Wet Food - I Am Frustrated

I am sorry for this post, since it's not really a question but more of a loooong rant, but I simply have to get it out of my system, or I'd go crazy. I have moved to USA over 4 months ago and I am still looking for the best wet food options for my cats. I've read a lot about what is available here (thanks to this forum!), we tried a lot, and although it's much, much easier than at the beginning, it's not as good as I want it to be. But at least my cats have something to eat, mostly Rawz, Weruwa, Wellness Core, ZiwiPeak, Instinct, Koha Roo, Dr Elsey. I have to rotate otherwise they are bored with the flavours/brands. They eat pate only. But to me, there is something wrong with every single one of these brands.
So what frustrates me?
1. Lack of clarity of what are the proportions of each ingredient in the can. To give you an example, I used to deal with the following ingredients list, courtesy of European Union:
Veal:
70% veal* (muscle meat, heart, liver, lungs, kidney), 26.6% drinking water, 1% apricots, 1% pineapple, 1% minerals (Vitamin D3 (200 IU), taurine (1500mg), zinc [as zinc sulphate monohydrate] (15mg), manganese [as manganese-(II)-sulphate monohydrate] (3mg), iodine [as calcium iodate anhydrous] (0.75mg).), 0.15% linseed oil, 0.15% sea salt, 0.1% seaweed.
*Components: approx 50% muscle meat and heart (2/3 meat and 1/3 heart), approx. 50% offal (1/3 each of liver, lung and kidney).
or
Game & Chicken:
Chicken (55% incl. muscle meat, stock, liver), game (42% incl. muscle meat, heart, stock), salmon oil (1%), pomegranate seeds (1%), minerals (1%: Vitamin D3 (200 IU), taurine (1500mg), zinc [as zinc sulphate monohydrate] (15mg), manganese [as manganese-(II)-sulphate monohydrate] (3mg), iodine [as calcium iodate anhydrous] (0.75mg).)

Here in the USA, the ingredients proportions are not listed, everyone seems obsessed with first ingredient, or 5 first ingredients, without knowing how much % of all the ingredients it is. I still have troubles telling one brand of another because of that.

2. GELLING AGENTS. I truly don't understand why, why, why are all of these gums put into pates. Do cats really like the jelly texture? That was in fact the biggest problem for my cats at the beginning, they just couldn't get used to the texture, I still need to squash it with the fork for them to eat. And this seems to be harmful stuff! Some gums are being replaced by agar-agar but from what I read it is almost the same as carraageenan, and I did notice that the stools of one of my cats are soft after both carraageenan and agar agar. This is so frustrating. For some reason European pates do not have any gelling agents. Is this really necessary? The only brand without it seems to be Rawz but I'll rant about Rawz when I'll be raging on how expensive the quality food here is.

3. CLAY Seriously, clay in Instinct? I must stop giving it to my cats, it cannot be right.

4. Natural and artificial FLAVORS. Does meat really need the flavor to be added for cats to eat it? Even Rawz do it. What is this flavor...

5. SALT is everywhere. I tried to find salt free cans but I failed. One of my cats doesn't drink at all, and the other, drinking cat, started to drink so much more in here, and it makes me worried that the not-drinking cat doesn't wash out all this additional salt.

6. FISH is soooo common. I was always told to avoid feeding cats with fish so I'm super surprised how popular fish is in US cans. My cats like Weruwa but it is mostly based on fish so I want to get rid of this.

7. CHICKEN. Also, not easy to find chicken free cans, which I would like to since I hear caged chicken is still a thing. And back in Europe, when you see the word: 'chicken' in the ingredients list, you assume it's any, mostly the worst, part of chicken, unless specified what exact part of chicken it is. That's why the better producers always specify if it's muscle meat or offal etc. I rarely see this here.

8. PEAS. Green peas, chickpeas etc. Why, why, why? i understand it's cheap and filling, but since I am not buying cheap food but very expensive, I would expect that Instinct, ZiwiPeak would be free of it. I simply feel cheated when I see peas in the expensive product. But, to be fair, one of my cats seems to like peas a lot, at least

9. SUPPLEMENTs OF VITAMINS AND MINERALS. All cans are heavily supplemented, I guess it's a requirement. I think in Europe the emphasis is put on having vitamins etc from natural sources rather than artificial so I'm surprised to see it. I see that the coats of my cats are nice and shiny, so they do work, I'm just worried if there are any long term consequences. And IRON, I really truly don't understand why would you supplement meat with iron. What am I missing?

10. Lack of emphasis on TAURINE. In Europe taurine is so much talked about with reference to cat food, here it doesn't seem to be an issue. I'm hoping it's because it's taken for granted that it is enough. Although I heard this week it was a recall of some food because of the taurine. So do they get enough?

11. PRICE. I paid 72$ for Rabbit Rawz 24 cans (156 grams each). In Europe, I used to pay less than 32eur for 24 cans (200 grams each) for a good quality Grau (German brand, no gelling agents, no peas, no clay). And I really lived in one of the most expensive places in Europe (Luxembourg). It really hurts, because I don't think it's worth the price at all in comparision. And Hound&Gatos. They charge 102$ for 24 cans of Rabbit. It's a pity because it has good ingredients (apart from agar agar), but unfortunately and/or luckily, my cats didn't like the other flavors of this brand, so I am not even giving them the rabbit, because I am afraid they will like it (in general rabbit is their favourite flavor). 102$ for 24 cans?? I used to pay 43 eur for 24 cans (200 gr) of LID kangaroo.

12. I weight every can since I portion them between my two cats, and almost every can does not contain advertised 156 grams of the product, but 10-15 grams less. Again, I feel cheated.

13. Everyone seems to be so protective of American food, and as much as I understand it, I dream to have an option to buy some of the great German cans. But it doesn't seem to be an option. But maybe I could find a way to smuggle it.

I am thinking about transition to raw food but again, the idea of commercial raw is weird to me, especially that I would be willing to prepare food for my cats from the scratch (emotionally it would be difficult since I am vegetarian), but my vet has told me that the raw meat generally accessible is most likely filled with antibiotics and stuff I don't want to know about. So I am torn. If I buy the fresh meat in WholeFoods, would that be acceptable??

I always knew that changing the continent will not be easy for my cats (and me), and change in general is not easy, and I know I am in the denial phase :-) but I also know the frustration will pass, and I will find the best solution there is. But right now, I just want to scream :-))

Any thoughts, inspiration, ideas, responses to my questions, will be greatly appreciated. And sorry if my English is not always understandable.

If you need a chicken-free canned food, try these threads:

Chicken Free Cat Food?
Affordable Chicken Free Foods?
Suggestions For Cheapest Chicken, Fish, Turkey, And Grain Free Foods?

The clay in some brands of food isn't the same clay that a potter would use to create a vase out of It's a specific type of clay (montmorillonite) that is added to prevent the food from caking and it also supposed to have trace minerals a cat needs.

The "flavor" may be animal digest.

Lots of people here on TCS feed raw or home cooked diets. There's a separate forum to discuss those diets in more detail. Hare-Today.com is a popular supplier for raw met to use for pet food. Some independent pet stores sell chubs of meat for raw diet use. Brands include Bravo, Oma's Pride, and Primal. A butcher shop is another option but may be pricey. Whole Foods and supermarket meats (whole cuts only, never already ground) are fine to use as long as the meat has not been enhanced with flavorings, sodium solutions, brine, etc.

I personally feed a commercial frozen raw food, Nature's Variety Instinct brand.

Hello She's a witch I found your post and English very understandable. I live in Canada and sometimes we get cans from different European countries here. The different labelling takes some getting used to. Earlier this fall I was surprised when an Italian brand didn't list calories

I make cat food these days and have only just started to gain insight into why some ingredients are included in cat foods. In some ways trying to get a picky cat to eat my home cooked food has made me appreciate the weird ingredients you identify in your post more and debate whether or not I can whip up my own "natural flavour".

Some ingredients, like the clay in instinct, are there to maintain texture. When you cook meat for a cat and then run it through a food processor it tends to cake together after being packed into a jar, so it isn't easy to lick up the clumps. One of my cats, who likes to lick wet food, just won't touch it because of the texture.

Other ingredients, like the natural flavour, are there to enhance smell and taste. Both of my cats (unfortunately) prefer the smell and flavour of canned cat food over anything that I cook them nine times out of ten. It has made me realize just how much research goes in to making cat food palatable.

I'm not sure why the salt is in there, it might just be a cheap source of iodine or there for flavour. Peas can help prevent constipation from what I have heard.

If you have questions about ingredient percentages I'm sure the manufacturers will be able to give you more insight into them.

One word of advice, home cooked or raw home prepared diets can be the best or the worst food to feed your cat depending on how you go about it. You can not just buy meat from a grocery store and feed it to your cat or they will develop nutritional deficiencies. There are lots of resources on the raw/home cooked forum for you to look through. Do your research before switching to home prepared diets, not after.

Amen! I get frusterated too! I haven’t experience cat food from other countries, but I’ve been quite annoyed at random ingredients I see on cat food.

Where are you living? If you are on the West coast, bernalbeast.com sells Rawz cans for a little cheaper. They only ship in the Northwest area of the country (they are based in San Francisco).

Wow I can see why you are frustrated. Trust us, we are too

One thing I will recommend is looking at chewy.com as they sometimes have cheaper prices. The Rabbit Hounds and Gatos for instance is $80 for 24. So still pricey but a considerable savings vs the cost you shared.

Thanks everyone, I guess my frustration can be summed up like this: I am blessed to be able to afford the best wet food on the market, but I still don't trust this food to be best for my cats. It's horrible that instead of asking how each ingredient enrich my cats health, I have to ask if each ingredients is possibly harmful to my cats.

Yes, I know the raw food is a complex topic, otherwise I think I would already do this, back in Luxembourg I used to give them some raw beef once a week but as an addition only. So I am learning but it takes time as as a vegetarian, I find it difficult to read about the BARF food preparation, and shopping around for different kind of meats is difficult. But I'll get there, since moving here I am more motivated than ever.

I live in Seattle now, and in fact I did buy from Bernal Beast - the Rabbit flavor of Rawz is simply the most expensive one. That is the part of the problem, one of my cats simply tolerates the most expensive food there is!
Yes, chewy is indeed cheaper than my local shop, although I'm trying to use the local shops rather than the massive online ones, maybe I need to compromise on that.

I am actually inspired now to look for German cans in Canadian stores, since I don't live far away, that may be an option :-))

I think salt generally is pretty low on the list. If you see it like the later ingredients, it means there is a very small trace of it but not much. I was curious how much the salt affected the food at a point and decided to give it a quick tongue taste, practically zero salt detected from my tongue so I can only conclude that the salt content is very low.

I can't be sure about this for cat food but I do know that some human food has to include "salt" or "sugar" even though it's not added salt or sugar but just an ingredient that happens to have salt or sugar in it.

I can see why you're frustrated. You're making me want to move to the EU now! Have you noticed this with your own food as well?

I think the reasoning is that our regulations are totally different. As far as I understand, the EU generally has much stricter regulations about what can and cannot be put in human food, healthcare/hygiene products and probably pet food as well and require a more specific ingredient list as well, as you've shown us.

Whereas the US FDA seems a lot "looser" to me. Supplements and vitamins are not regulated here at all, just so you know. So you can buy a Vitamin B but it might only be 15% vitamin B and the rest is filler. Anyway, so in the US you are allowed to put vague ingredients like "natural flavors" which could be a lot of different things, but they have to be below a certain % of the ingredients so they are usually pretty far down the list. You'll find the same thing in personal care products "fragrance or parfum" will be listed, but you have no idea what the ingredient actually is. I have sensitive skin so I check all my products carefully.

The reason we focus on the top ingredients is just because they are listed in order from highest percentage to lowest. Generally from what I've read the first five ingredients are the bulk of what's in the can.

And Seattle is one of the more expensive cities to live in so everything will cost a bit more. I'd definitely try chewy.com. Otherwise, your local shops might have discount programs. I always like buying local, too if I can. I've just moved as well and my old local store gave you a case discount. So if you bought 12 or 24 cans, you got X% off. Probably still not as cheap, but its something, once you find a brand you like.

Welcome to the US by the way! I hope you are settling in okay. Moving is never easy! If you ever have any other questions or complaints or anything at all feel free to PM me. I've just moved back to the US after living abroad for 8 years so it honestly feels a bit strange to me!

I can see your frsutration, I’m a fairly new car owner, and I read canned food labels with disgust.

I make my own wet own cooked food for my my cat once a day, and since I’m not home to feed him on a good schedule, he is free fed the better kind of dry food.

I’ve been upgrading his food quality slowly, moving on to more expensive, healthier brands and I cant ever imagine downgrading his food.

I can only imagine how horrible it is for you to have no options

KarenKat said:

Amen! I get frusterated too! I haven’t experience cat food from other countries, but I’ve been quite annoyed at random ingredients I see on cat food.

Where are you living? If you are on the West coast, bernalbeast.com sells Rawz cans for a little cheaper. They only ship in the Northwest area of the country (they are based in San Francisco).

Click to expand...

FWIW, their website says they ship nationwide, but delivery to the local area is of course much quicker:
"We deliver to the whole continental US, but deliver next-day/two-day to most addresses within Central/Northern California as well as into West Nevada via our regular ground service. Refer to the map below for an estimation of locations.



We also deliver ground within two days to most of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. Shipments to most everywhere else in the US via regular ground service may take up to 5 business days depending on location and items orders. Most items deliver within 3 days, however."

The fact that so many of you understand and/or share my frustration - frustrates me even more lol. Because it means that this is known and nothing is changed, and potentially harmful ingredients are still there. USA is such a huge market with rich consumers (including pet owners), I really don't understand why so little (any?) manufacturers choose to be transparent and ditch the gums, peas and other fillers, flavours etc.

I am far from saying that European cat food is perfect, I don't believe that any processed food is perfect for any animals (humans included), but for sure european cans are so much more reasonable. Have a look at good quality Power of Nature (again, German cans), Rabbit flavour:
COMPOSITION: rabbit meat (95%), vegetables (zucchini, broccoli and carrots) 4%, vegetable oil, taurine, sea salt, minerals, vitamins [Vitamin A 3000 IU, D3 350 IU, E 40 IU, Copper (Sulfate Pentahydrate) 0.1 mg, Taurine 2500 mg.].
There are things I don't like in this can, there are vegetables, the oil is vegetable not fish (so that cats allergic to fish could have it, so I understand it) and they don't specify here what kind of oil it is, it has salt. But, for god sake, it is 1.59 eur for 200 grams cans (if you buy at least 5), no tax, no shipping cost if you spend 29 eur. Here I spend at least twice as much for Rabbit cans with gums, peas or natural flavours. I feel entitled to rant about it :-)

But this is true, they don't list calories. In Europe there is no emphasis whatsoever on calories in cats food, and in USA I already appreciate it as it is one way to differentiate brand quality from the other (eg. Weruwa is not as calorie dense as I would like it to be). But to be fair, I never had such need back in Europe, as the ingredients list provided me with the data I needed.

Regarding salt, in most of the cans I buy is indeed at the bottom of the ingredients list, but it is there. I am not saying it's bad as I don't know, I assume so as my cats drink more than they used to. Maybe it is not salt that causes it. I noticed that even my not drinking cat (Jon Snow) drinks when he eats Dr Elsey cans, and the salt is minimal according to the ingredients list. So what is it then?

sidneykitty, yes, I guess this is about EU regulations. Back in EU, everyone complains about the limiting regulations, but boy I miss it so much now Indeed not only in food department (I don't really buy processed food so the ingredients list for my food is something like: lentils, or chikpeas and I buy organic whenever I can), but the change is most noticed in how my data are treated. I get so many robocalls. I get so much spam. I guess my phone/email is shared without any control whatsoever to whoever asks....
Also, how can you guys even watch TV with so many commercials Blessed EU also limits them. Sorry for the offtopic! :-)

I don't complain without action; I've done an extensive research the last couple of days and found some frozen raw food that could be an option before I am brave enough to prepare food for my cats myself, the company from Olympia WA (so almost local to me!) called WIld Coast RAw:
https://www.wildcoastraw.com/treats
Also Natural Pet Pantry was recommended. Anyone knows anything about them, please let me know.
This wouldn't probably cost more than Rawz if I calculated it correctly but I am hoping it's a better option. I have limited trust in the idea of commercial raw but I need to change something so I am going to give it a try. Hopefully my cats will agree to that!

Yes, unfortunately, I think there a lot of things that could be improved in the US, but as individuals we can only do so much at a time.

I find it kind of funny that people in the EU complain about too much regulation. I guess its human nature to complain about things and you can never please everyone, right?

I think the pet food industry will continue to improve as we demand it to. Thinking of even 20 years ago when I had cats as a kid, a lot has changed already.

Also, I have no idea about the salt.. maybe its added as a preservative instead of other chemicals? I wish you luck and that I had more advice to offer, but I feel, too, that every ingredient list I look at has at least one odd thing added so its like picking the lesser of two evils.

In the recipe I use for my homemade raw food (feline-nutrition.org), lite iodized salt is added as a source of iodine if the thyroid is not included in whatever grind you are using. Perhaps that is the salt that is being added?

So my frustration hit the highest point last week. I ordered Dr Elsey cleanprotein beef cans from Chewy, as it was indeed cheaper than in my local place. When I received it, I ripped one corner of the case just enough to get one can, and the second can the next day. And only few days later I had time to organize the drawers where I keep the food (this is another point that frustrates me, that I need to buy 24 cans at once... and I rotate many brands/flavours which means I store A LOT of cat food. I used to buy only 6 cans per flavour and it used so much less space.). So I ripped open the whole case and to my horror, I immediately felt horrible smell, and soon noticed its source. In the opposite corner of the case there were LOTS of worms/maggots (my English is failing me on this one) or something like this. They were all dead luckily otherwise they would be everywhere in my apartments. One of the bottom cans seemed to be open a bit and I believe it was the cause of the maggots. But I was soooo scared. Because I fed my cats two cans from this case already, and most of the cans, especially the bottom ones, where very dirty and covered with at least one dead creature. Luckily it happened a week ago so I guess my cats are fine.
I never washed the cans before opening them, but I started since this experience. You never know if there were some worms on them... Plus, the fact that they were all dead, makes me wonder. They had infinite food source I would think. Maybe they spread out in the warehouse, and if they didn't find the source in the warehouse, i am thinking someone treated the cases with some chemicals to kill them? These chemicals might as well get to the surface of the cans. That's why I wash the cans now, I don't want anything suspicious get into my cats food.
This motivated me into trying commercial raw, but again, what is the difference? We don't know what really happens in the places where they prepare food. The experience I had makes me not trust anything in cat food department :-(

Also, I needed to throw away so many cans, and the sheer thought that the animals which were in these cans died only to be thrown away, makes me sick. I hate throwing meat out.

Why did that happen to me? Because I am self proclaimed American canned cat food hater and I came out about it in the internet? Does it happen often to you people when you rant about canned cat food??

Thank you for "listening out".

Let's rationalize this. A maggot wouldn't be able to penetrate an aluminum metal can, so the inside food is more than likely fine, other than the one that appears to be broken and the source of all this. There are a number of reason why they could be dead. My assumption would be suffocation or squished from being stacked in a warehouse.
Contact Chewy and explain what happened. Their customer service is A++ and they will be absolutely mortified about your experience. They will either send you a new case or refund your money, or both, given this is an extreme case of maggots.
I'm sorry your experience has been so negative! Don't give up and on your quest for good food. If/when you decide to take the raw plunge, be sure to utilize the raw subforum on the cat nutrition page.

Contact Chewy and they will either refund you, replace it, or both. I have had that happen once before too and it was because one of the cans busted. They aren't FROM the cans, nor are they attracted TO the cans, they get attracted by something that either gets on the cans (like a can that busted in a neighboring case) or a can in your case gets busted and they zero in on it as a food source. They don't tolerate cold well and they die in transit.

I think you're being way too sensitive and paranoid. Sure that can be annoying but like the two above me already said, maggots aren't attracted to cans nor can they penetrate them.

If you didn't see any clear signs of maggots inside, then it is more than likely just fine for the food. I really do think you should stop spending so much time thinking about all the negative things that could happen to you and perhaps it will stop.

I know some people that constantly thinks bad things will happen to them and they essentially invite bad things to happen to them without even realizing it.

P.S. - To note on your sensitivity levels, several of the things you listed out as a point of negative is just simply not true and quite frankly it's not something you should worry much about.

Thanks mizzely and @EmersonandEvie, Chewy has of course both refunded and resent the cans, dr Esley offered to send the case as well, but I still think that I should not have been sent maggots. As simply as that.

Sammiches said:

I think you're being way too sensitive and paranoid. Sure that can be annoying but like the two above me already said, maggots aren't attracted to cans nor can they penetrate them.

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Of course I am paranoid, I have never had maggots sent to my house before, dead nor alive. Are you guys saying this is normal? Shouldn't they really check what they're sending when they pack?

As for disposing the cans, I have no experience with it and I was actually advised by drElsey's to dispose them. Quite frankly they smelled so bad that I wouldn't keep them anyway, and I couldn't even consider cleaning the cans of them. Obviously I know that the maggots cannot penetrate the can, but when they/their parts, residues, are on the surface of the can, and when the can is being opened, I can totally imagine that whatever is on the surface can be transferred to the bowl. That's why I started cleaning the cans, I see no harm with that.

Sammiches said:

P.S. - To note on your sensitivity levels, several of the things you listed out as a point of negative is just simply not true and quite frankly it's not something you should worry much about.

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which ones and why?

No, it's not normal. I've been buying from Chewy for 5+ years and had one can in one case of food ever had this happen. For mine, it was inside the case in the 2nd layer where no one could have seen it without opening the entire thing, and the plastic wrap hid any smell until it was opened. It's certainly was not something they sent me on purpose.

I don't see anything wrong with how you handled it either.

You seem to just have some really bad luck. You could talk to hundreds of cat owners that buy from Chewy and have never had maggot-y cans, myself included. I'm sure they have some sort of quality control in the warehouses, but they are human. Mistakes get made. Nobody is perfect. Don't we all wish we were?
Even if you did a homemade raw diet, things can happen. You can't control every aspect of the production. You would have to raise and slaughter your own animals to be 100% in control what your kitties ate.