Choosing a diet for your feline friend can be a rather baffling matter if you really stop to think about it. For better or worse, many people simply grab the cheapest or largest bag of dry food they find in their grocery store. They might ration out specific meals, or they may simply leave a full dish of food twenty four hours a day, letting their cat decide when to eat. Other people may pick every variety of canned food available, feeding a different wet food for every meal.

Unfortunately, a cat’s diet is more complicated than choosing just one or the other. The basis of a cat’s diet should be high protein and low carbohydrate. Many dry foods contain mostly carbohydrates with little protein. Additionally, cats need a great deal of water. In the wild, they would obtain water from the food they hunt. However dry food adds no water to their diet. Therefore, cats do need wet food to increase their water consumption, and to flush their system of toxins. But many canned foods are actually very high in fat, which is not ideal for a house cat that does not get a great deal of exercise.

Therefore, a compromise between the two styles is key. Talk to your veterinarian for the best specific diet and portions for your cat, but you can plan for a combination of both dry and wet foods. But you will also need to take into consideration your cat’s personal preferences. Some cats will refuse to eat certain forms and brands of food. Others are easier to please, happily scarfing down whatever is fed to them. It might take trial and error to find the foods that best suit your cat’s personal taste.

However your cat’s diet works out, always look for quality. Again, your veterinarian will probably be able to provide brand recommendations. Look for natural and even organic foods. And find foods that do not contain a great deal of artificial ingredients or fillers.