Hill's Science Plan Hypoallergenic Adult Dry Cat Food with Egg & Insect Protein - 1.5kg

Hypoallergenic Adult Dry Cat Food with Egg & Insect Protein is a complete dry food for adult cats, made with egg and insect protein. Below we set out what hypoallergenic actually means, since it is a marketing word rather than a regulated one.

Key Features

• Novel Protein: Egg and insect protein, chosen because most cats have never eaten either and so are unlikely to react to them.
• No Grain: Grain-free, to keep the ingredient list short.
• Digestion: Highly digestible, for a cat with a delicate stomach.
• Skin: Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
• Pack Size: A single 1.5kg bag.

What Hypoallergenic Means, And Does Not

• Hypoallergenic is a marketing word, not a regulated one. What it means in practice here is a limited ingredient list built on a single novel protein, chosen because a pet is unlikely to have met it before and so unlikely to react to it. That is a sound idea and a reasonable thing to buy.
• It is not a diagnosis and it cannot tell you whether your pet has a food allergy. Only a properly run elimination trial can, and that has to be set up by your vet and followed strictly, with no treats, chews, flavoured medication or scraps for the whole period.
• Worth knowing: true food allergy is far less common than the internet suggests, and the usual culprits are the proteins a pet has eaten most, typically chicken, beef and dairy. Grain is near the bottom of the list, not the top.
• Most itchy pets in this region are reacting to fleas or environmental allergens rather than food. A food change is worth trying, but itching that has gone on more than a couple of weeks needs looking at properly.

On Grain-Free

• This recipe has no grain, which is there to keep the ingredient list short and the protein sources limited, not because grain is inherently bad. Grain is a perfectly good source of energy and fibre for most dogs and cats, and it is an uncommon allergen.
• You may have seen the discussion linking some grain-free dog foods to dilated cardiomyopathy. The investigation focused on foods built on high levels of peas, lentils and other pulses, no single cause was established, and the picture is still unsettled.
• The sensible reading: choose grain-free when there is a reason to, as there is here, rather than because it sounds better. If your dog is on a grain-free food long term, mention it at your next check-up.

Why Cat Food Looks Like This

• Cats are obligate carnivores: they cannot make enough taurine, arachidonic acid, vitamin A or vitamin D for themselves and have to take them in ready-made from food. That is why a complete cat food is not just a dog food with a different picture on the bag, and why cats should never be fed a vegetarian diet.
• Taurine is the one most people have heard of. Without enough of it cats develop heart muscle disease and go blind, which is why it appears on the front of every bag. Any complete cat food supplies enough, so this is a reassurance rather than a differentiator.
• The balanced minerals Hill's mention are about keeping magnesium, phosphorus and calcium in proportion rather than simply low, because both too much and too little cause problems.

Cats And Water

• Cats evolved to get most of their water from prey and have a weak thirst drive, so a cat on dry food alone often runs mildly short of water. That matters for the urinary tract and the kidneys, which are the two things most likely to shorten a cat's life.
• Practical fixes: more bowls than you think you need, away from the food and the litter tray; a wide shallow bowl so the whiskers stay dry; and a fountain, since many cats drink more from moving water. Adding some wet food to the day is the single most effective change.
• In UAE heat and air conditioning, check the bowls twice a day. Cats drink less from water that has sat out and gone warm and dusty.

Feeding, Storage And The Range

• How much: start from the chart on the pack by weight, then adjust to what you can feel. You should find the ribs easily under a thin layer of cover. Weigh the food rather than using a cup, and count treats towards the day's total.
• Changing over: move across gradually over about seven days. A sudden switch is the usual cause of a loose stool that then gets blamed on the food.
• Storage here: keep the bag sealed, cool and out of sunlight and use it within about six weeks of opening. UAE heat turns the fats in kibble stale faster than the packaging assumes, and that is the usual reason a pet goes off a food it used to like. Keep it in its own bag rather than tipping it into a bin.
• Who makes it: Hill's was founded by an American vet, Mark Morris Senior, who formulated a kidney diet for a guide dog in the 1940s. They run feeding trials on their recipes, which is why they can say clinically proven where most brands cannot, and the main reason the range costs what it does.
• Science Plan is not Prescription Diet: this is the everyday range for healthy pets. Prescription Diet is the separate therapeutic range for diagnosed conditions, sold on a vet's recommendation. The names overlap confusingly and they are not interchangeable, so if your vet has set a diet, ask them before changing it.

Good To Know

• This listing is the 1.5kg pack.
• Complete dry food. Nothing needs adding to a complete diet.
• Keep fresh water available at all times.
• Store sealed, cool and out of sunlight. Use an opened bag within about six weeks.
• Science Plan is a non-prescription everyday food, not a veterinary therapeutic diet.
• Made by Hill's Pet Nutrition, part of Colgate-Palmolive.