The easiest thing you can do when comparing cat foods is to look at the first four to five ingredients listed. The more meat (protein) that is listed *usually* indicates a better quality food.

Here's a simple website to understanding the wording of cat food labels:

Understanding Cat Food Labels

What you have to watch out for are chemical preservatives (ie: ethoxyquin), artificial flavors, fillers, high salt content, and wording such as meat by-products (instead of chicken, beef etc.).

Here's an example of a Friskies food label:

Friskies

You have water as the first ingredient rather than a protein. The first few ingredients also has meat by-products, wheat gluten, turkey, soy flour, corn starch-modified, natural and artificial flavors.

Compare this to a higher quality food, and you will see the difference in the listed ingredients. Another link to explain more about the ingredients on cat food is this one:

Ingredients Wizard


Many of the grocery store foods are like a type of 'junk food' for cats. They are loaded with chemicals, artificial flavours and preservatives to make them really appealing to your cat. No wonder cat's love them, but they are certainly not the healthiest thing to give your cat.

Again, the best thing you can do is to educate yourself on what you are feeding your cat. You can go to any search engine and type in cat food ingredients and health and come up with many useful information sites.

In the end, the best you can do is come up with a balance between what you can afford and what your cat will eat.