Do cats really need more protein?

Reviews of the most recent literature on amino‐acid and nitrogen requirements have shown that the minimal protein requirement (using a protein with a high NPU) of the growing kitten is about 20 per cent of the diet whether the requirement is based on the nitrogen content of the protein or upon its essential amino‐acid content. Although this is higher than that required by the growing dog, rat or man, the difference is not as great (65 per cent higher) as the differential found for adult animals of these same species. That is, the adult cat requires 12–15 per cent dietary protein for maintenance compared with about 4–5 per cent for the adult rat, man and dog.