Commercial cat food does not need to be entirely grain-free

For years now there has been an ongoing discussion about the quality of commercially prepared cat food and how it is ostensibly stuffed with grains to pad it out and make it more profitable for the manufacturers. Cat lovers want to see their canned cat food to be 100% meat because domestic cats are 'obligate carnivores'. The phrase 'obligate carnivores' is constantly used and it conjures up an image of flesh-eating. Cats can only eat flesh and nothing else. This is a misconception.

It is a misconception because the paradigm prey animal for the domestic cat is the mouse. The mouse eats 10% of its weight every day and it feeds off grain, seeds and fruit. When a cat eats a mouse, they eat the whole animal in my experience. My cat can eat a mouse in about 60 seconds and he certainly eats the stomach contents. He therefore eats grains. Perhaps commercial cat food should contain 10% grains but no more. Perhaps they put more than 10% in.

It is actually more pronounced than that because in the video on this page, which is a YouTube short, he clearly likes to eat bird seed which is grain. The seed was put into a birdfeeder and chucked onto the grass by the birds. My cat wandered in and decided to eat it. Grain contains nutrients. It is a source of protein and carbohydrates. Perhaps there is roughage in there as well. The point that I am making laboriously is that domestic cats eat grain one way or the other and therefore it is not so bad that it is in commercially prepared cat food. It is normal.

RELATED: Reduce domestic cat hunting by feeding them grain-free food and playing with them.

It is an argument that cat food should not be entirely free of grain as it is part of their natural diet. "YouTube Shorts" are designed to be very short videos made with a smartphone and therefore they are in the vertical format. TikTok works on this format and method. YouTube reformat the embedded video to a horizontal format. I'm not sure why. I think the video makes the point.

I had to make the video because YouTube told me that unless I made some more videos, they would stop monetising them on YouTube. I have not made a video for about 10 years! At one time they were highly successful with one of my videos being viewed 11 million times. They made many thousands of pounds in advertising. Advertising is far more profitable on YouTube videos than it is on websites in my experience.

I do not expect the video to be in any way successful. If it achieves a thousand views over five years I will be delighted!