Healthy Meat Lid Wet Foods - Complete For Dogs And Cats?

[Wile]

Today I found out about a line of limited ingredient canned foods called Healthy Meat Cat Foods. It's done by an Italian company. Anyone here ever heard of it? The company website is here: Healty - Healty Meat - RABBIT - Alu-cup

I don't really know what to think because it is advertised as a "complete food for dogs and cats" in the UK. I have never seen that before. Is this normal in parts of Europe? I've tried to list the ingredients below, but the label is really hard to read. I think they are as follows:

Rabbit, Rabbit broth, sunflower oil, guar gum, natural flavours, taurine, vitamin (B?D? can isn't clear)3 supplement, zinc sulphate mono(hydrate?), Manganous sulphate monohydrate, Potassium iodide
Crude protein min 8%, crude fat min 5%, crude fiber max 1%, moisture max (82?)%

The can from what I can see doesn't list calorie information. It's 3oz, so I am guessing that it is in the range of 80 calories a can. It says to feed 2 cans for a 3kg cat.

Edit: I should mention that the can I picked up was the LID Rabbit

 

[Columbine]

I've not come across the brand before, but from looking at their site, it looks like the food brands have two ranges - a cat range and a dog range. This is pretty normal in the UK, especially with more specialist/higher end brands. I think the confusion on the label is likely to do with the translation from Italian - it happens sometimes. I buy a lot of European brands from Zooplus, and the labels often don't have a word of English on them. I've got very good at meat names in other languages as a result

The food you bought looks pretty good for the most part, though I tend to avoid things like guar gum because it upsets my girl's tummy.

It's also VERY rare to find calories listed on cat food in the UK, though you can occasionally find the info on the manufacturer's website. I'd never even thought of calories in relation to cat food before joining TCS!

 

[Wile]

I've not come across the brand before, but from looking at their site, it looks like the food brands have two ranges - a cat range and a dog range. This is pretty normal in the UK, especially with more specialist/higher end brands. I think the confusion on the label is likely to do with the translation from Italian - it happens sometimes.

Thanks for the info! This particular can I picked up, in contrast to their website, has a photo of both a dog and cat on it. It could be a translation issue, but in this case I think the food literally is supposed to be for both species.

It is good that this food is available since I am having trouble finding simple canned LID foods that my cat will eat.

 

[Columbine]

Which foods have you tried so far? And which protein etc are ok for your guy to eat? I might be able to suggest some others - it's always to to have backup brands for fussy eaters, especially with an LID diet

 

[Wile]

Which foods have you tried so far? And which protein etc are ok for your guy to eat? I might be able to suggest some others - it's always to to have backup brands for fussy eaters, especially with an LID diet

Right now he seems to be stable on rabbit and pork. He is eating NVI rabbit cans, and the NVI LID rabbit dry food. I am also feeding him a home cooked rabbit recipe that my vet suggested called Hilary's Complete & Balanced. There is still occasional vomiting though, so once I finish this recent bag of NVI dry I am going to put him on the science diet Z/D for a bit and the home cooked rabbit while I try and figure out if peas are a possible trigger.

I bought a few frozen legs of lamb that were on sale and did up a batch of Hilary's home cooked mutton food, so I will also be testing mutton soon.

He definitely has a poultry intolerance. Duck, chicken, and turkey are all out. I haven't had any luck getting him to eat venison, so it might be out as an option, though I will keep trying. He also doesn't like beef. He will eat lamb and rabbit. I think fish is out because it seems to give him diarrhea. I will have to test it later on though to be sure.

Foods that I am keeping in my back pocket to be tested later:
Canada Fresh Lamb
Healthy Meat LID foods, though it is hard to find. I cleared out all the stock in my city (12 3oz cans... enough for 3 days lol)
Rawz Rabbit (if I can find it - the one supplier I found in my city doesn't seem to carry the rabbit)
If it turns out later on that he can eat fish that will give me more options

If there is an LID kangaroo food or some other exotic meat I can find in Canada I would try it.

The problem is that most foods contain chicken. And if the don't have chicken they have chicken eggs, so that really cripples me for commercial pet food options - hence the home cooking with Hilary's.

 

[Columbine]

Ah...because you were talking about Italian and UK foods I assumed you were in Europe I'm in the UK, and have a fair amount of UK food brand knowledge, and to a lesser extent European food brands (the main place I buy cat food serves most of mainland Europe too). Hopefully other members will have food suggestions for your part of the world

 

[Wile]

Ah...because you were talking about Italian and UK foods I assumed you were in Europe I'm in the UK, and have a fair amount of UK food brand knowledge, and to a lesser extent European food brands (the main place I buy cat food serves most of mainland Europe too). Hopefully other members will have food suggestions for your part of the world

I wish I had access to other markets. Options for feeding in Canada are so limited. This Italian brand has just recently been imported to Canada through some Toronto distributor, which is why I found it. Every once in a while I come across some hydrolized diet that looks perfect except that it is only available on your side of the pond...

Edit: I should also add that I think the confusion comes in because the can of cat food says "(UK) Complete food for dogs and cats". The list of nutrients added is much shorter than I am used to in Canada, and the labels and website don't really give much info about nutritional content. I'm just wondering if this food is nutritionally complete.

 

[LTS3]

Is Koha available in Canada? The company makes a kangaroo food.

 

[Wile]

Is Koha available in Canada? The company makes a kangaroo food.

I think I saw koha at a Global Pet Foods recently, but not a kangaroo LID version of it. The can I looked at from what I recall had eggs. I would probably have to special order it.

 

[LTS3]

The Koha LID kangaroo has no eggs Wild Kangaroo Pâté Wet Cat Food The web site has an option to buy directly from the company but I'm not sure if they will ship to Canada.

 

[Wile]

The Koha LID kangaroo has no eggs Wild Kangaroo Pâté Wet Cat Food The web site has an option to buy directly from the company but I'm not sure if they will ship to Canada.

I just checked. They won't ship to Canada unfortunately. The one I saw at my local pet food shop was the kangaroo stew, which does contain eggs. If they can order the stew in they can probably also order the LID food in. It would just mean that I have to commit to order an entire case and cross my fingers that he will eat it.

Once I finish up this NVI rabbit bag I'll look into ordering a case

 

[rubysmama]

My Ruby has a sensitive digestive system, and eats the Veterinarian Royal Canin Hypo-Allergenic. However, it is a duck protein, and I see your cat can't eat any poultry. I think chicken is one protein that bothers Ruby, but surprisingly the duck is ok. Sorry, I'm not any help. Hopefully the food you're currently feeding your boy continues to agree with him.

 

[Wile]

My Ruby has a sensitive digestive system, and eats the Veterinarian Royal Canin Hypo-Allergenic. However, it is a duck protein, and I see your cat can't eat any poultry. I think chicken is one protein that bothers Ruby, but surprisingly the duck is ok. Sorry, I'm not any help. Hopefully the food you're currently feeding your boy continues to agree with him.

I wish he could eat duck. It is a much cheaper protein. Unfortunately I just tried introducing the natural balance duck LID three weeks ago and it was vomit city. I'm back to getting him stable on rabbit before I start testing lamb.

 

[LadyLondonderry]

I wish he could eat duck. It is a much cheaper protein. Unfortunately I just tried introducing the natural balance duck LID three weeks ago and it was vomit city. I'm back to getting him stable on rabbit before I start testing lamb.

The NB LID canned foods contain pea protein, something some cats can't tolerate, as a major ingredient. It's the third-listed ingredient in the LID duck and the fourth-listed in the LID rabbit. Just something to keep in mind when using them to test out proteins -- a cat's bad reaction might be to the pea protein rather than to the meat source.

 

[Wile]

The NB LID canned foods contain pea protein, something some cats can't tolerate, as a major ingredient. It's the third-listed ingredient in the LID duck and the fourth-listed in the LID rabbit. Just something to keep in mind when using them to test out proteins -- a cat's bad reaction might be to the pea protein rather than to the meat source.

Yes, peas are definitely on the list of things that I need to test. He seems to be stable on the NVI LID rabbit dry food, which has peas in it. Rather than throwing up every week, like he was on the NVI LID Turkey and NB Duck, he throws up once every three or four weeks. Because of that he might be ok with peas, but I do want to test them to be sure.

 

[LadyLondonderry]

My Sylvie did OK with the actual peas in those foods (possibly because they were easy for her to eat around or push aside), but not with the concentrated pea protein. At this point, NV Original (no pea protein added) is actually more digestible for her than NV LID -- although she definitely can't tolerate chicken, and I'm not sure about turkey or duck. It's all so complicated. ::

 

[Wile]

My Sylvie did OK with the actual peas in those foods (possibly because they were easy for her to eat around or push aside), but not with the concentrated pea protein. At this point, NV Original (no pea protein added) is actually more digestible for her than NV LID -- although she definitely can't tolerate chicken, and I'm not sure about turkey or duck. It's all so complicated. ::

Yes, it is definitely complicated. I've learned far more about cat food in this past year of testing than I ever thought I would need to know. I miss the days of being able to pick up a random can of cat food in a store.

I've started picking the peas out of the regular NVI rabbit canned food. There are only about 6 per can so it is manageable to do. I'm not exactly sure why they are in there to begin with, if it is for trace minerals or to just boost the protein content of the food.

 

[LadyLondonderry]

I don’t think six peas could boost the protein content very much. My guess is that they’re there to make the food appear healthier to us humans. Same goes for the handful of carrot bits in each can.

 

[Wile]

Thanks to earlier posters for your food suggestions. As an FYI for anyone in Canada who is looking for an exotic LID diet, I spoke with my vet today and the tech suggested this food: FELINE

They do rabbit and kangaroo-based LID diets. It uses a potato protein instead of pea that is in NVI LID dry. The ingredients look much better than the other prescription diets I have seen. I am going to give it a shot.

 

[LTS3]

I don’t think six peas could boost the protein content very much.

Maybe the company includes a few whole peas to appeal to people (Oh look! Yummy healthy peas for kitty!) and the majority of the peas are ground up and mixed with the meat and other ingredients.