I had to deal with the death of a cat from IBD. Never again. I only want to feed my cat with grain free food, no guar gum, xanthan gum, starch (GMO corn), agar agar, carrageenan or konic as additives. They are all digestive irritants. I've found 4 brands so far, Nature's Variety Instinct, Tiki Cat Kolina, Pure Vita and First Mate Limited Ingredients. Short of making my own cat food, does anyone have another brands I don't know about? He does not like raw but he does like freeze dried organs. They seem to be only in treat form, tho. Thanks.
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Best Cat Food
- Thread starter felyne
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I think those brands you found might be it. I searched through ingredient lists on chewy for other foods that might work (going through generally well-respected brands like Wellness, Evo, Addiction, Ziwi Peak), but it seems that they all have at least one of those ingredients. Xanthem/ Guar gum seem to be popular ingredients. Sorry I couldn't find anything for you. Hopefully someone else will have some suggestions.
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Thank you,
abyeb
, what about taking dry and wetting it to canned food consistency? The dry doesn't seem to have those ingredients.
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I was only looking at wet, sorry, I should have mentioned that. I think wetting dry should work, but I don't have any experience in doing this. Hopefully someone else can help you with wetting dry food!Thank you,
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These may be helpful:
Canned food without Carrageenan or Guar Gum?
Grain- & carrageenan-free foods
If your cat likes freeze dried treats, he may like freeze dried raw food as well. Many brands are complete diets. Try Stella and Chewy's, Northwest Naturals, Nature's Variety Raw Market, Feline Natural, and Vital Essentials. Freeze dried raw foods aren't sold in chain pet stores so look for them at independent pet stores or online.
Canned food without Carrageenan or Guar Gum?
Grain- & carrageenan-free foods
If your cat likes freeze dried treats, he may like freeze dried raw food as well. Many brands are complete diets. Try Stella and Chewy's, Northwest Naturals, Nature's Variety Raw Market, Feline Natural, and Vital Essentials. Freeze dried raw foods aren't sold in chain pet stores so look for them at independent pet stores or online.
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- #7
Thank you
LTS3
He's a PIA, LOL? Doesn't like the freeze dried food, only the treats. . The previous owner fed him the cheapest food, popcorn and cheese doodles. Nice, eh? I forget which brand I tried, but I might try one of the ones u suggested. The raw frozen brand I tried was sold in PetCo, so maybe it wasn't as good. This is certainly a quest!
I feed raw and believe in it but, I do try to give a can a week. I do this because sometimes I worry that if something happened to me no one would feed the cats raw food so .... stay away from foods with fish it is hyper allergenic and addictive. It also does not offer a great nutrient profile. If you have 'Wild Calling ' available try it, many different proteins, rabbit , duck ,chicken, turkey , beef & Bison. It is basically just meat and nutrients. It is as close to raw as it gets, reasonably priced as well. My cats really love Weruva especially the fowl ball. It is expensive , I am lucky my son works at a pet food store so I get half off.
If you ever do decide to go raw keep in mind it can take awhile for cats to transition.Dr. Pierson writes about this on her site. www.catinfo .org.
I understand your motivation, several years ago I lost a cat to pancreatitis. That lead me to doing so much research into what happened. That led me to feline nutrition and eventually to raw which by the way , if done carefully is much less expensive than premium canned.
If you ever do decide to go raw keep in mind it can take awhile for cats to transition.Dr. Pierson writes about this on her site. www.catinfo .org.
I understand your motivation, several years ago I lost a cat to pancreatitis. That lead me to doing so much research into what happened. That led me to feline nutrition and eventually to raw which by the way , if done carefully is much less expensive than premium canned.
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- #9
Thank You
maureen brad
I know they put ethoxyquin, banned in Europe and for human consumption in the US, in all fish right on the boats as a preservative, so many fish food companies aren't even aware of this additive. Really bad stuff in pet food. Mine doesn't like raw, but I may try to get him to eat it. And it would be cheaper than a good canned. The tiki cat food 6 oz can is $2.50 each for 8 on chewy. I can get a pound of organic chicken for less than that, healthier and once you have the supplements, not bad.
We started wetting Merrick dry food the night before, and I mean wetting. There are no additives and it contains pre and pro biotics. The ingredients seem OK. The food absorbs about 3x's their weight. Poor cats eating it without drinking adequate water. No wonder they have problems with dry.
Kudos to you for managing the raw!
maureen brad
I know they put ethoxyquin, banned in Europe and for human consumption in the US, in all fish right on the boats as a preservative, so many fish food companies aren't even aware of this additive. Really bad stuff in pet food. Mine doesn't like raw, but I may try to get him to eat it. And it would be cheaper than a good canned. The tiki cat food 6 oz can is $2.50 each for 8 on chewy. I can get a pound of organic chicken for less than that, healthier and once you have the supplements, not bad.
We started wetting Merrick dry food the night before, and I mean wetting. There are no additives and it contains pre and pro biotics. The ingredients seem OK. The food absorbs about 3x's their weight. Poor cats eating it without drinking adequate water. No wonder they have problems with dry.
Kudos to you for managing the raw!
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- #10
I just spoke with my vet and he said as long as he likes the food, soaking dry in water overnight is fine. So it's better food than canned as it has no GI irritating additives, cheaper than buying wet and has pre and probiotics. So, it's a win-win if your cat will eat it. Thought I'd post in case someone might want to give it a try.
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Awesome info!
Be aware that many dry foods contain mold etc. Wetting that is not good.My vet , years ago when I fed dry expressly told me not to feed dry food with water.Dry food usually has insect feces, and many other things in it. The average dry food actually stays fresh for 25 years, you can imagine two much chemicals it takes to have something stay fresh for 25 years. Also, typical pet food stores have tons of dry food in their warehouses, usually in very hot temps.If you want to understand how awful all dry foods are for cats please read www.catinfo.org. even the cheapest wet food is 100 times healthier than tyhe most expensive dry food. Okay, I am going to climb off my soapbox and wish you many happy ears with your cat.
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It's a problem. My nat vet at one time told me there are even euthenized animals in pet foods, so you might be getting pentobarbital in them regardless. So in effect, you're killing your pet slowly. Zoo animals that were put down as well. Good Grief! So unless u make it, and it's raw, (see new article below), nothing is safe. I would like to know what pet food manufacturers put it to make it smell good to eat so he would eat homemade. I used to put treats in a coffee grinder and sprinkle on top, but most contained GMO ingredients which are Horrid.
I received this very good article today from Dr. Becker. Foods cooked with any heat over 350° are carcinogenic. Although the study is on dog food, it would be the same or cats. Even if ur making ur own, it applies:
Are You Unknowingly Feeding Your Pet Carcinogens?
I wish he would eat raw, it short of letting mice loose in the house, which contain the proper glandulars, it's a tough go.
At least the dry today have sell by dates and if u get them from a place like chewy, there's a high turnover. So far, he likes the tiki with no additives but he needs a 'booster' with it. At least he is not getting the full glycemic index In the dry with the tiki. Unless they eat raw, they're all flawed. Even raw has a good chance of containing parasites. One as bad as the other. JMHO
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I've heard that, at least with dry food, the food is sprayed with a layer of oil before it's packaged, to make it more appetizing.
What about a dehydrated food like ZiwiPeaks?
How old was the cat, sex, and what had you been feeding it when it passed
Subbing because I just realized my Weruva cans have the guar gum in them. :-( Right now I'm using NV Instinct.
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I guess there's no perfect cat food out there except what you can make yourself. But it's so expensive. I tried EZ complete for a little bit. Got various responses from my kitties to yeah i like it to won't touch it with a ten foot pole. I wish EZ had more than just the chicken flavor. As for NVI, it has ground up peas in them which I don't think is very good for them. What cat eats peas in the wild? What were they thinking? But they use Montmorillonite clay which is better than guar or xanthan as thickeners.
My cats were eating Weruva and Performatrin potato & salmon kibble at the pet store I picked them up from. They were housed there by an animal rescue. I did buy this food initially and they seemed to like it, but once I tried weaning them strictly onto just wet food, I realized many of the canned Weruva were too low in kcal's but super expensive. After some experimentation with Fancy Feast (they only loved the cod, sole, and shrimp brand), I found Nature's Variety (N.V.) kibble + raw and the canned food (5.5 oz). Following the advice of many people on the internet, I stuck with the chicken formula. Well, one of my cats could not stand it. I later found some vomit and never knew which one did it, but it didn't matter. So I started experimenting with N.V.'s Pride rabbit and the version that comes in a can. Both of these have more gravy and are minced. I realized how much my cats preferred these to pate, so I started experimenting with lamb and duck. Well, three days after starting the lamb one of my cats had a long bloody mucuosy plop come out with her poop. I never told the vet I introduced a new food into her diet because I had done this before and never had that reaction. She was prescribed a laxatone because my vet figured it was some type of irritation in her intestines, perhaps from hair since she's shedding alot. Well just a day ago the same cat had blood in her stool again, but it was not as much this time. I now know why! I tried introducing N.V. raw rabbit with her N.V. canned rabbit the night before. Thank God I kept a food journal through all this experimentation. My other cat (that does not like chicken) has no problem with the raw rabbit.
Long story short: just because food is wet or raw or doesn't have a checklist of "bad" ingredients doesn't mean it won't irritate your cats. They flowed pretty smoothly between Fancy Feast seafood and poultry variety, although they had preferences and they only ate it with me consistently for six weeks.
