What are the selection criteria for the best cat dry food?

As a cat owner, you want only the best for your beloved pet. Think of buying the best-equipped scratching post, fishing rods or laser pointers. But choosing the best dry food for cats is also a challenge. Cat owners don’t just want the best dry food for their cats in terms of nutritional value; above all, the taste must be excellent. It’s no secret that our furry friends are generally very picky eaters.

Choice: wet food or dry food for cats

If you want to choose the best dry food for your cat, both wet and dry food are options. The quality and taste of the nutrition are the decisive factors. At Imby, we are big fans of dry cat food. We’d like to list the advantages of good dry cat food compared to wet food:

• The best dry food for cats contains a high concentration of nutrients and is of high quality. This means that the kibble is very rich in essential nutrients such as proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins. As you probably already suspected, wet food mainly contains a high percentage of moisture (sometimes as much as 85%). Your cat will therefore need to eat a much larger quantity of wet food to get the same nutrients compared to dry food. Imby’s insect-based cat food is packed with healthy nutrients (including sweet potato, spirulina, apples, cranberries and carrots), ensuring your feline friend will never be short of minerals and vitamins. With the high protein content (38%) derived from our insect powder, we can also say that this provides complete and balanced nutrition for your pet.
• Furthermore, dry food for cats has a very long shelf life and retains its quality for a long time. Both in the opened packet and in the food bowl, the kibble stays fresh for many days, provided you seal the packet properly every day. Cats eat small amounts throughout the day, making dry food ideal for this eating pattern. Wet food, on the other hand, is best bought in single portions. It is not recommended to keep an opened tin of wet food for several days.

• Due to the hard texture of dry food, your cat has to chew properly. This helps to clean your cat’s teeth thoroughly and remove tartar. With wet food, however, the opposite effect occurs. You will need to keep a close eye on tartar and tooth decay, as there is no natural cleaning of the teeth.
• A final, but by no means unimportant, advantage for cat owners: the smell of dry food is less intense than that of wet food, and the stools are often slightly firmer.

But how do you best choose between wet and dry food for your cat? In principle, dry food is sufficient for your cat, but if you wish, you can combine both to reap all the benefits. The main advantage of wet food is that it gives your cat a hydration boost. As cats aren’t always keen drinkers, this can help prevent kidney problems.

What other qualities should the best dry cat food have?

When searching for the best dry cat food, you should first look at the list of ingredients. The first ingredient on the list indicates which source of nutrition is most abundant in the nutrition. High-quality protein sources such as fresh meat, fresh fish or insect protein ensure a high percentage of protein in the final nutrition. Don’t forget that cats are obligate carnivores, which means they need animal proteins, such as insect proteins, in their diet. These proteins contain amino acids such as taurine, which cats require in large quantities. Nutrients such as vitamin A, omega-3 and omega-6 are also essential. At Imby, the omega-3 comes mainly from algae oil and spirulina.

Is vegan cat food healthy too?

Vegan cat food usually does not contain sufficient essential nutrients for a cat. It also often contains ingredients that a cat cannot digest properly. Think of things like grains. Feeding a cat a diet lacking these essential nutrients can lead to serious long-term health problems. Typical conditions include blindness, heart failure and organ failure. For this reason, Imby does not produce 100% vegan cat food and we use insect proteins as a sustainable meat substitute. With no less than 38% protein, sourced mainly from sustainable insect protein, you can be sure your cat is getting enough nutrients. Imby thus offers one of the best dry foods for cats, providing a good alternative to vegan cat food. Our nutrition is also far more sustainable than traditional cat food and free from animal suffering.

WET FOOD CAN PROMOTE HYDRATION IN CATS

Cats naturally don’t drink much, which can sometimes lead to kidney stones or bladder stones. Symptoms of bladder stones often include frequent visits to the litter tray, traces of blood in the urine, meowing whilst urinating and licking the genital area. To prevent this, it is important that your cat consumes sufficient fluids, which can be facilitated by wet food. It is also recommended to feed the best dry cat kibble that supports healthy kidney function. Imby’s dry cat food contains added cranberries to support healthy urinary tract function. The low levels of magnesium and phosphorus (= minerals) help prevent kidney stones.

The tastiest dry food for cats

Another important criterion for the best dry cat food: great taste. Cats are picky eaters and very few brands rank among the tastiest dry foods. At Imby, we set out to find THE key to great taste, and it turns out that insect protein is the deciding factor. Cats find this ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS. Actually, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that cats are natural hunters. Any moving insect is the ideal prey whilst your cat is out in the garden. Imby’s dry food for cats is therefore a hit with over 90% of all cats. Even the fussiest eaters often come round. Healthy and absolutely delicious – a win-win!

The best dry cat food is also sustainable and CARBON NEUTRAL

Choosing the right dry food for your cat can also have a positive impact on climate change. This is the basis for our decision to replace meat with insect proteins in the Imby recipe. Insects have several advantages over other protein sources. They use less land and water and emit fewer greenhouse gases. For example, it takes around 2,000 litres of water to produce one kilogram of beef, whereas only around 200 litres of water are needed to produce one kilogram of insect protein. Furthermore, insect protein in dry cat food is more animal-friendly because it involves no animal suffering and no antibiotics are used. This is not the case with a number of other animal protein sources. Finally, at Imby, we do our bit by producing locally in Belgium and the Netherlands. We also offset our CO2 emissions by protecting trees in various nature reserves. This way, we not only make the tastiest cat food, but also the most sustainable!