Ingredients In Prescription Diets For Cats

Here’s the thing, friends. Have you ever actually read the ingredients in prescription diets? If so, did you know what you were reading? Did you question those ingredients?

Maybe you should.

You see, prescription diets for cats have a purpose and sometimes it just isn’t good enough for our kitties. The term prescription, when it comes to cat food, is misleading. Most cat parents would think that a prescription food would contain some type of medicine, but it doesn’t. Instead, they often remove certain ingredients that can be a culprit of your cat’s health issue.

The problem, however, is with the rest of the ingredients in prescription diets. Not only are they low quality ingredients, but they are often causing other health issues – especially if fed over a prolonged period of time.

Let’s evaluate some ingredients in popular prescription diets for cats

Here are the first 5 ingredients in a prescription diet for cats with kidney issues that you can purchase at most vet clinics. It’s worth noting that pet food companies are required to list the ingredients based on the amount of each item in the bag. So the first 5 ingredients are what each bag mainly consists of.

Brown Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken, Pork Fat, Whole Grain Wheat

Brown Rice is the #1 ingredient in this prescription diet. It is a carbohydrate that cats are not made to consume and can cause obesity, diabetes, as well as kidney issues (ironically), since it’s taxing on the body to metabolize and process through the organs.

Corn Gluten Meal is a cheap filler for protein and harmful to obligate carnivores, who need meat to survive.

Chicken is cooked, dehydrated and made into powder form. From this company it is also factory farmed and may even have been diseased before slaughter.

Pork Fat is a “by-product of rendering pigs” which is a disgusting process that my dad used to do in a rendering plant. It’s just gross.

Whole Grain Wheat falls into the same category as brown rice and it is also a cheap filler ingredient that our cats have difficulty processing.

If you were making your cat’s food at home, would you choose these ingredients to feed them? You likely wouldn’t choose these ingredients for your kitty who is struggling with kidney issues. Click here to read why cats shouldn’t be fed less protein.

Now let’s check out the ingredients in a prescription diet for cats with urinary issues.

This is also a popular prescription food that you can get at your vet’s office or in stores. It’s a dry food that is supposed to “nutritionally support urinary tract and bladder health in adult cats“.

Chicken By-Product Meal, Brewers Rice, Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, Powdered Cellulose

Chicken By-Product Meal is the rendered leftovers of a chicken after all the meat has been taken and used for human consumption.

Brewers Rice is fragments of rice that are left over after white rice has been processed and it is also a carbohydrate that cat’s have a difficult time processing.

Corn is corn. And this ingredient offers no nutritional value to our kitties. It is also difficult to process and should not be listed in any foods that are meant to be fed to cats.

Corn Gluten Meal is a cheap filler for protein and harmful to obligate carnivores, who need meat to survive.

Powdered Cellulose is “made by cooking raw plant fiber—usually wood—in various chemicals to separate the cellulose, and then purified.” This isn’t the type of fiber I would feed to my cats.

So… after analyzing the ingredients in prescription diets for cats you can see why feeding these foods for any period of time could be detrimental to your cat’s health. Cats were made to eat meat, so substituting real animal protein with fillers is slowly taking years off of their lives.

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