What are we really feeding our cats?

Before you read this post, I would just like to mention that the views in this post come from personal experience and the knowledge gained from it and that if you experience any health issues with your own pets to always seek the advice of a veterinary professional.
Over the years the diet that is fed to our cats has changed to mirror the changes that have occurred in society; most pet owners are tired of feeding their cats wet food that both smells and looks distasteful to us, the cat food industry has responded to this by producing food that does not smell as strongly or which looks more aesthetically appealing to the owner. This has resulted in commercial dry food and wet food which contains more human ingredients i.e. rice and vegetables being produced neither of which being in the best interest for the cat which is the sole consumer of the product.
Firstly I shall discuss an issue that occurs with feeding a cat a dry food only based diet and which I have had the experience of going through myself. Now have you ever noticed that when your cat is fed only dry food that it often consumes large amounts of water from the bowl, often appearing to almost be trying to submerge it's whole face in the water or witnessed your cat with a wet through face after drinking? Or does your cat that is on a dry food only diet suffer from kidney problems? This is what happened to my cat who was on a dry only diet and after doing some research into the natural diet of the cat and making one change to my cats diet saw a dramatic improvement to which her kidneys improved to near normal function; this was that in the wild, cats get most of their water intake from their food via products such as blood and rarely seek out water from other sources therefore, feeding a cat a dry only diet prevents this from occurring as it does not get the intake of water that it would naturally receive however, as dry foods contain certain products that are beneficial to your cat such as; anti hair ball, specific breed needs and veterinary diets it is worth considering feeding a diet consisting of both wet and dry so the cat gets the nutrients it needs from both sources. Here is a link to a site with some more information regarding dry food.
By now you may be wondering why I have included the wet food with rice or vegetables added to it in this discussion, when I have been saying how beneficial it is for cats; the reason is because cats are obligate carnivores which means they can only eat and process a meat based diet. Here is a link that explains a bit more about it. This means that all that rice and vegetables in your cat's food does nothing at all to benefit the health of your cat, they are only there to make the food look more appealing to the owner not to the cat and considering that this type of wet food is genuinely more expensive to buy, its better to leave them on the shelves and choose the just meat varieties.