Why Does Everybody Hate Dry Cat Food?

Hi Kitten lovers,

I have a question regarding dry food/ kibble. Everybody seems to heavily dislike it and cat owners are told to feed wet food only.
Now I feed my 5 month old kittens wet food in the morning and evening, and throughout the day they have a full bowl of their favorite dry food (it’s „Perfect Fit Junior”) for free feeding, and of course they always have fresh water available. Occasionally they get a sip of cat milk, they love it and I want them to be perfectly hydrated (but they also drink water from their bowl or a running tap).
From my experience feeding soft wet food only can lead to severe dental health issues in cats, they need the crunch to clean their teeth. And in a cats natural diet, they don’t fillet their meals either... every mouse or bird is being eaten more or less completely (have you ever heard a cat crunching away a mouse’s head? It’s disgusting but perfectly natural).
So why all the hate on dry food?

I’m looking forward to hearing your opinions and thoughts :-)

I don't hate it but I don't really have a choice. Oliver is on a prescription diet that is available in wet or dry. The wet is too expensive and doesn't work as well for his tummy as the dry. He does just fine on the dry.
I've known people who have fed just dry and had cats living into their twenties.

I think most people prefer wet food for the moisture. Cats are prone to urinary issues, and constipation it would seem. Dry food can make these issues worse, and wet food can help.

Also, may dry foods are very high in carbs, which cats do not need, and low in animal protein, which they do need. I think some newer dry foods are trying to address this problem. Dr. Elseys dry is one i do feed, as it is high animal protein and low carb.

As to the dental issue i dont know, most say that wet does not hurt their teeth, and dry does not help. I know some people brush cats teeth, and thats a great thing if your cat will allow it. And a yearly vet visit, with dental check and cleaning if needed is also something i recommend.

I feed my cats two wet meals per day. And even with wet foods you need to watch, some are full of carbs, or fat, at the expense of protein. I also leave out some Dr. Elseys dry, the chicken flavor. My cats do like the crunch, and this is one i feel good about them eating. But i also want them to get the wet to help with urinary or constipation issues that cats seem to have

I dont think it has to be all one or the other. For most cats, some may have exceptions to this, and need only a specific food.

Svenja_hel said:

they need the crunch to clean their teeth

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Cats are Obligate Carnivores :- What Exactly is an 'Obligate Carnivore?'

Cats need the nutrients and minerals from wet food with real meat. It also keeps them hydrated because of the moisture that comes in the packing and also found in the meat.

Dry food is full of carbohydrates and it does not clean teeth :- 6 Reasons why dry food does not clean your cat’s teeth - Anita Kelsey - Cat Behaviourist

:- What Dry Food Does to Your Cat's Teeth

Some cat owners feed their cats occasionally with raw chicken necks, chicken wings or wing tips (Bones that are cooked becomes brittle and once broken during the bite will be very sharp and it can cause internal damage and cause death due to internal bleeding), or gizzards.


Best is to brush the cat’s teeth if they allow you to. If not, use dental additives that is added to their food.

I think for kittens, I’ve heard people do similar to you - they leave out kibble and feed a few wet meals. My understanding is kittens need as much food as they will eat which means kibble is usually necessary.

I agree with the other posts about meat and moisture. I also think kibble is so calorie dense that for cats prone to gaining weight on it they need to eat so little it’s not satisfying. I imagine it’s like eating all your meals as a protein bar - I would want something fresher after a while.

I feed Olive all wet food because she plumped out on dry - she doesn’t have any food restraint. The boys eat kibble because that is what they are used to, although I am trying to work in wet food.

If you ask a vet, you will find that many cat problems are due to not enough water. However a lot of the so-called "wet" food, has no water, just a "wetting agent" to make it appear wet. The best I feel is to buy the highest quality cat food you possible can. I spent months finding a great food. For my kitten, I use Thrive kitten wet food morning & evening & Thrive kibble for lunch. She also has 2 water bowls & 2 water fountains, plus of course she drinks from the taps.

tabbytom : thank you for these infos! It was a very interesting read and I did learn something new!
biscuity : i agree with you and trust me, I am really attentive when it comes to their water intake. That’s why I mostly add some water to their wet food and give them their beloved cat milk from time to time. But to be honest - I personally cannot afford the “highest quality cat food I can possibly find”, because it is also the most expensive, so I buy something from the middle price category and make the most of it and I’m pretty sure a lot of cat owners are with me on that one. On sundays they always get something a little more fancy though!

I wouldn't want to suggest that you spend more than you can afford.

Something I found was that many foods of the same brand (Purina for instance), actually had the same contents - they were just priced differently. Anyway, I had hoped to be able to find that the cheapest isn't that much cheaper & search on a UK pet website to prove it. Unfortunately, my theory didn't hold up too well - good food is more expensive - at least in the short run. Here's an example the Thrive ingredients which I feed to my kitten is as follows: Chicken Breast (75%), Chicken Stock, Sunflower Oil, Vitamins & Minerals. Each 1 meal tin costs 79p in UK money. I looked at Kit-e-kat pouches, which cost 25p per pouch. Look at the ingredients: meat & meat by-products (incl. 4% duck), grain, minerals, sugar. SUGAR, GRAIN? Cats can't taste sugar. The only reason for it's inclusion I can think of is to create a sugar dependency in the cat. That's building up a big vet bill in the future. I did find something called Lily's Kitchen 68p per tin Chicken (65%), salmon oil, chelated minerals. Looks ok to me, although I've not check the source of the meat.

My fellow posters have already hit all the main points. Wet food is generally considered healthier for cats due to its increased moisture content and decreased carbs compared to dry food. This article goes into good detail about wet vs. dry: Choosing The Right Food For Your Cat - Part 2

Of course, if you can only feed dry due to your cat’s preferences or financial constraints, then dry food is ok. You just have to monitor your cat’s water intake and leave water bowls out for them.

biscuity thanks for the recommendations. That’s what I pay attention to as well - no grain and no sugar in my cat food. I’ve found the food called “Schesir” to be really good - I am a part time promoter for various brands so I got to have an insight on the brand, where the meat comes from and what’s in there - nothing apart from what it says on the label! I would absolutely recommend it. The brand comes from Italy if I remember correctly.

biscuity said:

However a lot of the so-called "wet" food, has no water, just a "wetting agent" to make it appear wet.

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I'm unaware of any food like that. Do you have an example? Maybe that kind of food isn't sold in the US. Sounds odd. Water is, of course, quite cheap, so pet food manufacturers don't usually skimp on it.

Yes, cats don't usually drink enough water so it's best for them to have a high-moisture food. A mouse is about 70% moisture, so that's what their bodies are designed for. And kibble is very calorie-dense which can lead to obesity in older cats. Kittens do usually need at least a little kibble, or you feel like you're opening a million cans a day . So there's notuing wrong with that for now. But as they get older you'll probably want to put a limit on how much kibble they get.

Regular kibble doesn't do anything for their teeth, any more than eating crackers cleans a human's teeth. But there are some special dental kibbles that are designed for a scraping action. A few of those a day might help, or some raw bones to gnaw on.

Svenja_hel said:

I personally cannot afford the “highest quality cat food I can possibly find”,

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IMO that should be "the highest quality food you can afford and can find easily in the local stores and your cat likes to eat".

Everyone else has covered the main points, so I'll just add an anecdote about what convinced me to feed wet.

My last cat was overweight for years and it didn't seem to matter what low calorie kibble I switched him to, he just wouldn't lose the weight. My vet suggested trying wet food because research has shown that cats who eat wet food just naturally manage their weight better than those on a dry diet, even when they are kept caged. I decided to switch and my cat not only lost all the extra weight, but I also noticed that his coat was significantly better (softer, with fewer dry skin issues) than before.

In my experience wet food is definitely harder on teeth than dry. Soon as I switched my last cat to wet food I noticed that he had more tartar buildup that needed to be scaled more frequently. My current cats get a mix of free feed dry and wet. I do brush my cats teeth, but sometimes life gets busy and I forget. The one cat who prefers wet definitely gets more buildup and it is harder to keep tartar off his teeth. The one who prefers dry never has any buildup and vets are always amazed about how perfect her teeth are (the other one who likes wet vets comment that his teeth are just "pretty good", not immaculate).

If you are curious about wet food why not give it a trial run? You could switch your cats for a couple months and see if you notice any changes. It is also not hard to train a cat to accept teeth brushing.

My first cat ate both dry and wet food (though he never could seem to tolerate any variety of wet food that had fish in it). We would frequently rotate flavors and varieties of the foods, as he was an incredibly picky eater who would "burn out" on flavors if they were fed for too long. We took him in when he was roughly 3, and he lived to be 21+ years old.

My second cat ate only dry (wet food almost ended up being thrown up shortly afterwards) and ended up with a lot of constipation/megacolon issues that could have been helped by the added moisture. We got her at roughly 3, and eventually had to euthanize her about a month after her 12th birthday due to complications of megacolon

My newest cat was fed dry food in the shelter, but I've been trying to get him to a diet of both dry and wet food. He gets some wet food in the morning as well as fresh dry food, and will get additional wet food later on at night (the vet is aware of this and is a-okay with it)


I think a lot of people have concerns with the dry-food only diets because it doesn't have the added moisture/water content, which can aid in digestion - but having had a cat who threw up all forms of wet food regardless of how we tried to serve it, I can tell you that you have to make the best of what you have.

I hate dry for all the reasons mentioned already. And for the dental thing, would eating hard crackers clean your teeth? No you would still need to brush them.

I'll tell you about my Nemo. Nemo was on half dry and half wet. When i did feed him wet i even added some extra water in there. He STILL developed urinary issues. For some reason, he had frequent urination. I don't know if he was actually going pee each time but I immediately knew something was wrong since he was constantly at the litter box. I ran tests on him and there was supposedly nothing wrong. Well I took him home and started him on a 100% wet diet and his urination went back to normal immediately!

My other cat Benny can only eat raw food. He gets diarrhea when he eats the processed stuff (wet,dry). I researched a ton and realized how bad dry was. So there's no way I'm feeding any of my cats that. Maybe only if I had an outdoor colony to care for.

You researched a ton? And what did you find out? I mean just because your cats didnt take it well, that doesn’t mean no cat does or that you shouldn’t feed it at all. Because if it were the cruel food sent up directly from Hell’s kitchen to give cats urinary issues and kidney diseases, you wouldn’t be able to even purchase it at all.

I mean, I understand everyone is going to have their opinion on what is best for their furbabies - but let's not pretend like the people who feed their cats dry food for whatever reason (money, tolerance, availability, etc.) are demons who are purposely trying to cause their cats harm or that they just don't care about them.

If you can feed your cat a 100% raw diet and not need dry food, good on ya. A lot of people cannot, and it doesn't mean that they don't love their cats to the moon and back.

I haven't read everyone's replies but I will say that I don't hate it I just hate when people ONLY feed it to their cat. It is not an appropriate diet. It has too many carbs whether that is from grains OR other ingredients (grain-free means literally nothing).

As a growing kitten they should be getting used to all the foods available, dry and wet. As they become an adult, dry is not appropriate but it is easy so many people just give it without any care or research in appropriate cat diets. Ignorance is bliss apparently. As they become an adult, a high quality (high protein) dry food is fine as a treat or suppliment to canned or raw but should not be the only food their are given.

Dry is full of carbs which is sugar which leads to diabetes and kidney issues.

Also if anyone is saying dry food cleans the teeth and wet food rots them you need to ignore that and if a vet is saying that ditch that vet. Such a load of crap.