Cat Expert Explains How to Read Cat Food Labels

is it time for dinner are you very cute I'm looking at these cans and oh hi there I didn't even notice you I'm here at crumbs and whiskers and uh today here with some new friends including Bobby Brady right here just starting to think about the video that I wanted to do for you guys all about food and how to read a can of cat food and I'm telling you what it's a lot more complicated than you think it is the more we dig into this the the deeper the rabbit hole I mean did you know that for instance if something says beef and chicken it might mean something different than chicken and beef or chicken and rice or what about roast beef flavored which means it doesn't even have to have any meat in it at all and did you know that shreds are not all meat who would have thought and what is carrageenan all of these questions have led me from going to what I thought was a very easy video to one where I needed a little bit of help in explaining things so a few things for you to remember about today's video number one this is supposed to be the most basic thing how do you pick up a can look at the front of the can the back of the can and realize that you're doing the very best for your cat regardless of your budget level that's it just the very Beginnings that you're going to have questions about this video and that's what the comments are for just put them down there and that will give me ideas about new videos that we can do about pet food and also maybe I'll try to answer them on the spot so let me know what you think to understand all this a little bit better I sat down with my old friend and cat food expert Dr Gene Hovey and she gave me the skinny on the fat and the skinny when it comes to cat food what you really want is a high protein high fat minimal carbs what you want is a rat in a can on a very basic level mechanic cat food ideally should resemble the makeup of a rat which is largely water we're gonna say we're only dealing with wet based food which are 70 to 80 water but it'll be like 10 protein and that's good so if that can of cat food and that rat are 70 water well what's left we can see the percentages of protein on the guaranteed analysis which is found on the back of almost every can of cat food here we can also see a breakdown of components like fat fiber and taurine which every cat needs by the way for the purposes of this video to keep things simple we are mostly going to focus on protein but we'll get to the back of the can later first let's look at the front of the can and figure out what the various recipe names actually mean and there's more to it than you think it's really easy to get lost when it comes to the front of a cat can let alone the back but there are some strict rules regarding the name of a pet food so for instance if it says chicken cat food simple enough that must contain 95 chicken if it says for instance fish and giblets then it must be 95 fish and giblets together and since fish was the first word then there must be more of that if it was giblets and fish then it would be more giblets if the word dinner entree platter Supreme anything like that is to be seen on the front of a can that tells you that 25 percent of the named ingredient must be there so if it's chicken dinner 25 chicken tuna and chicken platter the tuna and chicken have to come comprise 25 percent of the food at least so we don't know if it's 13 of 1 and 12 percent of the other or 92 percent one and eight percent of the other we don't know the next trick is the three percent rule or width the width rule if it says to tuna and chicken dinner with real cheese there only has to be three percent of cheese in the food and this one will definitely surprise you if the food says let's say beef flavored dinner or anything that says flavored it may not contain beef meat at all it's fiction we made it up we made this one up it's a made-up tail it's a total fabrication there does not have to be any beef in the food natural flavors is the latest thing they're they're calling animal digest natural flavors now because people are on to them where's the beef so what about the back of the can talk about confusing there are a ton of ingredients here and there's a lot of vegetables which by itself there's nothing wrong with some vegetables in your cat's food but manufacturers can actually increase the protein levels in the food by cramming a lot of veggies into their recipes so like I said by itself not the worst thing but ideally we want to see the vast majority of the protein in this can of cat food coming from animal Source we may come across something like soybean meal or some other kind of plant substitute protein or peas or lentils or something you're they're boosting the protein and remember this is so important the higher up on the list of ingredients the higher the proportion of the ingredient in the can if we have meat and meat Parts you know hearts and liver those are probably okay that's probably a decent food if you see in the first five ingredients are things that you you recognize and you can say oh I know what that is that's liver you're on your way to a good food one of the most important things we can talk about is what do you steer clear of what do you see on a back of a can of food and go nope according to Gene there are two main suspects we want to avoid on the back of a can of food First Multiple phosphates if you see things that say phosphate especially more than one because you'll see calcium phosphate and that's your calcium supplement calcium phosphate Magnesium phosphate you start seeing more than one phosphate or phosphate real high on the list that's a dangerous food and then there's the big one carotene carrageenan is made from Irish sea moss or something like that it's so processed carrageenan is a thickener and a gelling agent for Pate style foods and you just want to avoid it Irish moss isn't the only type of thickener that winds up in can the cat food the most common could be guar gum and different types of gluten why well the reason is actually pretty wild when you think about it you know those shreds I talked about earlier well they're not meat they are there to look like and imitate meat because you open a can and it looks like little shreds of chicken that's all wheat gluten you can mold it you can form it you squish gluten and it just smooshes out because it's just a ball of flour basically so now that I knew all about these red flags and some of the good things about cat food in a can Gene told me to go do some shopping grab as much as I could put all those cans in the shopping cart bring them on back to the cat cave and share the results with you you have the information I want you to take your list and go to the store and see what's there oh [Music] hey bought a lot of food but you know I do it for you guys I mean I guess the first thing I should do is separate these into price points what's considered more premium like this and I guess I'll have a medium Place let's put that medium high hello and put that in medium medium let's say hi I'm going to put this in a medium place [Music] and you go here all right this is more of the affordable let's call this the the sort of bargain cat foods this is medium range and this is what we would consider premium and of course our expectations have to be modified when we go from from a price point to price point because one of the reasons why it's less money is because lower quality food just has to be a given so anyway I'm just I'm just going to start let's start with the the real premium because I'm curious I'm going to take here what I consider to be a really top brand here we go and uh let's see what it says and and one of the things that we will see in some of these really premium Brands is that it'll say on the front 90 percent of protein from chicken liver or turkey that's really important 95 of the protein in here 10 of the entire makeup of this can is protein derived from meat protein and as Gene told us we want to watch out for proteins that are you know supplemented with veg because that's just a way of upping those protein levels sort of here's our first five ingredients chicken chicken broth chicken liver egg product dicalcium phosphate the calcium phosphate is that she said a calcium supplement so that is going to be found in a lot of foods I am a little concerned that it's number five on the list ahead of the next two which are three which are turkey peas and carrots so that that raises a bit of a flag for me especially at the price point of this can which is really premium so there's that that was shocking all right ready to have some more fun with cans of course you are uh let's take a look at um I'm looking at the guaranteed analysis in terms of protein oh well this is on the high side so we would be looking at about 10 protein would be sort of the bottom and this is 12 so that's really good the rest of it looks right on to me and here we go with ingredients lamb beef beef kidney chicken salmon white sardine lamb kidney beef bone broth wow fish bone broth lamb liver yeah okay so here's the thing if I was going to spend a bunch of money I'd go here first and anything where I see supplements or preservatives or any other thing before all we saw here was meat bone broth so we're not seeing water we're seeing bone broth got my vote this costs more than double of this big hand this is this is for people who have money the last one I want to check out is this one here it does say with grilled tilapia and gravy grain gluten and carrageenan free which is good all right here's our ingredients tuna water sufficient for processing we know that's okay tilapia potato starch there we have it one two three four I mean if you take away water as being an ingredient here that means tuna tilapia potato starch not happy having potato starch be that close to the top when other brands are are you know bragging they have no potato you know anyone who's ever used these types of food before knows that that starch is there for a reason whether they're shreds or those little chunks it's not natural it's actually formed in a way and that's what those glutens or in this case starch is there for if you're going to pay a premium price and you've got some of these ingredients here yeah I think I might pass so that's me all right moving on so this is what I would consider to be you know if you were in the supermarket and you said well I've got the real Bargain Basement stuff I think I want to do better for my cat so let's do that I'm gonna go to this one here because I was actually surprised that this uh was a medium and not a expensive brand grain free healthy food for cats I'll be the judge of that and we have white fish salmon broth salmon tuna Herring dried ground potatoes oil flaxseed and there's taurine and dried kelp but here's the thing we have it meets all the the basic guaranteed analysis is good but I would have no problem with this listen if I was buying a food and this is in the medium range and I say okay this is grain free food and I think I can afford it the first five ingredients are all fish not even water it's broth from fish I give this one the thumbs up I really do we don't have carrotgin and we don't have phosphate we don't have anything in there besides potatoes starch that's in here but I can pretty much guarantee you as a pate that's the thing that holds it together you have to have a thicken herbs to some degree all right this one I was also kind of surprised about that it was affordable enough to be in the mid so this one also is this is tuna and chicken recipe grain and potato free non-GMO hand packed no gums what does that say well we have our protein winner of the day this brand has 16 percent crude protein that pretty much blows everybody else out of the water the highest I've seen so far is 11 or 12. 16 I am impressed wow okay let's get to the ingredients chicken broth Tuna Chicken sunflower seed oil calcium lactate tri-calcium phosphate ah you guys are disappointing me uh fish oil taurine sorry dudes I mean you have had me you had me a chicken broth here's what we got in here now we know that it's 16 protein that is incredibly high but based on everything else I've seen so far but to me the problem is we go chicken broth Tuna Chicken and from that point on there is no more meat to be found or maybe there's fish oil in here and there's no veg to be found that would boost up the protein so the only conclusion that we can make is there's enough chicken tuna and chicken broth in here to actually give us that 16 percent which means there's a heck of a lot in here but this is where I think it's really great that we're taking a look at the guaranteed analysis along with the ingredients and remembering that they're not mutually exclusive they play upon each other and I would say yes to this one especially given the cost in the mid-range oh well this is a very popular brand so let's go here a very popular brand one of those Brands where you look at and you go well this is a step above you know that so I should I should bring it home to my cat so let's see what they bring brag about here they call it this is a pate chicken entree it's grain free I find that funny smooth loaf it's grain free healthy food for adult cats very popular brand pretty much guaranteed that that your you know Supermarket your local Piggly Wiggly will have it chicken chicken liver turkey chicken broth carrots natural flavor guar gum cranberries flax seed all right we're looking pretty good at the moment I mean sure there are gums in here that that and again we're going to see stuff like that when it comes to Pate so anyway I'm kind of happy though with chicken chicken liver turkey chicken broth and carrots top five yeah then we go into natural flavor and like Gene said we don't kind of know what that means half the time it hasn't really been well defined but again we can get into that at some point if you want me to just let me know in the comments so anyway that's our mid-range stuff so now we're down into the most affordable category a lot of you will be like look I cannot afford to feed my cat wet food I'm going to feed them dry yeah you can at the moment the lowest price can that I've got here is 65 cents for a serving for like one meal and you should be able to afford 65 cents for a meal and if you broke it down with your dry food you're probably looking at around the same thing so do yourself a favor and error on the side of hydrating the heck out of your cat and feeding them actual meat once again if you have not watched this video playlist over my left shoulder go ahead and do it it'll tell you how much better it is that your cat has wet and dry all right this is also a a very inexpensive food by a large company that you definitely know if you've got cats so this says it's a chicken entree it's a pate and that is all it says here natural food I love when they say that okay here we go chicken chicken broth chicken liver natural flavor brown rice guar gum sweet potatoes powdered cellulose tri-calcium phosphate anything fish oil I'm not really seeing anything here that's killing me oh oh and there's carrageenan okay well let's now weigh this and so it's only the first three ingredients they're really good carrageenan is like above taurine it's uh I would say the eighth ingredient on here tricalcium phosphate is the fifth so I would say from the standpoint of carrageenan and tricalcium phosphate and knowing that you know right after we've got a natural flavor that we don't really know what that is and brown rice why do we have brown rice in here except to just fill it up I think I think this is a pass I'll take a hard pass on this one so I decided to just take a look at all of this sort of bargain Brands and and by bargain I mean like you know by ounce the least expensive and I've only got one here surprisingly that has carrageenan especially as far up the list as it does I mean we're at the like the seventh or eighth ingredient so that's a lot we do have carrageenan in this one at the very the very very last ingredient which means it is very little but it's shocking because historically this has been seen as a healthy brand and let's see the first couple here chicken chicken liver chicken broth salmon oat bran brown rice natural flavors yeah I mean again we've got the meat at the top crude protein down nine percent shocking for this brand um but this is the one brand so far I mean this one right here I'm going to tell you when it it comes to cheap I go yeah okay this is volume food and I'm okay buying it you know if I need volume you know um and this one doesn't even have carrageenan ingredients water poultry liver meat byproducts wheat gluten so wheat gluten comes in number four here which yeah obviously not ideal especially since right after that we've got salmon coming in at six and then soy flour and corn starch so it does live up to its billing no carrageenan in here but we have two different types of phosphates which Gene really did tell us to look out for it does come in at nine percent crude protein the protein is coming from non-meat sources we've got gluten a plenty in here and two different types of phosphates so as much as it pains me because this is uh something that a lot of people Bank on I'm gonna I'm gonna take a pass on this one I really am last one and this by price now this is a 6 ounce Tetra pack but then when we broke it down it fell in line with the rest of the bargains and let's see if they brag about anything cage-free chicken is the first ingredient grain free bone broth for extra hydration flaxseed and omega-6s for shiny healthy coat U.S made with globally sourced ingredients here we go chicken chicken bone broth tapioca starch egg whites natural flavor wow disappointing let's look at the analysis 10 protein I mean after those first two ingredients people two ingredients it does not get any better there is literally nothing else in here that says I come from an animal so that means chicken chicken bone broth the tapioca starch comes in is a thickener and then it's all downhill egg whites I don't know again for the price there's nothing egregious in here but it is a little bit of mixed messaging um so there's that now that's it okay if you look at these ingredients a lot of times you'll see that the bargain ones have become better than you thought they were that you might think that like you'd want to look in here and say oh look it's it's got tumors and Hooves it doesn't are there is it perfect by no means and yes you get what you pay for to a certain degree you can do better but you can definitely do worse I want to remind you of a couple of things one is that this was reading a cat can and how that plays into the best nutrition for your cat 101. this can go a lot deeper and I really want to take you guys as deep as you want to go having said that about the 101 hopefully you have gotten the basic information of what is okay what is a little bit of a warning sign and what is man just step away from the food it's not a good deal the bottom line is if you are choosing to get wet food for your cat as Oppo toasted dry food you're already doing the right thing you're still doing well by your cat by picking the worst wet food on our list versus the best dry food that you can buy don't let perfect be the enemy of good you are doing the right thing by getting your cat on on a wet food so that's it for today this is I mean seriously this has been a lot of work a lot of research a lot to wrap my head around after knowing what I thought I knew all these years so my my deep gratitude to my old business partner and Mentor Dr Gene Hobie for all of her work questions in the comments I will I will answer them I will say hmm good idea and then we'll film a follow-up here but it's only if you guys want it all right speaking of that you want to see anything else let us know speaking of that you should subscribe to this channel because many of you who watch these videos over and over week on week have not subscribed that helps us out a time and so thanks again everybody go feed your cats some dinner all light I'll love all Mojo to you [Music] foreign [Music] this is just too much she's like this lump

Channel: Jackson Galaxy

Views: 647,761

Keywords: jackson galaxy, cats, my cat from hell, animal planet, cat whisperer, cat guy, cat guy animal planet, cat expert, cat advice, cat health, cat behavior, cat breeds, types of cats, cat care, cat training, cats and kittens, cat psychology, taking care of a cat, cat behavior problems, jackson galaxy videos, cat daddy, gato, gatos, gata, food, wet food, dry food, food for cats, best food for cats, worst food for cats, cat food ingredients, carrageenan, we cat food, cat cancer

Id: jLNiAxeNlXQ

Length: 23min 8sec (1388 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 01 2023