ob·li·gate [adj. ob-li-geyt] car·ni·vore [noun kahr-nuh-vohr]

An obligate or a true carnivore is an animal that must eat meat in order to thrive. Just like leopards, lions and tigers, your cat is an obligate carnivore and has no nutritional requirement for carbohydrates in their diet. True carnivores lack the physiology required for the efficient digestion of vegetable matter and, in fact, some carnivorous mammals eat vegetation specifically as an emetic (to induce vomiting). The domestic cat is a prime example of an obligate or true carnivore and has no nutritional requirement for carbohydrates or other vegetable matter. The excess carbs and plant products found in many leading cat foods may be the primary cause of diabetes, obesity and UTI in cats today.

Nutrition as nature intended

If I asked you what Nature would feed your cat, mice and small crea­tures are probably the first thing you’d think of. And you’d be right. That’s because they all have one thing in common; they are made of basically meat and fat and almost no carbohydrates. The cat food you choose should match Mother Nature’s nutrient profile for small creatures and should be at least 50% protein (from animal sources not plant proteins), a balanced fat level of 20% - 24% and should contain no more than 5% digestible carbs. However diabetic cats should never have digestible carbohydrates in their food.

Ingredients in red on the chart below are comprised of cereal grains, fruits, vegetables, grasses, plant proteins, forage material and/or other ingredients that contain plant protein. Plant based ingredients that are included as sources of non-digestible dietary fiber are exempt and not shown in red (examples Tomato Pomace, Beet Pulp, Cellulose, Guar Gum and Pea Fiber). Potato Starch, although a plant material, is not shown in red because it contains no plant proteins. However it is still important that the total amount of digestible carbohydrates in the diet remains less than 5%, matching the body composition of a juvenile mouse.