Frustrated by small unreliable food brands (especially INSTINCT) + food allergies

mayadot

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Hi there, I've looked through the cat food ingredient spreadsheet (which I'm so grateful for!) several times, but it doesn't have the answers I'm looking for so am hoping someone here can help!

I'm searching for a cat food from a big reliable brand that contains relatively few questionable ingredients (I understand that those brands have more questionable ingredients, but I'm hoping to find the least offensive ones).

I've spent many hours and so much money trying to find a wet food that will work for my girl Squish, but nothing is working. She was eating Nutro Senior Soft Loaf Chicken for years, which was great because the ingredient list was pretty good and the brand was pretty reliable, but she seemed to start to develop an allergy to the food right as they were discontinuing it, so it was time to switch foods either way. The vet said it was most likely the chicken that she was allergic to, and while I'm not 100% sure, I suspect that to be true because she has done better with other proteins.

Since then we've tried the following:
  1. Dr. Elsey's Cleanprotein Turkey: Loved the ingredients but her allergies persisted, and as I understand a cat that's allergic to chicken might very well be broadly allergic to all poultry.
  2. Hound & Gatos Rabbit: This food seemed ok but then they discontinued it? Chewy has been sold out for months and I was finding some on Amazon but not anymore. Chewy has no answers about what happened or if it will ever be restocked.
  3. Tiki Cat Wild Salmon: This food seemed ok as well but it didn't seem to agree with Squish. We introduce new foods very slowly but even with just a tiny amount added to her old food she started throwing up daily, so I was afraid to continue.
  4. Instinct Limited Ingredient Rabbit: I want to like this food, but i HATE this food. We have used it for several months, in between the other options, but about 2 cans out of every case have had lids that aren't cut so they can't be opened without a can opener (out of MANY cases, so this was not a one-time fluke). The texture and color of the food is very different each time, which the company claims is normal, but with the can quality control already clearly being an issue, I have been highly suspicious of the food. Then tonight we opened a can that was covered in mold (!!!). It has an expiration date a year out. I don't trust this company as far as I can throw one of their cans.
It has been so stressful and expensive to keep searching for new foods, slowly introduce them, and then either have them not work for Squish or worse, be discontinued or faulty, and I think I just can't risk it on smaller brands anymore. I love that many of these companies are more attentive to ingredient lists and I'd love to support them in theory, but I just don't believe that they have the resources to have sufficient quality control at their size, and that's something I can't risk with my 15 year old friend. I fully know and understand that the big brands make mistakes too, but in my experience it seems to me that they are at least more reliable than these niche companies.

Long story short: I'm looking for a wet food that has no poultry (or poultry parts) from one of the big brands that isn't completely terrible. Any thoughts?? Thanks so much for reading.
 

Azazel

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Why would the big companies be more reliable? They have had many lawsuits and cases related to animal deaths.

A lot of the big and small companies also use the same processing plants and suppliers.
 
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kittenmittens84

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Why would the big companies be more reliable? They have had many lawsuits and cases related to animal deaths.

A lot of the big and small companies also use the same processing plants and suppliers.
They tend to be easier to find and less likely to be discontinued. Not that it’s any guarantee but still.
 

MissClouseau

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No poultry will be challenging. I would email Purina, Royal Canin, and Hill's and ask them. Purina USA also has a nice search filter. My cat loves their Pro Plan wet food.

As I'm sure you have discovered by now the problem is when a food says, let's say Beef, a lot of times it's not even MOSTLY beef. You look at the ingredients and it's still mostly poultry and/or fish and beef is like 2-10% of the meat.

Have you tried hydrolized protein prescription diets like Hill's z/d for example?
 

Azazel

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They tend to be easier to find and less likely to be discontinued. Not that it’s any guarantee but still.
They may be easier to find but they also get discontinued all the time. I think the better thing to do would be to feed foods from multiple different brands, that way if something gets discontinued you have others to fall back on.

Do you have an independent pet shop close by? Rawz has good limited ingredient options without chicken.
 

lisahe

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Yes, Rawz is one of the best. Our cats like it, though not as leftovers! I wish our local stores would sell the small cans without special orders!

Out of the really big companies, I think Sheba pates are the best... but I'm not sure there are any that don't have chicken or fish. "Best" doesn't mean all the ingredients are optimal: tapioca, for example, isn't great, though it's way down on the ingredient list so the quantity must be tiny, and menadione. Even so, it's pretty decent for a gigundo company's food.

I agree about Instinct foods! Lots of problem cats seem to do very well on them but our cats hated them when I tried them years ago, plus they're pretty expensive for foods where you have to pick out stuff like peas and carrots. I did sometimes find gunk of the food, most likely fat, which I've seen on other brands, too, and which can look like mold. (I'm trying to remember where else I've seen that... maybe Hound & Gatos? There've been a few brands.)

Personally, I don't find any commercial cat foods to be especially reliable. Yes, some -- Weruva and Primal, for example -- make very decent foods and are pretty transparent and responsive. But in the six years (exactly, to the day!) we've been feeding our two cats, there've been innumerable recipe changes (very bad for cats with food sensitivities), a few recalls/warnings, and a bunch of discontinuations. Plus there's no such thing as a perfect commercial food. These are the reasons I started cooking food for them, for two meals a day. It's not that hard to do with a premixed supplement, plus I can avoid the ingredients I know they don't like or that don't agree with them. I make lots of food with what they do like, particularly pork, which isn't that common in commercial foods!

mayadot mayadot , I love that your cat's name is Squish, that's our nickname for one of our cats! :catrub:
 

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lisahe lisahe just made me think of a good point which is that Instinct is actually a big brand. There are the major 3 pet food companies that control the biggest portion of the pet food industry: Mars, Nestle, and Hills. And then there are other “big” brands like Blue Buffalo, Nature’s Variety, etc. So instinct isn’t really a “small” company, it’s just not as huge as the big 3.

A lot of the brands that appear to be little are actually owned by the big three too.

I also make my own food because I don’t find any pet food company to be reliable or transparent. Actually, years ago when I first started making it I thought one of my cats had a chicken allergy. His symptoms went away when I gave him fresh raw chicken. He’s still eating it now and doing great. This really made me question what kind of crap these companies pump into their foods.
 
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lisahe

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lisahe lisahe
A lot of the brands that appear to be little are actually owned by the big three too.
This is a good point! I'm starting to think that small pet food companies are just waiting to be acquired and cash out like tech and biotech companies. (Merrick, now part of Purina, is a good example of that!)
 
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mayadot

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A Azazel Totally agree that the big brands aren't perfect either, but as K kittenmittens84 said, it has been my personal experience that they have been more reliable. Of course they can always make mistakes and foods can always be changed or discontinued, but in the many years that I fed brands like Royal Canin and Hills in the past (both for prescription reasons and because I wasn't aware of the problematic ingredients at the time), I never had any issues, and now I've had several in a relatively short time.

I would love to make Squish her own food but I'm in the last year of a PhD program and it's just not realistic for me right now as I even struggle to make food for myself sometimes. :( Sadly I don't think switching foods is an option for us either. I used to do that when she was younger but now her stomach is just too sensitive, I have to make food switches very gradually and there don't seem to be many foods that agree with her in any case.

And for sure Instinct comes from a bigger brand but I guess I view them as a more mid-sized brand, and either way my experience with them specifically has been truly scary, I wouldn't recommend them to anyone!
 
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mayadot

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No poultry will be challenging. I would email Purina, Royal Canin, and Hill's and ask them. Purina USA also has a nice search filter. My cat loves their Pro Plan wet food.

As I'm sure you have discovered by now the problem is when a food says, let's say Beef, a lot of times it's not even MOSTLY beef. You look at the ingredients and it's still mostly poultry and/or fish and beef is like 2-10% of the meat.

Have you tried hydrolized protein prescription diets like Hill's z/d for example?
Thanks this is a great tip, I'll try reaching out to them. And yeah it's the worst, especially when it just says 'liver' or something so you can't even be sure what animal it's from.

I haven't tried the hydrolized yet but it seems that is only a short-term diet and not meant to be a long-term solution?
 

Azazel

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I would love to make Squish her own food but I'm in the last year of a PhD program and it's just not realistic for me right now as I even struggle to make food for myself sometimes. :(
It's actually a lot easier and cheaper than people think. There are different ways to do it. The easiest is just adding a supplement pre-mix to raw or cooked store-bought meat and/or organs.

It is definitely cheaper than canned food.
 
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mayadot

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Thanks for these tips lisahe lisahe ! I'd love to learn to cook her food but it's not possible for me right now as I'm trying to finish my doctoral dissertation. Would love to know which supplement you use so I can try it if cooking becomes more feasible!

What was in the Instinct was definitely mold, I've never seen anything like it. This is a freshly opened can dated for early 2021, I got it maybe 3 weeks ago it and has been stored in a cool dry drawer. At least one out of 20 cans have been uncut, there are widely varying different colors, textures, and amounts of peas, and I've also noticed Squish's symptoms coming and going timed to the start and end of new batches, which makes me pretty confident there is some ingredient contamination going on.

I've eyed Rawz for a long time but I just don't know if I can trust these food startups anymore... mistakes might be less of a big deal when the food is being switched and so they're getting lots of different food sources, but when it's the only food Squish eats and she's already a senior kitty, it worries me. I know that the big brands aren't ideal but I definitely had fewer issues with them when I used to feed them in the past...

And aww.. hi to your Squish!
 

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mayadot

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It's actually a lot easier and cheaper than people think. There are different ways to do it. The easiest is just adding a supplement pre-mix to raw or cooked store-bought meat and/or organs.

It is definitely cheaper than canned food.
That's really good to know, thank you. I hope one day I can manage it, but I work at least 80 hours a week so really, even the most basic cooking is barely possible for me right now. Given what I've been indoctrinated with from my microbiologist mom, I wouldn't risk feeding Squish raw meat anymore than I'd risk eating it myself, so I'd need to have time to cook it! :)
 

Azazel

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That's really good to know, thank you. I hope one day I can manage it, but I work at least 80 hours a week so really, even the most basic cooking is barely possible for me right now. Given what I've been indoctrinated with from my microbiologist mom, I wouldn't risk feeding Squish raw meat anymore than I'd risk eating it myself, so I'd need to have time to cook it! :)
I see where you're coming from, but cats are not humans. :) They have short and acidic digestive systems built to handle lots of different kinds of bacteria. In fact, they would die without raw meat in the wild. I get that you don't feel ready to take the plunge yet, but I just wanted to let you know that there's nothing to be scared of when feeding raw meat. I've been doing it for years.
 

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Thanks for these tips lisahe lisahe ! I'd love to learn to cook her food but it's not possible for me right now as I'm trying to finish my doctoral dissertation. Would love to know which supplement you use so I can try it if cooking becomes more feasible!

There are ready to use supplements such as EZComplete and UStew. Just add the powder to plain cooked meat, add some water, mix everything together, and serve. Portion out what's left and freeze.
 
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