Advice on Wet Food Brands...Am I worrying for no reason?

[chelsmarie]

Hi there,

For the past few months, my kitty has gotten a mix of Fancy Feast Pates and Purina One Pates, with a small amount of American Journey Dry to supplement while I'm at work. It is getting harder and harder to find wet food so I want to get her on as many brands as possible.

Fancy Feast fits my budget, but I'm somewhat concerned about the ingredients despite her loving it and seemingly doing well with it. It's not on my Vet's recommended brand list (Merrick, Instinct, Weruva, Wellness, Tiki, Cat Person, Fromms, Purina Proplan). The vet sort of made a face when I said I feed her Fancy Feast, but she also admitted that's all one of her cats will eat.

My first cat died young (4 years) and this cat is only 1 so I want to do what is best long-term. Is it really worth it to buy the more expensive brands? I can't do Cat Person or Fromms financially right now, but I could probably to do a mix of Merrick, Wellness, and Purina one. Instinct is a possibility but what's with the clay and other weird ingredients?

She didn't love the regular Wellness because of the carrots, but might like Wellness Core. She liked Merrick when she's tried it despite the strong odor.

Looking for some long-term advice PLEASE?

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. Fancy Feast, especially the pates, are not as bad as some like to make them out to be. They actually have less 'crap' in them than most.

I use Wellness Core and Purina One interchangeably with Fancy Feast - all pates, and all non-fish based (Feeby does not like fish cat food). I do this because there is still what I call 'unnecessary' stuff in both the former compared to FF. Feeby will also eat 3 of the 4 different non-fish based Tiki Cat After Dark pates. And, btw, Feeby hates the carrots too!!!

Have you looked at the food chart of ingredients on this site? Check This Out.... Chart For Cat Food Ingredients | TheCatSite

 

[LTS3]

Honestly, ignore the vet and her recommendations. It's YOUR cat after all and YOU make the decisions on how to care for the cat day to day. If you want to feed Fancy Feast, then go ahead and feed it.

 

[Babypinkweeb]

The classic fancy feast pates are better than a lot of mid range or even some expensive brands to be honest. Especially if you aim for ones with no fish ingredients. I actually use the turkey and Giblets pate to supplement more expensive foods to help my budget.

 

[Lazy Orange House Cat]

The only thing that's wrong with Fancy Feast pates right now is that some recipes can be difficult to get. Otherwise, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[daftcat75]

Your ideal cat food will be meat, moisture, organs, and supplements; hopefully in that order. A gum or a thickener is often needed to keep these ingredients together. Guar gum is probably the most benign (least harmful) while carrageenan and agar agar are known to irritate the gut. No matter the rest of the recipe, if either of those show up in the ingredients, those are deal breakers for me. “Byproducts” is another word for organ meats. What’s left that can be legally sold after the primary product, the meat, has been stripped away, has the unfortunately unappealing industry name of “byproducts”. Cats eat whole prey. There are no byproducts where a cat is concerned. But to be sure, there are regulations on what can be sold as byproducts. It is not the lips and buttholes of the cat food industry.

What’s NOT needed in cat food are fruit (pumpkin excepted), veggies, grains, starches, seeds, added oils (salmon and fish oil excepted), and while montmorillonite (bentonite) clay can be helpful in some circumstances, I would prefer to add it on my own depending on need and how well my cat tolerates it.

Given all these guidelines together, you’ll find a frustratingly few foods that meet these. Fancy Feast Classic pates is one of them. Sheba Perfect Portions pates come close enough for me to consider them. Tapioca starch being the only strike against them—you can do a lot worse. I keep getting recommendations to try Blue Tastefuls with my nibbler. But it has carrageenan. So that’s a NO before Betty gets a vote. On a mid grade food, Tiki Cat After Dark pates meet the guidelines (meat, moisture, organs, supplements, no carrageenan, no additional nonsense.) On the high end, Rawz pates follow this formula. They use fenugreek seeds in place of conventional gums or thickeners. This is an excellent substitution and a worthy exception to my no seeds guideline.

 

[chelsmarie]

Hi everyone…thanks for the reassurance. I’m going to stick with what I’ve been feeding her and maybe add some higher-tier food here and there. I did take her to the vet this week and the vet still sort of gave me a side eye about Fancy Feast but oh well. I figure it’s not the worst by any means and many cats have done well on it. Chewy had been sold out of FF pates so I stocked up this week when I saw availability.

On a side note, from mid-December to now, she went from 8.11 lbs to 9.6 lbs. She is a little over a year. I measure her food to be about 200 calories daily. Is that weight gain normal? Is she still growing? Admittedly she’s not super active. I try to play with her with stick toys and lasers but she prefers to stalk rather than run around. Just don’t want her to get fat or mistakenly lower her calories.

Thanks!!

 

[LTS3]

Pet food labels list calorie amounts as kcal. Just add up the numbers on the cans you feed to equal 200 or so.

A year old cat isn't growing much anymore. A little weight gain is normal.

 

[Maddie36]

I have heard that cats with a chicken allergy can still eat foods with "Chicken fat" in them....is this true???

 

[daftcat75]

I have heard that cats with a chicken allergy can still eat foods with "Chicken fat" in them....is this true???

Yes and no.

A chicken allergy is an allergy to chicken protein. If the chicken fat does not include any protein, it should not be an issue. But it comes down to manufacturing processes, purity, and how much you trust the manufacturer. It may be possible to extract the fat without protein contamination. But if this is a more expensive process, you know very few manufacturers will go to that length.

It’s kind of a coin toss. You could try it and see how it goes. You could write the manufacturer and ask them if their chicken fat may contain traces of chicken protein. And how sensitive is your cat? I was able to give my IBD cat salmon oil even after I had to cross salmon protein off her menu.