Cats: Protein in wet food?

[IdentityCrisisMama]

We have two cats and I've tried to read up on the best foods for them. It seems a lot of people recommend wet food for the moisture content but I also read that they really need a lot of protein (like their natural diet would be over 80%). I have found dry food with 50% protein but no wet food with over about 10%. What's going on here?

[Ola_]

I think you have to compare apples to apples here. Their natural diet wouldn't be over 80% because it would contain a lot of water (like wet food does). For example, I feed my dogs raw and most of the items they eat contain about 70-80% water according to the USDA analysis. Just did a quick query to check the protein numbers and the results seemed to indicate around 15-20% protein. Now the USDA is for human food so they exclude the bone component from their results, but it gets you in the right ballpark.

Bottom line is, once you take out all the water from the wet food, the numbers will be a lot different (I think the amount of water is listed on canned food labels?). And having the water as part of the food is a lot healthier and easier for the kidneys to deal with.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

That makes sense, Ola. I'll check the water content tomorrow and see how it compares. I guess I think of things like meat as being 100% protein when, in fact, they have a large bit of water. I wish I could see a comparison of wet vs. dry with equal amounts water.

[sunnysandiegan]

This web site covers this issue well:

http://www.catinfo.org/