Over many years of caring for cats, I have seen many types and qualities of pet foods come and go. I have also seen a disturbing trend of more and more cats suffering from illnesses that have a strong link to nutrition (diabetes, allergies, arthritis, kidney disease, etc.). The multi-billion dollar pet food industry has, through massive marketing campaigns, convinced consumers of many fallacies, chief among them:

• cats should be fed primarily dry food because it will help to clean their teeth
• a "balanced, complete dry food diet" will keep a cat in optimal health
• grains are a healthy part of a cat's diet
• the appearance of kibble matters to cats (those artificial colourings and fancy fish shapes are for the human buying the food, not the pet eating it!)
• ONLY commercial products are "complete and balanced" and pet parents cannot possibly prepare healthy diets for their pets

In my opinion, cats should be fed primarily either high-quality canned foods, one of the excellent frozen raw-food diets now available, or a home-prepared diet IF the pet parent is willing and able to properly research how to formulate the diet (and no, it does not take a PhD to design a completely nutritious diet for your pet, just some education!).

Thankfully, over the past 10-15 years, great strides have been made in the quality of commercial foods, and brands such as Wysong, Eagle Pack, Wellness, Merrick, Innova, GO!Natural and many others are made without meat by-products, chemical preservatives, or artificial colours and flavourings. An exciting recent development is the advent of more grain-free products for cats.

Feeding our felines species-appropriate food will go a long way towards ensuring their optimal health and help them avoid many common illnesses.