Feeding your cat a smaller portion helps to control his weight. Where I live, you can buy wet cat food in portion sizes ranging from 50 g through to 100 g. There is an intermediate size at 85 g.
I find that my cat usually leaves about a fifth of the 100 g sachets in his bowl after eating it. This is similar to the amount left after eating 85 g. However, as you can tell from the photograph he completely consumes the 50 g portion of cat food and leaves the bowl clean. This may partly be due to the fact that the 50 g sachets contain a cat food that he particularly likes but I’m convinced that portion size is important in terms of eliminating or minimising cat food waste and controlling the weight of your cat.
I’ve always found that my cats leave something in the bowl after eating but this doesn’t happen when 50 g is put into the bowl. We know that a major reason why people are becoming increasingly obese in the West is because of portion size.
It is said that the correct portion size would be contained on the underside of the dinner plate. That may sound rather ridiculous but if the plate was turned over and the food placed into the small indented area on the base of the plate then that would constitute a reasonable portion size and prevent people from becoming obese.
Obviously the sort of food one eats is also relevant as to whether a person or cat becomes overweight or not but portion size plays a major role.
Does anybody have any views on this? What sort of portion size do you feed your cats? I know that most visitors to this website live in America and cat food is packaged differently in America. It would be nice to know what the usual portion size is.
As an aside I have argued in the past that dry cat food pellets can be too small so that a cat swallows the pellets whole which I see as detrimental to health as cats don’t chew on it. It is interesting to note that there appear to be larger sized pellets of dry cat food on the market at present and I use a large pellet size dry cat food from Royal Canin for my cat for grazing at night.
I’ve noticed that my cat doesn’t eat all of her wet (raw) food, so I give her smaller amounts. I bought some 2 oz containers with lids. I divide the food up and put in the freezer. I don’t fill the container up, so it’s less than 2 oz of food.
She also gets some high protein dry food formulated for weight control, which provides fiber to prevent constipation. After learning about the ingredients in Royal Canin and Hills prescription foods, I noticed that they contain ingredients found in the lowest quality pet foods. So, I think it’s not only a rip off, but unhealthy.
She weighs about 7 lbs. and isn’t a big eater. She’s 5 years old, and indoors.