hey friends it's jess and jericho and the best raw food that you can give is homemade because
you control the ingredients and how it's made so i would get everything well i do get everything
from hare today this video is not sponsored but there are affiliate links in the description below
there are 19 different proteins to choose from you can get pre-made grinds that follow the 80 10
10 ratio you can also get whole cuts of meat raw meaty bones organs and even whole prey
and if you're going for the 80 10 10 ratio of course you would add supplements you can get that
from hare today as well you can get alnutrin nutritional supplements and on their website
knowwhatyoufeed.com they tell you everything is human grade and they also tell you where
the ingredients come from the country of origin as well as why they add it to their raw food pre-mix
additionally you can get taurine powder and fish oil all from hare today so that's the best because
it's very easy you don't need to use a recipe you can just get 80 10 10 grinds raw food pre-mix and
the fish oil all from this website now this is in the u.s only so if you're outside the
u.s i have a completely separate video about homemade cat food with recipes i'll put that
in the top right corner and in the description below the worst raw cat food that you can give
is something that's completely unbalanced so i get some comments that say oh i just give my cat
chicken peas and carrots or i'll just feed my cat a can of tuna this is not complete and balanced
this doesn't offer all of the nutrients that your cat needs for example if you're only giving muscle
meat and a couple of veggies the diet is going to be severely lacking in calcium you need bones
or eggshell powder those are natural sources of calcium it also has to be in the right ratio if
you give too much muscle meat then the phosphorus is going to be too high if you give too much bone
calcium is going to be too high this is going to affect how your cat's body absorbs
all of the other nutrients so if you're going to do homemade cat food please do it right
again i have a complete guide to homemade cat food that's in the description below now the best wet
cat food that i would suggest to you if you want to feed wet food would be feline natural and this
is actually one of their new products they have pouches so if you're concerned about shipping
costs being too high because of cans they now have pouches for their wet food there's no thickening
agents and then you don't have to worry about bpa and stuff like that so these are pouches and
the reason that i'm saying that it's the best is because the product's name rule here is lamb and
king salmon feast that word feast means between 25 to 94.9% lamb and king salmon combined there's no
non-meat ingredients for example instead of saying lamb and rice lamb and potato lamb and king salmon
you want to see meat only in the product name when we go down to the ingredients we see lamb heart
water sufficient for processing salmon lamb lung lamb liver lamb kidney new zealand green muscle
so those are all really really specifically named ingredients rather than just saying
meat byproducts they tell you the exact animal and they tell you the exact byproduct because all
of these things are technically byproducts heart lung liver kidney but instead of using the general
blank term they tell you exactly what's in the product same thing with new zealand green muscle
instead of just saying fish meal they tell you new zealand green muscle and then of course you'll see
the synthetic vitamins and minerals but compared to most cat foods you know this
doesn't have a list of like 63 different supplements the main nutrition comes from
the meat ingredients that are specifically named then when you use the guaranteed analysis numbers
you'll get approximately one percent carbs on a dry matter basis this is perfect when you look
at the ingredients again you'll see that there are very very minimal carbohydrate sources maybe
the kelp and the flax seed but when you use the guaranteed analysis numbers you'll find that those
ingredients are very minimal compared to the meat ingredients and feline natural actually provides
their dry matter basis for their product so for carbohydrates it's less than one percent on a dry
matter basis which is completely ideal because the cat's natural diet is around two percent
carbs that comes from the stomach contents of prey feline natural is also available outside the u.s
so you can go on their website and use their store locator to find a shop near you now the worst wet
cat food is here on the screen and the product name is called with real turkey that word with
means that the minimum requirement of turkey is only three percent and it's less than 25 because
if it was at least 25 percent the product's name would be turkey dinner turkey entree
turkey platter or what we just looked at in feline natural it would say turkey feast but since it
doesn't have one of those descriptive words and instead says with turkey that minimum requirement
drops down from 25 to 3% when we look at the ingredients we see water sufficient for processing
meat byproducts so right there is a general blanket term meat well what kind of meat could
be any kind of meat byproducts what kind of byproducts it could be any type of byproducts
so i hope you see the difference between this product and the one that we just looked at
the one that we just looked at it told us exactly lamb lung lamb heart lamb liver glam kidney this
one just says meat byproducts then it says turkey chicken so the manufacturer knew that there was
some turkey and chicken in the product because they named it turkey and chicken those are in the
ingredients but for the meat byproducts they didn't know what kind of meat they didn't know
what kind of byproducts so they couldn't tell us so they just say meat buy products that's what's
concerning you have no idea you would think that cat food manufacturers would be proud to list
exactly what's in their product you know instead of using the general blanket term of just kind of
like well we don't know exactly what's in it so we'll just throw it all together and just call
it meat buy products see those are things you have to kind of question because if they can't tell you
what's exactly in their product it's like how can you feel comfortable feeding it to your cat then
we go down the list soy protein concentrate soy is not appropriate for cats modified food starch
wheat flour fish so again we have another mystery here is it sardine is it anchovy is it pollock
is it whitefish like there are just so many different fish some fish contain high thiaminase
which destroys b vitamins and some fish don't contain thiaminase so it's important to know
what kind of fish that you're feeding because you don't want your cat to be deficient in b vitamins
additionally fish that are higher up on the food chain have a higher risk of containing mercury
and other toxins so it's it's a big mystery it's like well how how do you not know what
kind of fish you're using in your product then we have soy flour again soy not appropriate for cats
natural flavor salt and then most of these things everything after salt is typically less than one
percent so the bulk of the ingredients come from this the first couple ingredients but again meat
byproducts is is very very vague so it's too much of a mystery then if we use the guaranteed
analysis numbers to come up with the approximate carb amount on a dry matter basis it's about
19% so that's likely coming from the soy and the food starch and the wheat flour and the soy again
so it's you know 19% is still much lower than the average for kibble but it's it's definitely
not an ideal amount now don't get me wrong if your only option is between dry food and wet food any
wet food that you can afford that says complete and balanced even if it's this worst one that we
just looked at this is still better than the best most expensive premium dry food because cats rely
on food for moisture so feeding a high moisture diet will always be better than feeding a dry
food that's only 10% moisture however if you want to feed your cat better and maybe your cat just
really won't take to wet food it might be worth it to upgrade the dry food that you're feeding now
to a better quality dry and then that will help get your cat used to eating better quality
ingredients and that'll make the transition to wet much easier so the best dry which is an oxymoron
but this is the terms that people use the best dry i would suggest if your cat's addicted to kibble
you want to get them off kibble and on to better quality food going to wet or raw use ziwi peak air
dried food this is the best that i can find so the label rule here is chicken recipe that word
recipe means the chicken is somewhere between 25 and 94.9% chicken so you're gonna have the most
chicken in this product compared to a product that says with chicken or chicken flavor and if we go
down to the ingredients we have chicken chicken liver chicken heart new zealand green mussel
chicken bone so those are very very specific ingredients instead of just using the general term
poultry by-products that's a big mystery poultry could mean chicken or turkey by-products could
mean liver spleen bones we don't know but with this food it tells you we're using chicken and
we're using the chicken's liver the chicken's heart the chickens bone and the same thing with
fish new zealand green mussel that's very specific and then the rest of the ingredients are mainly
vitamins minerals and preservatives and of course this ingredients list isn't 100% ideal
but this compared to most dry food brands on the market i analyzed over 80 different brands of dry
food this is the best that i could find yes it's not 100% ideal but in terms of when we're looking
at dry food only this is going to be the best then you can use the guaranteed analysis numbers to
calculate the approximate carb amount or you can click download full typical analysis and they'll
tell you carbohydrates one percent on a dry matter basis so again this is the lowest absolute lowest
that i've ever seen with dry food the average for dry food among those 80 brands i analyzed the
average carb amount was 33% and the highest was 49% on a dry matter basis so this dry food is only
one percent i also want to mention that ziwi peak is air dried so it isn't cooked and pressurized
like most dry food so this air dried food is more likely to contain more of those nutrients
so that's why you'll you'll notice that again the list of synthetic supplements isn't that long
compared to other commercial cat foods and ziwi peak is also available outside the us so again
if the links below don't work for you go to their website and go to the store locator
they have online retailers as well as in-store products and the worst dry food that we'll look at
is here on the screen the product name is flavors of chicken and tuna so that word flavor means the
minimum requirement of chicken and tuna combined is zero percent and it's guaranteed less than
three percent because if it was at least three percent it would say with chicken and tuna instead
of flavors of chicken and tuna then when we look at the ingredients the first ingredient is whole
ground corn obviously that's not appropriate for cats next we have chicken by-product meal this
word meal means that it's rendered which is a process in which they subject the ingredients
to very very high heat and very high pressure they do this to kill any pathogenic bacteria
however meat meals can contain 4d meats which is dead disease dying and disabled aafco states that
this is allowed as long as those ingredients are rendered and there's a crs report for congress
on the animal rendering industry that's linked below please look into the resources so you know
for yourself don't just rely on someone telling you please look into the resources read aafco's
website read the resources in the description so we'll move on corn gluten meal so now we have
two corn ingredients then we have soybean meal again soy is not appropriate for cats animal fat
so here we have an issue because we have no idea what kind of animal is being used and i'm going to
reference that crs report for congress again so the animal rendering industry states that
the majority of the dead animals come from farms (EDIT: slaughterhouses and processing plants) but
they can also come from dead animals from animal shelters they also use restaurant
grease and grocery store waste typically when you see something like this animal fat or tallow
these are flavor enhancers and palatants that they use to make the food more enticing to eat
there's a company called afb international that makes these flavor enhancers and palatants
so again please read into the resources but it's just beyond the scope of this video next we have
whole wheat animal digest animal digest that's another flavor enhancer palatant that they use and
we go on to the list tuna meals so again meal this could be a rendered ingredient which may include
4d meats and it's preserved with ethoxyquin now ethoxyquin is extremely controversial because
it is a carcinogenic preservative meaning that it causes cancer and we go down further
corn syrup not appropriate for cats and everything after salt is likely less than one percent however
some things to be wary of yellow five red forty blue two these colors are also carcinogenic and
bha which is another chemical preservative that's carcinogenic so we have all of these
inappropriate ingredients including chemical preservatives that are known to cause cancer
so all of these things this is why this is the worst dry food now if you've discovered that
your cat's eating one of these worst foods or maybe your cat's food contains these really bad
ingredients check out this video right over meow it is my complete transition guide specifically
formulated for pinky cats so that you can get your cat eating better quality food thanks for watching