Nutrients, pollutants, portioning: the eco-testers put cat food to the test.
All tested feeds were "very good", "good" or "satisfactory".
Very good wet food for cats is available from as little as 1.30 euros per day.
This is the result of a study by
Öko-Test
magazine (issue 3/23).
15 conventional and six organic wet foods for adult cats were tested.
All were sold as complete feed.
No question of price: inexpensive cat food among the test winners
All tested feeds were "very good", "good" or "satisfactory".
According to the experts, one of the foods is not expected to make an animal ill.
As a precaution, avoid too much phosphorus
However, the nutrient composition was not optimal in all feeds.
Some were deducted because the levels of individual minerals and vitamin A were too high.
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Cat food should not contain too much phosphorus.
This is bad for the kidney.
© Ina Fassbender/dpa-tmn
Eleven products contained more phosphorus and/or calcium than necessary.
Too much water-soluble phosphorus is considered a long-term risk factor for kidney damage and should therefore be avoided.
It was not possible to distinguish whether soluble or insoluble phosphorus was present here.
Therefore, elevated values should generally be avoided.
Older cats in particular suffer from kidney damage.
Jürgen Zentek from the Freie Universität Berlin advises in
Öko-Test
to have older cats checked to see whether they have an unrecognized liver or kidney disease.
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Cat food in the Öko-Test: Six times the rating "very good"
If you want to avoid a possible over- or undersupply in the long term, according to the testers, you should choose one of the products tested "very good": Whiskas with lamb in jelly 1+ from Whiskas (1.13 euros per day), Felix as good as it looks with Nestlé Purina PetCare Chicken in Jelly (€2.20 per day), Activa Classic Adult Veal Pie by Activa (€1.79 per day).
Three organic foods also received top marks: Defu Bio cat food Pâté Lamm "Sensitive" from Demeter-Feldproducing (3.66 euros per day), Wildes Land Adult Organic duck and turkey with cranberries and salmon oil from Premium Pet Products (3.72 euros per day) and Zoo Royal organic pâté rich in beef with liver from Zoo Royale (1.50 euros per day).
No pollutants were found in any of the tested feeds, and the stated portions also matched the expert opinion.
The prices for the daily ration in the test refer to the feeding recommendation for a cat weighing four kilograms.
Gradually get cats used to the new food
"Anyone who has to or wants to switch their cat to a different food is best to start by mixing small amounts with the previous food and gradually increasing it," according to
Oekotest.de
.
That could also last for two weeks.
"Slightly warming up the cat food or passing something by hand can help." There are also a few basic principles when it comes to feeding kittens that cat owners should know if they have baby cats to look after.
dpa
List of rubrics: © Ina Fassbender/dpa-tmn