, when combined with a vegetarian diet, ensure cats get everything they need without having to eat meat. The same goes for our human diet as well – nobody ‘needs’ to eat meat. When combined with the fact that lots of companies conduct tests on animals, as well as the massive environmental damage that keeping livestock to slaughter for food does to the environment, it may be hard for cat owners to justify their pet’s meaty diet.

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A man in Canada spends three hours a night making rounds of the city, looking after feral cats – and has done so for the last five years! He covers a 25-block area of Edmonton, stopping to feed up to 75 cats! Not only does this take up a large part of his day, it costs over $600 every month to buy supplies, which he finds himself when he hasn’t enough donors!

Of course, monthly supplies are only one of the expenditures for Dennis Benzer; since feral cats have no cat insurance, Benzer spends thousands looking after their wellbeing, including having them sprayed or neutered. When asked why he does it, Benzer explains “Nobody wants to take in a feral cat” and he’s right; the likely fate for most these cats is being put down at the city pound, if they don’t perish on the street.

“All the shelters are already overrun with cats” he claims; a sad but universal truth at the moment. Perhaps if there were more people like Dennis, our world would be a better place for cats… Of course, it might also cause a massive surge in the population of feral cats, which nobody really wants. Nevertheless, it’s an uplifting story!

Although a balanced diet is the most important thing to bear in mind when it comes to cat food is, it is also beneficial to know which type of cat food is best for your cat – dry or canned. Although there is no hard and fast rule regarding types of cat food, here are the latest findings:

Up until recently, it was thought that cats were best off eating dry food for the sake of their teeth (the kibble pieces were thought to help combat tartar and plaque). Moreover, the 80-85% water content of canned food means dry food has a lot more high-quality nutrition by weight. However, recent research funded by pet insurance companies and the RSPCA suggests the nutritional content of canned food is actually far more similar to the typical diet of a cat in the wild than dry food!

It is thought that the typical diet of a cat in the wild contains very little carbohydrate at all, being around 45% fat and 45% protein. Where dry food needs carbohydrates to hold the kibble pieces together, canned food has much lower levels of carbohydrate (around 10%) and is hence much more representative of their natural diet. When it comes to keeping weight down, many findings indicate that a more ‘natural’ diet helps keep cats trim and healthy.

Cats eating mice is just about as old an image as you can get; after all, the mouse is the natural prey for any breed of cat. However, when you consider the size of a mouse, doesn’t it seem that a cat might have to eat a fair amount of them on a daily basis to get enough food? The truth is that a mouse only provides about 10% of the daily energy that a cat requires, so – in the wild – cats need to catch quite a lot of prey every day!

However, despite having evolved eating small meals multiple times a day; it is common practise for most cat owners to feed their pet fairly large meals twice a day instead. Yet feeding studies into felines have shown that, when given a choice, cats prefer to eat up to 20 times in 24 hours!

Some cats will happily nibble away at food left out twice a day, but others seem to make it a personal mission to scoff it all down – whether they want to or not! For this reason it is advisable, if you have the time available, to try catering for your cat’s natural tendency towards small meals. Although pet insurance companies are yet to take “feeding habits” into account when you apply, small meals will actually help keep your cat slim, healthy and full of energy.