COMPLEMENTARY PET FOOD ISN’T A SNACK… IT’S FOOD!
You’ve surely found yourself choosing wet food from the shelves of a pet shop or an online store, unsure which to pick among the multitude of varieties, flavors, textures… and labels!
Yes, because among the types of wet food available for putting together a complete and balanced diet, we find COMPLETE and COMPLEMENTARY foods. And the internet makes things more complicated, with more and more people saying that complementary foods should only be used as snacks!
COMPLETE AND COMPLEMENTARY FOOD FOR DOGS AND CATS… WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES!
But what are the differences, and what should we pay attention to when choosing them?
A food is defined as COMPLETE when feeding an adequate amount of that product alone provides a balanced and appropriate intake of energy and nutrients. It therefore contains the right amounts of protein, fat, minerals, and vitamins needed to meet an animal’s minimum essential requirements.
When we see the term COMPLEMENTARY, we need to remember that the food is not balanced, meaning it is deficient in some nutrients and contains an excess of others. It is important to combine that food correctly with others to meet the same nutritional requirements as before. The quintessential complementary pet food is canned or pouch wet food.
WHY COMPLEMENTARY PET FOODS ARE NOT SNACKS
So is it a less convenient or more complicated food to use? Or can it be considered a snack, rather than a proper meal? Absolutely not! In fact, complementary pet foods are very important because they make it easier to provide a varied diet. It is much easier to change the flavor of a can than an opened bag of kibble. And changing foods helps provide a rich variety of nutrients, adding certain substances that are necessary and beneficial to the animal and its intestinal microbiota.
The intestinal microbiota is the collection of “good bacteria” present in the gut of every living being. It feeds on what is provided through the diet and, when in balance, contributes to the well-being and harmony of the whole organism through complex and delicate regulatory mechanisms.
A healthy microbiota will contribute to our pet’s overall health and can also be supported by dietary variety that makes its composition varied in both quality and quantity.
OTHER BENEFITS OF A MIXED DIET
Adding practical formats of complementary wet food alongside a complete diet offers many other benefits, in addition to making it easier to provide a varied diet for dogs and cats:
- Lower risk of consuming too many extra calories (and consequently becoming overweight).
- Increased water intake when paired with complete pet food in dry form. In fact, wet food contains an average of 70% moisture, compared with 8-10% in dry food. And, especially for cats, low fluid intake can have serious consequences.
- Complementary wet food can be made from quality meat or fish, a source of very important high-quality proteins.
However, it is important to include these in a daily diet in a balanced way, to supplement the nutrients provided and vary the flavor or the microbiota’s substrates: follow the recommended serving sizes to avoid excess calories, which are still possible, and pair them with complete pet food or other complementary foods that provide the missing nutrients, to ensure the correct intake of essential nutrients.
COMPLEMENTARY FOODS AS PREY
Be careful not to use them as snacks or “hunger busters,” since they are full meals. This is a safe way to ensure a varied diet that reflects their natural diet, especially for cats, which need small, frequent meals.
Just as in nature, a cat’s small prey do not always contain all the nutrients, but complement one another to provide the amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals felines need, which are not present in equal amounts in every prey animal. A feral cat can in fact ensure a balanced and varied intake by eating different kinds of prey; likewise, for domestic cats, we can mimic this tendency by using complementary foods as part of their diet.
Dr. Alessandra Calini
Veterinarian specializing in nutrition