Cat Nutrition

What is good nutrition, and why is it so important? Nutrition is the processof using or transforming food into living tissue. Without a complete and balanceddiet, your cat will not grow properly, reproduce, maintain the health of all its bodytissues, or fight infection.

Your cat's hunt for a complete and balanced daily food intake is made mucheasier than its ancestor's hunt of thousands of years ago, thanks to commercial petfoods. The sound of the can opener or the jumbling of the dry food in the box willawaken the beast inside your cat - it will run from the comfy carpet near the fire-place to the kitchen to devour its neatly packaged and completely nutritious "prey."Your cat's ancestors had to go "shopping." The game they caught provided every-thing: protein from muscle tissue; fats, vitamins, and minerals from organs andbones; carbohydrates extracted from the vegetable and cereal matter left in the game's digestive tract. Vegetables and cereal starches aren't required by cats, butthey do provide calories and bulk.

Years of research and development by the major pet-food companies have34produced complete and balanced foods for your modern cat. These products, 'filch are excellent from weaning to old age, eliminate the need for homemadeets that are time-consuming and expensive to prepare and may lack importantitritional requirements. The following discussion will focus on (1) the composition of food, (2) the types of pet foods, (3) how much to feed at different stages ofxir cat's life, and (4) the advantages and disadvantages of each type of commer-cial pet food.