Help on understanding cat nutrition + history

[princessmom]

Hi everyone,

My cat was born in August 2014 (I think because she was feral when I got her and that's what the vet estimated) and I was still a college student. I don't recall what brands I fed her but I switched to Blackwood Dry Cat Food Chicken and Rice in January 2017 when I started to make a little more money as a server. At the time, I recall the internet saying this was a great brand.. I recently started looking into cat food again since she's now 6 and a half years old () and I finally started my career after finishing graduate school.

I'm not reading that Blackwood isn't that good(???) and is rated a 3/10 on catfooddb.com. My heart dropped because I thought it was "one of the best brands". I think I tried giving her Blue Bufflao BEFORE Blackwood but she just would not eat it. She's not crazy about Blackwood but she's been eating it since 2017.

On the other hand, my mom has been feeding her about a tablespoon of canned food but the various brands from local super markets.. which I only also recently found out is pure junk. I recently (+/- a month or two) started buying Stella and Chewy and 3 of Life Essentials Freeze Dried Chicken (soaked in water) as her dinner. She loves it and it makes me feel better knowing that she is also getting more water intake now.. I never witness her drinking water.

I told my mom to stop feeding her the wet food and to replace it with small portions (2-3 pieces) of freeze dried chicken + water as I just purchased a sampler from Smalls for Cats which has been rated top second or third from sites I've seen (Dr. Elsey's Pure Protein is out of stock everywhere).

I guess.. my concern is.. have I messed up her diet or shortened her potential life span in any way from feeding her Blackwood and the junk canned foods from grocery markets?

She's my baby I am just freaking out. Thank you for your time.

 

[maggie101]

Fixing to go to bed but here's some info on cat food
Catfooddb.com. talk more tomorrow

 

[princessmom]

Fixing to go to bed but here's some info on cat food
Catfooddb.com. talk more tomorrow

Thank you! Yes, that's the site I found today that made me realize Blackwood may not be good afterall.. I look forward to your reply! Have a good night.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. I am sure a lot of us, me included, have fed 'not-so-great' food to our cats at one point in time or another. And, there would be no way to know if it actually ended up causing some issue that shortened their life. All you can do is what you have done and correct accidental errors you may have made in the past with her food.

Taking her to the vets for annual check ups to keep track of her overall health and identify any problems that might crop up is a much more important step in proper care of our cats.

 

[ladytimedramon]

I think in one year of having Delilah, I've agonized more over her food than my family did before in 50 years of dog owning.

My last dog, back in the 80s, who thought of any of this? My parents gave him what they found on the shelf in the supermarket that they could afford. It was a bright red burgerlike generic store brand that I remember well. When he passed he had enlarged organs and possibly some tumors. Was it the food? Was it the lawn chemicals? Was it something else just in his system? We'll never know, and back then there was no way to tell any of it.

Me, I'm going crazy finding the right food for one kitty because I want to at least eliminate one possibility from her diet.

 

[Ellis75]

Pet food is very confusing, especially with seemingly infinite options and extremely varied opinions. Try not to stress too much. Looking at the ingredients, Blackwood cat food just seems average, not especially harmful or helpful. The same is true for a lot of super market brand wet foods; while they may not be top tier, they're not going to kill your cat. There are very few foods that would actively harm your cat, so please don't beat yourself up over food you've been giving her.

I would also just caution you to take information on sites like catfooddb with a grain of salt; the person who runs the site is good at collecting data, and the site can be good to get an overview of ingredients and stuff, but they have no training in pet nutrition, so their ratings are fairly subjective.

Just keep going with whatever food seems best for her, I really doubt her past diet will have any long term effects. The only thing I would add is to make sure the freeze dried chicken is no more than 10% of her daily diet; it's great as a treat or meal topper but isn't balanced to be used as more than that. Keep it up, it sounds like you're doing just fine by your baby

 

[game misconduct]

nothing to add other than congratulaions on finishing grad school

 

[Beholder]

To add to a post above, freeze dried treats should not make up more than 10% of the cats diet. Formulated freeze dried cat food is fine as long as it's being re-hydrated. Also, while catfooddb is subjective, it is based on common information. For example, foods with rice or corn will get a lower rating. Foods high in carbs and lower in protein with get a lower rating. We know that cat foods should not have a ton of carbs or grains, so it makes sense. The only thing I would watch out for are gums. There's not enough data to know whether all gums (like guar gum) are harmful and catfooddb does list these as "potentially problematic". Overall, it still is an extremely helpful resource and I haven't found many people that disagree with their system.

Others have said the same thing, but don't feel bad about what you've fed your cat in the past. You can only do the best that you know, and with so many conflicting resources (including vet recommendations of RC and Hills) it's really so complicated. My own cats went on a very long journey as well. We started with Blue wet and dry, the Halo, then Instinct, then Tiki Cat and finally homemade. I'm sure I missed a couple in between but those were the main ones we used. Each time I changed it was because I became more aware of the ingredients in these foods.

I had two cats from my childhood die at really young ages from diabetes. Their diets were Friskies and Hill's, and I think occasionally some Meow Mix. My mom didn't know any better and I don't blame her, (she just bought what was on sale) but that was what initially made me hyper-aware of what goes into cat food. We obviously cannot prove their diets caused the diabetes, but I personally believe that was the cause.

I also want to add this because I do think about it from time to time. Morty has multiple allergies, a complete intolerance to dry food and possibly IBD caused by old dietary choices. It may have been my fault, it may not have. I cannot ever know this so the best I can do is accept this possibility, not blame myself, and try to feed my current cats and all future cats the best that I can.

 

[daftcat75]

Personally, I would switch her to a grocery store wet food. Those tend to be popular with cats. They wouldn't be on those shelves otherwise. That's going to be better than dry food and better than freeze dried treats. Even if Smalls works out, I would keep one meal a day of an easy to find wet food. This way if there are any supply issues, delays, change of formula, batch quality issues, etc with the Smalls, you still have that other food to fall back on until those issues are resolved. I would skip dry food altogether. Look into timed feeders for covering those times when you are away or asleep.

When picking a cat food, the ideal recipe will be meat, moisture, organs, and supplements, in that order. Dry food, being dry, fails miserably on the moisture. It also has a large number of plant-based ingredients that are poorly digested by cats. Cats are not omnivores. They must get their nutrients from meat or animal sources. In some cases, they lack the enzymes to utilize plant sources of nutrients altogether. Any cat food that has flaxseed or carrots should be put back on the shelf because cats can't convert either plant-based omegas nor plant-based vitamin A (beta-carotene) into the forms their bodies need. Knowing this, I would rather feed my cat a supplement mix than a veggie mix knowing that she could assimilate the supplements rather than guessing which of the veggies she can tolerate/digest/convert/assimilate.

Two more things to keep in mind: "by-products" is just another word for organ meat. I wish they chose something more appealing. But it is a regulated definition that only allows for organ meats. It's not a mystery meat and it's not leftovers like lips and buttholes. And the second thing, not all gums are equally bad. Carrageenan and agar agar are known irritants. Those should be avoided. Xanthan gum makes smooth foods smooth. And for cats (and people) who are sensitive to xanthan gum, it also makes their poops smooth. If you try a food (or a treat like those tube treats) that gives her runny stools, check the label for xanthan gum. Obviously this doesn't affect all cats or it would have been pulled by now. Guar gum is perhaps the most benign of the gums and it may actually be beneficial as a pre-biotic. I don't really have an opinion on cassia or locust bean gum. (No news is good news, right?)

 

[daftcat75]

One more thing: try to avoid fish. It's highly appealing and some cats will hold out for only fish. Fish isn't an ideal food for cats and it's often a trigger for allergies or intolerances. And if you feed fish regularly, you lose that nuclear option when you need to hide medicine in food or you need to restart a sick cat's eating. Those two cases are my exceptions to "don't feed fish." And once those exceptional cases are resolved, I would go back to a non-fish diet.

 

[princessmom]

Thank you so so much everyone for your responses! I read through all of them thoroughly. My next step will be taking her to the vet! I know her last check up was back in 2017 but everything was okay then.

I have one more question in response to what daftcat75 suggested! Is it common to switch over to wet/fresh food all together? I have been rehydrating the "organic freeze dried chicken" but haven't looked into a healthy brand for wet food if that is the case.

Again, thank you!

 

[daftcat75]

Thank you so so much everyone for your responses! I read through all of them thoroughly. My next step will be taking her to the vet! I know her last check up was back in 2017 but everything was okay then.

I have one more question in response to what daftcat75 suggested! Is it common to switch over to wet/fresh food all together? I have been rehydrating the "organic freeze dried chicken" but haven't looked into a healthy brand for wet food if that is the case.

Again, thank you!

Any brand of wet food that has the AAFCO statement (something similar to, "This food is nutritionally balanced and complete for all life stages") will be better than your organic freeze-dried chicken treats. Meat is not complete. If meat is the only ingredient, that's not a balanced and complete food. You can use a small amount of those treats to help with the transition to a complete food. But ultimately, those should not make up more than 10% of her diet.

Cats can be picky and may disagree with you on healthy and high quality. Pick up a few grocery store brands. Popular brands are popular with cats. They wouldn't be on the shelves otherwise. Get her eating a balanced and complete wet food diet first. This is so much more important than obsessing over which brand or recipe. Right now, feeding her treats and calling it food is so much worse than feeding her a "low quality" wet food--as long as that wet food is nutritionally balanced and complete.

 

[Babypinkweeb]

Everyone gave great advice already but I just wanted to let you know I'm in the same situation with a much older cat.

I was foolish and didn't do my research when I first adopted my boy around 9 months old and have fed him dry kibble his entire life. Early on I tried to give him some canned food but he's always been such a grazer that it didn't work out. The majority of his life he ate Royal Canin dry which I now know is basically garbage. He is 11 this year, and he is as healthy as can be, maybe healthier than me! I think it's really down to the cats own immune system and body health at the end of the day but it's better late than never. I've done a ton of research in the last 2 month after falling down the rabbithole of cat nutrition and am now transitioning him to the best wet food I can afford. He still needs me to make the kibble scooping motions and plop down a few pellets onto his wet before he digs in, but it makes me feel better that he's basically eating mostly wet now.

I'm happy for the both of us that we had a wake up call late than never! It's great that you care so much about your baby, and I'm sure she will appreciate it!

 

[princessmom]

Everyone gave great advice already but I just wanted to let you know I'm in the same situation with a much older cat.

I was foolish and didn't do my research when I first adopted my boy around 9 months old and have fed him dry kibble his entire life. Early on I tried to give him some canned food but he's always been such a grazer that it didn't work out. The majority of his life he ate Royal Canin dry which I now know is basically garbage. He is 11 this year, and he is as healthy as can be, maybe healthier than me! I think it's really down to the cats own immune system and body health at the end of the day but it's better late than never. I've done a ton of research in the last 2 month after falling down the rabbithole of cat nutrition and am now transitioning him to the best wet food I can afford. He still needs me to make the kibble scooping motions and plop down a few pellets onto his wet before he digs in, but it makes me feel better that he's basically eating mostly wet now.

I'm happy for the both of us that we had a wake up call late than never! It's great that you care so much about your baby, and I'm sure she will appreciate it!

(I laughed at imagining both of us falling down rabbit holes on this! I definitely did, too.) Thank you so much I’m so happy to hear he is healthy! It gives me hope and made me so relieved to hear.