“You’re starting to look like a loaf of bread when you sit” (Me to my cats, 2024)

Food, glorious food. We’re anxious to try it. Maybe our cats were too anxious because it was starting to show. Since we’ve gotten them we’ve kept them on the same kitten kibble, but now they’re big bois (both in age…and maybe a bit in size) So, it was time to find new food…and it was hard. Now our cats aren’t exactly the most active, yes they run around chasing each other (occasionally) but don’t really interact with our toys all too much, so we looked at some lighter options. We chose Hill’s Adult Light Chicken just because we had Hill’s before, but is it really “light”?

Let’s be a bit evidence-based. The light version is 20% less calories compared to the normal adult chicken kibble, the main nutrient contents for the light and regular adult recipe are listed below.

	Light	Normal
Protein	38.1%	34.4%
Fat	9.1%	21.4%
Carbohydrate	39.7%	36.1%
Crude fiber	5.8%	1.77%

Okay I’m no dietician, or a vet. So as a rookie cat owner with a bit of knowledge on nutrients and health, what did this all mean? Let’s look at the evidence (and yes with studies to support). If it’s too much, I’ll have a TLDR at the bottom ;).

Hewson-Hughes et al. in 2011 found a domestic cat regulates their macro nutritional (of main sources) of food to:

1. 52% of energy as protein
2. 36% of energy as fat
3. 12% of energy as carbohydrates

These 3 macronutrients form the holy trinity (like HSP mmmmm….I miss HSP) of a cat’s diet, all that is needed for a healthy good boi/girl.

Protein, like all gym junkies would say, always good. It basically helps a cat…cat? They contain the necessary amino acids to maintain eye, heart health as well as immune system function. Cats are natural carnivores as well.

Fat is ironically a great source of energy, but is also double the calories compared to carbs and proteins, this means there’s a higher chance of excess calories, which is actually the main no-no for a cat.

Carbs is…confusing? Verbrugghe and Hesta, 2017, states cats have a relatively small length of intestines, whos job is to break down the complex carbs in rice/starch into absorbable blocks. This small length means even if a cat takes in a lot of carbs in one sitting (but we’re talking 60% of the food being carbohydrates per Kirk et al., 2013), not everything is digested, and those left in the intestines are left to ferment by colon bacteria, which can cause bloating, diarrhoea etc.

Cats don’t actually “need” carbohydrates per say, but having a little bit of carbs can prevent your cat from losing muscle, as their bodies can break down their own muscle to produce glucose (different from just energy or ATP produced by fat) if no carbohydrates are provided. Glucose is basically the fuel for everything in the body, so yeah, pretty important.

The fact to really consider is the calorie intake of cats, as this is shown by Verbrugghe and Hesta, 2017, to be the main cause of obesity. Much like anything else, overconsumption of calories without the exercise depleting it causes excess calories, which is stored in the body as fat.

TLDR: Protein greatttttt, fat and carbs okayyy but maybe not too much. But overall, gotta just watch those calories.

Overall Quality: So after all the research, I ask myself, is the light diet worth it? Yes it is slightly more expensive than the normal adult diet. But the considerably lower fat while still maintaining good taste (I mean our cats seem to gobble it down with no problems during the transition) was a sigh of relief for us.

Conclusions: As with anything we still balance it out with some wet food, but notice our boys are now maintaining their weights. As an added bonus, the extra fiber is great to keep their bowel health in check!