Different Type Of Cat Treats

Have you ever read the label on cat treats? Some of the ingredients will make you grimace. Look at this label, for example, “corn gluten meal, wheat flour, water, chicken by-product meal, wheat gluten, animal digest, glycerin, added color (blue 2, red 40, yellow 5 and other color), sorbic acid (a preservative), BHA (a preservative)…” Another cat treat that suggests it is healthy by calling itself a “real yogurt treat” lists powdered sugar first and then also has granulated sugar! Doesn’t sound very healthy, does it.

Corn gluten meal is used as an herbicide and is a cheap filler in pet foods. And sugar is definitely out of the question for cats.

Looking to what you might eat as a potential treat, table scraps of organic food wouldn’t hurt, according to Nina Anderson and Dr. Howard Peiper, authors of “Super-Nutrition for Animals,” Safe Goods publisher. But what we might consider treats for ourselves are not appropriate for cats. Chocolate, for example, can be deadly to cats and dogs. Plus, anything with sugar is not good for your cat. They also note that anything made of refined white flour should be avoided.

Anderson and Peiper suggest that vegetables can be a healthy treat for pets who will eat them. They note that if your cat is already getting good nutrition from natural pet food, turkey is an okay treat. Raw poultry, they warn, can have bacteria, so should be avoided.

However, in its consumer newsletter, 2001, the Food and Drug Administration recommends against table scraps because cats are particularly susceptible to poisoning from food and for prepared foods, people don’t know if chocolate, onions or nuts might be added, which can be dangerous to pets.

Many people feed canned tuna to their cats, but the oil in tuna can interfere with a cat’s synthesis of vitamin E and can result in a muscular disease. Anderson and Peiper suggest that if you feed your cat canned tuna, you should supplement his diet with vitamin E. Cat grass grown indoors with a growing kit is often a natural treat for cats.

When looking at commercial cat treats, an example of a more healthy cat treat label is this one: chicken meal, cracked pearled barley, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), rosemary extract, dried egg product, canola oil, vitamins, probiotics like acidophilus, healthy herbs like yucca. Avoid corn products, sugar and artificial preservatives and flavors.

Many homemade recipes for cat treats exist on the internet and in books. One example is 4 oz. ground beef, 3 tablespoons oatmeal, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon catnip. Knead all into a ball. Flatten on a cookie sheet and broil at 425 degrees for 4 minutes on each side until crisp. After cooling, cut into bite size pieces.

If you’re looking to buy cat treats, do so the same way you would when you are buying healthy cat food—read the ingredient label and don’t buy into the marketing ploys.

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