What is a good alternative diet to feed cats?

I’m not sure that I understand your question. Are you unhappy with low quality grocery store brands? Dry kibble in general? Commercially available food in general?

Cats are obligate carnivores. I suppose it would be possible to create a home-made food that is balanced, but it’s going to be a lot of work and require a good bit of research. Minor errors could have major consequences. (For example, insufficient levels of the amino acid taurine can cause severe heart disease and death in cats.)

I wouldn’t call what I do an alternative diet, but I do try to feed my cats wet food with the lowest carbohydrate content that I can find and afford.

@syz Yes, at the moment I feed them Friskies cans once a day and Friskies dry food the rest of the day. I understand it is a lot harder to create a balanced diet for cats than dogs, and to add to the problem, when I feed them, I put the food on two dishes, and i can’t really control who eats how much.

@wilma Is it a certain brand that I can buy?

Fiskies is not exactly a premium brand. Ask your veterinarian for a recommendation for them. One of the pluses to using a high quality food is there is less volume and less smell in the litter box.

@ladymia69 When my old cat was diagnosed with diabetes (the cat was over 20 years old) I didn’t try to control her diabetes with medication, just her diet. My vet gave me some diabetic cat food. It was very expensive and she didn’t really like it or eat it, so I checked the crude analysis and found other cat food that was very close to it.
This is the analysis of the diabetic food it was Purina DM
Min. Protein 12.5%
Crude fat max. 4.5%
Crude fiber max. 2.0%
Moisture max. 77%
I used this as a guide and looked online at different brands to get close to this and made a list of the different varieties that were high in protein and lower in carbs like the diabetic food.
My old kitty lived over six months past the time that my vet thought that she would (should) die and the vet attributed it to her diet ( and my loving care). tears

You could certainly cook fresh poultry and beef for your cats if you are so inclined.
You could also buy them mice. lol
Please don’t buy into any vegan diets for cats, they are dangerous and impractical.

I’d suggest a high quality cat food and a mix of fresh cooked, boiled, steamed, meats.

You could also experiment with scrambled eggs, some cats love them, others not so much.

Avoid organ meats such as liver and kidneys.

Tuna fish!

@Coloma Why avoid organ meats?

@ladymia69

The liver especially is a very toxic organ, it is the filter for all medications and impurities in the body.

Bovine livers are full of antibiotics, growth hormones and other medications of the industry.

There is some evidence that organ meats might contribute to thyroid conditions in cats.

There have also been connections with the pop top cat food cans, but nothing conclusive. Just a possibility to avoid.

I feed my dogs raw food now and have been doing do for years. If I were ever to have another cat I would feed it raw food. Here is a web site resource.

There are many brands of pre-prepared raw frozen diets for cats. There are also some no-grain kibbles, like Innova Evo. See if you have a “boutique” pet food store where you live; they may carry them.

I feed my cat raw kangaroo meat (it is commercially available as a cat food) and he has dry food too. Don’t know if roo meat is available where you are though. He loves it and is super healthy.

We feed ours Felidae which is made with USDA grade ingredients. It cost less than $2.00 more than Iams and Science Diet we used to buy off the shelf at the grocery.

Either Felidae or Blue buffalo are the better brands. We feed our cat and dogs blue buffalo, since Felidae is not offered in our area. They have wonderfully shiny coats, get clean bills of health from our vet, and are very playful and energetic.

Our cats seem to do well with Taste of the Wild brand food, the dry kind.

I use Felidae with some snippets of cheese and an occasional bit of a cooked egg.

Friskies is indeed low quality carcass and byproducts. I’m sure Friskies and, even worse, foods like Kozy Kat, cause cancer.

You don’t need to make the extreme jump to fresh food for your cat.

For both your money, and your cat’s health, just switch to Natural Balance dry food, with the weekly can of Natural Balance wet food.

Maybe there’s other brands that are just as high quality. Maybe even Felidae is.

Stay away from vet recommendations and trendy stuff. They have no idea what to feed cats and will push on you what is marketed to them. A whole generation of suckers grew old thinking “Science Diet” was a high quality food, when in fact it is crap. Same goes for iams and other trendy catfood du jour.

My cat’s allergies went away almost completely after switching to an all-quality food like Natural Balance.

@Kraigmo Oy. This stuff is gonna break the bank (for 5 cats) but they’re worth it!

@ladymia69

You can buy chicken thighs and whole chickens inexpensively, especially at certain grocery outlet type markets.

I mix a 50/50 blend of Science diet and cat chow for the dry food and then supplement with other quality foods. The middle path is good enough, don’t stress!

re: Felidae (and Canidae for dogs) each flavor contains a different % of crude protein, listed on the back of the bags. We compare flavors and buy the highest protein content for our cat and 3 dogs. The dogs trimmed down within a few months, their fur so much nicer than in years past. The cat is over 10yrs old and still soft and sleek.