ISO A Better Cat Food: Some Reviews

The cat food commercials that I recall growing up showcase how much the cats loved to eat a particular brand, or how fabulous and well cared they looked while eating it.  But lately, there is a disturbing trend among TV pet food ads: appeal to the appetite of the cat owner. Hence a beautifully presented but undeniably human dinner being transformed into a plate to put out for Kitty.  Like your mom’s home cooking for felines.  And while this may have the emotional appeal conducive to our opening our wallets (as most of us want to be good caretakers of our pets), this is downright backwards in terms of the cat’s actual nutritional needs.  Folks, cats are obligatory carnivores.  That can of “Tuscan turkey with vegetables and garden greens” may sound more appealing than just plain old turkey to us, but their bodies have no use for, let alone benefit from, non-meat ingredients and the carbohydrates they carry.  In fact, these recreational non-meat ingredients can, over time, damage the health of our feline friends in the form of bowel disease, obesity, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, and kidney disease.

Since the passing of my sweet elderly CRD cats, I have been on a mission to provide my two youngster kitties (T, 5, and Kiki, 2) with a better diet.  More specifically, a high-protein/meat based, low carbohydrate diet, so that they might enjoy a long life free of obesity, diabetes and hyperthyroidism.  I also care for a colony of three feral farm cats, providing food and shelter for the last five years.  They are known, affectionately, as “the mongrels”.   During the course of this mission, I’ve tried several varieties with mixed results, and found great resources which I’d like to pass along to other cat owners on a similar mission.

First, the website which has been indispensable to my quest for better cat food, collecting independent analyses of the composition of cat foods: 

• Canned Cat Food, and the updated/amended version, and Dry Cat Food.  These sites provide a graph in which cat food content is arranged by phosphorous level, a critical factor in caring for elderly cats with Kidney Disease.  In addition, it contains that all-important number for carbohydrates, which, not surprisingly, is absent from the manufacturer’s ingredients lists.

Among the brands that I have tried with my kitties are:

Raw Meat:  Feline’s Pride.

The makeup of this cat food is ground raw meat and bones, shipped frozen to your door.  I tried the 2.5lb chicken formula to start.  At $18.48 including shipping, it’s a little steep, but I was determined to find the best diet, and most signs pointed this way.  Here’s the thing, though:  it’s raw.  I mean, I knew this going in, and to be fair, the ick factor was very much ramped up by the fact that I was in my first trimester of pregnancy and couldn’t even stomach the meat aisle in the grocery store, let alone a tub of ground up raw chicken and bones.  For me, the timing was bad.  For my kitties, it was something that they picked at, but wouldn’t finish a portion in the hour’s time I was instructed to leave it out.

Verdict: I like this option, but I think that it requires a plan in order to introduce it to the kitties diet.  Scheduled eating times should be established first, then the Feline’s Pride mixed in with their regular canned food, weaning them gradually.  And I shouldn’t be in any trimester of pregnancy when I do try it again.

Grain-free canned foods:

Evo

I bought one of each of the varieties offered at the local shop:  Beef, Chicken and Turkey, Venison, Rabbit, and Duck (all the 95% meat formula).  T, my pickier eater, was only interested in the Beef.  Kiki, on the other hand, was also interested in the Chicken and Turkey, but neither were too gung ho on the Venison, Rabbit, or Duck formulas.  The mongrels, however, ate everything readily!

Verdict:  will keep buying the 95% Beef.

Wellness

They both seem to love it all.  Unfortunately, Wellness has also broken with tradition and begun to add some grains, like brown rice, and fruits to some formulations.  Check labels for carbohydrate content (add up all percentages for ingredients listed; the missing number is the carbohydrate content).

Verdict: will keep buying low carb formulations

Commercial, non-grain-free canned foods:

Using the bulleted links above, it’s easy to zero in on widely available commercial foods that offer low carbohydrate formulations.  In our house, I routinely buy Fancy Feast and Friskies varieties that have lower carb options, because they are eaten so readily and universally.  But here’s an overall hint: varieties that are marketed as “kitten food” tend overwhelmingly to be lowest in carbohydrate content.  Do not fret about giving “kitten food” to an adult cat; their nutritional needs are the same.  If you are feeding kitten food to an older CRD cat, however, please be sure to check on the phosphorous level first.

Keep posted; more to come…