by Liz-cat, UPDATED Dec 29, 2010

What’s the best packaged cat food ever? Every premium or “natural” cat food package claims to be THE ONE. But it turns out that many of these cat foods have unhealthy starch levels, some have artifical ingredients, and some of them are impossible to get your cat to eat.

That’s why it wasn’t easy, but I finally found 7+ natural cat foods that are:

Where possible, I chose organic. I wanted to make “organic” and “free-range” a qualification, but I could not find any organic grain-free, low-carb dry foods. For example, an dry food called “By Nature Organics” has three grains listed as high-level ingredients. That’s really unfortunate! For cats, I think that grain-free and low-carb are even more important than organic, so this is what we’ve got to work with for now. The good news is that I’m sure great new products are on their way.

Ready for the list?

The 3 Best Natural Canned Cat Foods

Newman’s Organic grain free canned foods. Our cats really only like the Liver one. (Note that Newman’s makes other canned foods that have rice in them – they are not ideal, but better than most dry foods.) It’s best to look for these grain-free ones:

Evanger’s Organic Turkey and Butternut Squash. This seems to be the only Evangers canned catfood that is grain-free, but it’s a nice clean recipe.

Innova EVO 95% Canned Cat Food: High quality. Starch-free: It would be very hard for a cat to get fat eating this! But it’s delicious..so Phil and Joel say. EVO 95% bumped out Natural Balance LID for the top 7 because they keep the ingredients even more simple and clean.

The 3 Best Natural Dry Cat Foods

Important caveat with grain-free dry foods: For some cats, these dry foods must be supplemented with a good insoluble fiber souce like canned pumpkin or carrot, otherwise constipation may develop to a point that borders on life-threatening. Just ask our cat Joel – but he doesn’t want to talk about it! Also, for best hydration, consider rotating between dry and wet food daily. These caveats do not apply to all - our cat Phil can eat these foods as is. Check the litterbox regularly for several days and you’ll know. (Fun!)

Instinct has about 16% carbs, so it’s not the perfect choice for overweight indoor cats, but in rotation with canned food, it’s a great option. Our cats love the taste.

Young Again: Joel and Phil have just approved YoungAgain, a new food that is hard to find in stores – we ordered from their site. It’s not organic or free range, but it’s designed by a vet and I like their firm grasp on the fact that carbs cause feline obesity and ill health. They are so bold as to say that on their 14% carb cat food, “your cat will begin losing excess body fat, and will in turn, begin developing better muscling, as well as a softer, more kitten-like coat. She will have more energy… Cats that were couch-potatoes will begin playing, exploring and even jumping and climbing!”

The Best Natural Raw Cat Food

Rad Cat Raw. I choose Rad Cat because it’s the only raw option I could find that doesn’t have ground bones in it. (The ground bone products brought Joel’s digestive system to a complete and dangerous stop.) In addition, it’s full of free-range and organic ingredients! However, this product is expensive...inspiring use to want to make it ourselves instead.

This list will grow and evolve

So keep in touch (Facebook page) to stay up on discoveries. For example, Wysong is releasing a new product in 2011 called Epigen 90. As they say, this gluten-free, starch-free formula “Can make a dramatic difference in virtually any health condition” and “More closely resembles the food your pet is designed to eat.” (I cannot recommend their current -original- Epigen because it has wheat gluten in it. Let’s wait to see the upcoming Epigen 90 version.)

Did I missed any great commercial natural cat foods? Please let me know at Liz-cat

This article is from Natural Cat Care with the consent of Liz who authors the Natural Cat Care Blog (www.naturalcatcareblog.com), a blog about caring for our feline soul companions.