Calculating Nutritional Content in Wet Food

I strongly believe that wet food is better than dry food for a cat's health. Cats are not meant to bite hard, crunchy things. They're meant to eat the soft, juicy things in life and to avoid the bones. Cats are meant to get in most of their water intake via the juicy food. Their mouths just aren't great at "glugging" down water.

It's important, when you look at wet food, to know how to interpret the nutritional information. Let's say that your adult cat needs 26% of his or her food to be protein. If you look at a wet food packet, you might panic - it says it's only 8% protein! However, this is the protein in the ENTIRE PACKET including the water. You have to discount that water before you know what percentage of the SOLIDS are proteins. Here is how you do that.

Let's say your moisture percentage is 82% - the most common amount.

That means that 18% of the packet is "solid material".

So the formula to determine what the percentage of protein JUST in that 18% of solid material is:

8% protein / 18% solid material = 44% protein

So while the packet SAYS 8% protein, what it really MEANS is that its solids are 44% protein and that there is a lot of water in additon to that. Which, like I've said many times, is GOOD for a cat food.

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Lisa Shea Author


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