Oral cat food - tapioca vs tapioca free

kedilar

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I need to put my cats on oral diet per their vet's suggestion. With most oral foods having poor ingredients/nutrition, I decided to continue feeding their regular diet and give them like 5 oral kibbles at the end of the day as a treat.
I am currently debating between two brands - one has tapioca and the other doesn't (I heard Tapioca is really bad and can cause diabetes and other health issues), the other one doesn't have tapioca but high carb still. Would you take a look at the top 12 ingredients for each food and let me know which one might be a better one for my cats - I initially thought I should get the one with more protein, but then remembered one might be higher than the other cause of vegetable protein.

Brand 1:
Ingredients:
Chicken, chicken meal, potato protein, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), sun-cured alfalfa meal, tapioca, peas, pea fiber, sun-cured ground miscanthus grass, natural chicken flavour, tricalcium phosphate, flaxseed,

Nutrition fact:
Crude Protein Min: 34%
Crude fat min: 18%
Crude fiber max: 11.5%
Moisture max: 10%



Brand 2:
Ingredients:
Chicken, Brown Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken Fat, Powdered Cellulose, Wheat Gluten, Chicken Meal, Flaxseed, Chicken Liver Flavor, Lactic Acid, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Sulfate, Choline Chloride,

Nutrition fact:
Crude Protein Min: 29%
Crude fat min: 17.5%
Crude fiber max: 10%
Moisture max: 10%
 

Heart For Cats

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What do you mean by an oral diet? All cat foods are consumed orally.

The answer is don't buy either one. Look for a third brand. What is your cat food budget?
 
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kedilar

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What do you mean by an oral diet? All cat foods are consumed orally.

The answer is don't buy either one. Look for a third brand. What is your cat food budget?
Oral food is dental food. There are only 3 brands available in my market... one is pure garbage and the other two is what I listed.
 

Heart For Cats

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Oral food is dental food. There are only 3 brands available in my market... one is pure garbage and the other two is what I listed.
The concept of "dental food" is a blatant lie pet food manufacturers made up to sell kibbles. In reality all cats do is break kibbles in half to swallow them, so teeth abrasion never occurs. What you need to buy is cat toothpaste. There is no such thing as a healthy kibble.

You don't need to settle for what is in your market. Ordering cat food online is much cheaper because you can select autoship to save up to 15% each time and are guaranteed to never run out. The only downside is you must know your cat will love it, so I recommend buying a variety pack from multiple brands before starting a subscription.

What is your cat's name?
 

lisahe

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I have to agree with Heart For Cats Heart For Cats here about tooth brushing: our vet highly recommends brushing cats' teeth and it's been very helpful for our cats. One of our cats loves having her teeth brushed because she loves the flavor of her toothpaste. (CET poultry! Our other cat prefers CET seafood.)

Both those brands of food have ingredients I'd consider problematic since I wouldn't feed potato, peas, corn, or wheat.
 

GeoDjay

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Honestly, both formulas are not impressive. I used to avoid tapioca when I could, but sometimes it is found in foods with high animal protein so I make exceptions, but this isn't the case here. I don't like that they are both high in fiber; too much fiber can limit the absorption of important nutrients. Not a fan of peas either. I don't like to see rice among the top ingredients. I'd choose the first one because of the higher protein percentage (even though that potato protein is used to bump up this amount) and because it includes more animal origin ingredients in the top of the list.
 

daftcat75

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Neither of those foods will do his teeth any good. He would be better off eating an all (or mostly) wet food diet. If you want to give him something to chew on that will actually clean his teeth, ask a butcher for some chicken gizzards. You can give him one or two gizzards a week, raw or cooked. It's a tough, chewy organ that will actually force him to chew and pull his teeth through it, thus giving them a cleaning like pulling his teeth through meat and fur of prey would normally do in the wild.
 
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