you want an easier way to review cat food i completely understand so i created a free cat food
label cheat sheet pamphlet bye jericho these will have the most meat it's better to see that than
chicken and potato or beef and rice for example meat byproducts poultry byproducts meat meal bone
meal fish meal these are all very nondescript and they could possibly be rendered ingredients which
might contain 4d meats dead disease dying or disabled hey friends it's jess and jericho and
this video is sponsored by me so the cat food label cheat sheet is free but i also create
cat care printables that i sell on etsy this will help you keep track of your cat's feeding routines
food transition medical records litter box log his likes dislikes and so much more you can check
out those printables on etsy the link is in the description thank you very much for your support
so in the description and the pinned comment you'll see a link to sign up for my free cat food
label cheat sheets the link will open it looks like this so all you have to do is plug in your
food label cheat sheets so this is what the cheat sheets look like first i explain how to use the
cheat sheets these are general guidelines this is basically everything that i've learned since 2017
boiled down as simply as possible and so first you're going to look at the product name you
want to aim for something simple like chicken recipe beef dinner turkey feast bye jericho
these will have the most meat it's better to see that than chicken and potato or beef and
rice for example next the ingredients list there are far too many to avoid then i can include on
the cheat sheets but the ones that i've included are the most common that are found that you want
to avoid if you don't know what something is look it up next the guaranteed analysis
aafco does not require carbohydrates on the guaranteed analysis so unfortunately we have
to calculate this on our own next you're going to want to look at the nutritional adequacy statement
so this is going to tell you if the food is complete and balanced and for which life stage if
it says complete and balanced for all life stages that means that it is a standalone meal and it's a
complete and balanced diet for all life stages if it says for intermittent or supplemental feeding
only that means it is a treat or a topper it does not offer everything that your cat needs as a
standalone meal get that scratcher next which is super important high moisture is best so if your
only options are between dry and wet food wet food always wins no matter who makes it as long as it's
completel and balanced simply because wet food has appropriate moisture content and dry food does not
so here's the actual cheat sheet so for the product name if it's a simple cat food name with
no descriptive words 95 to 100% of that named ingredient is plus two if there's a word like
dinner platter entree formula feast recipe nuggets something like that is going to be 25 to 94.9%
of those named ingredients if it's meat only 1.5 if it's a combo of meat and non-meat for example
beef and potato or chicken and rice then you would only add half a point if the meat is first
if you see the words with and flavor in the product name completely disregard that
product because that's going to have the lowest amount of meat in it and then again
the most common ingredients that you'll see meat byproducts poultry byproducts meat meal bone meal
fish meal these are all very nondescript and they could possibly be rendered ingredients which might
contain 4d meats dead disease dying or disabled other non-descriptive ingredients include liver
so instead of saying chicken liver beef liver lamb liver it just says liver well where did it come
from which which animal provided this liver that is something that you want to avoid that mystery
right there other ones animal fat doesn't specify which animal fish oil doesn't specify which
type of fish animal digest natural flavor we have no idea what that means because they're not
telling us the exact animal other ingredients to avoid corn wheat yeast rice soy sugar
salt lots of synthetic ingredients colors like yellow five yellow six red 40 etcetera
chemical preservatives bht bha ethoxyquin binding agents like gums carageenan yucca tapioca
etcetera these are all fillers and there are resources in the description below that explain
why you should avoid these ingredients this video we're just going over the cheat sheet
so the next section here is for the guaranteed analysis so you're going to fill in protein
fat fiber moisture and ash if the ash isn't listed just use three that's kind of like an
average but of course this varies between the type of food subtracting all this from 100 will
give you the carb amount including moisture then you have to convert it to a dry matter basis that
means to remove the moisture you may notice that with kibble it looks like there's higher protein
than wet food that's because wet food has higher moisture when you convert it to a dry matter basis
aka take the water out of the equation the wet food typically actually has higher protein than
the kibble it's very important to convert to a dry matter basis so you would take 100 minus the
moisture content that will give you the dry matter of the entire food then you're going to take the
carb percent divide it by the dry matter of the entire food multiply by 100 to turn it back into
a percent and you can use this same equation here for protein and fat whatever nutrient you want to
analyze on a dry matter basis so if it's greater than 10% carbs on a dry matter basis plus a zero
if it's less than 10% carbs on a dry matter basis plus one because ideally you want to have less
than 10% carbs on a dry matter basis additionally if the moisture content is greater than 65% that's
a plus one if it's less than 65% that's plus zero so basically if you're analyzing dry food that's
probably gonna have the lowest score because moisture is important for cats water is the
most important nutrient above all if this is too overwhelming then just value moisture aka water
over anything else and choose wet food instead of dry as long as it says completele and balanced
if you're looking at freeze-dried raw food the moisture is going to be low you would still
add a point because you're going to rehydrate with water so the moisture content will improve
when you rehydrate with water give me a polydactyl thumbs up if this is helpful so far so that more
people that need to analyze cat food can find this video thanks so much now a bonus here that
i included is manufacturer information because a lot of the cat food brands that you see on
the shelf are actually owned by the same company and that same multi-billion dollar company also
produces junk food for humans so who owns the brand are there any other pet food brands under
this manufacturer who manufactures the product are there human food brands under this manufacturer
and are these pet and human foods any good that's going to give you a fair judgment on whether their
pet food is healthy or not they don't really care about producing healthy human food why would they
produce healthy cat food i had 11 cats in my life before i adopted jericho and i had no idea that
majority of the cat food brands are owned by the same company it's really crazy so now let's look
at a cat food label example so we have over here on the left good wet food bad dry food the product
name for the good wet food is beef recipe product name for the bad dry food is with beef and rice so
the problem here is with which means there's going to be less than 25% of the named ingredients and
there's a meat and a non-meat ingredient so this product probably has equal or more rice
than beef in this product whereas on the left beef recipe that's going to have at least 25% beef and
there's no non-meat ingredients in the product name then when you look at the ingredients the
good version should have at least beef ground beef bone beef heart beef liver 70% moisture
those are super super specific ground beef bone instead of just saying bone meal beef liver
instead of just saying liver or meat byproducts 70% moisture instead of 10% moisture some bonus
ingredients are other secreting organs like kidney spleen and then blood maybe you'll see raw goat
milk or ground eggshell and of course very low percent carbs on a dry matter basis then i also
included another example that you can take a look at and i've also included some faq and of course
links to all of the resources so that you can look into it on your own education is the best tool
that you have i've been studying this since 2017 and i'm still learning every day so the more you
know the better the more educated you can be and of course very very important cats are extremely
sensitive to food changes and they're also picky about new food so check out this video right over
meow it's my full transition guide specifically formulated for picky cats thanks for watching