Is there any canned food without MSG, Natural Flavor, ect - I don't know what to give him now.

[claud]

Does there exist a canned food that has simple ingredients fully disclosed?  Like Tukey, carrots, peas, taurine, the end?

I live in the USA. I was giving this little guy Newman's Organics, but they have at least one controversial ingredient. I really trusted that brand, and at the moment will put him back on it until I figure out what to do.

I tried Organix Dry (& no I wont use dry anymore) and when i phoned them about "natural flavor" they told me it was enzymes and (?I forget the other just now) for "palatability". When I looked those up with MSG I found those ingredients when mixed with protein create MSG.

So I also would give him Turkey Wellness, but not much and gave him more for several days when I ran out of the Newmans and he erupted with welts all over his chest and legs. The vet thought it was allergic reaction.

I now check the Wellness and found "natural flavor" I phoned the company and they said "I am not allowed to tell you what it is."

I got out of her that it is added for "palatability" and that it is vegetable matter broken down with enzymes" She said she could not tell me any more. I asked why. I said all the other ingredients are plainly listed on the label and she said it's for "proprietary reasons" and it was not allowed.

That that ingredient comes from a third party and they wouldn't allow Wellness to disclose what the specific ingredients were. I told her my kitty is FIV positive and he has sensitivities to certain vegetables but she kept reading her script.

She was quite polite but that's not the point . I had used Wellness on and off for years. With my other cats that I had before. I hate to think I was feeding them MSG and maybe that contributed to their deaths.

Why do they have to add this #*&* to the food? Why?

TLR   

Does there exist a canned food that has simple ingredients fully disclosed?

I can't feed raw ( I would) because he is FIV pos.

Is there any food that has no controversial stuff?

Is there any fresh food that can be bought and cooked made for cats? (Pre-made specifically for cats)

Has anyone tried cooking their cat food? And is it difficult to get them all the nutrients?

 

[claud]

*He has not had any bad reaction to the Newman's and seems quite well on it but it has carrogen?  And so now I am looking for an alternative.

 

[burkey]

 
Does there exist a canned food that has simple ingredients fully disclosed?  Like Tukey, carrots, peas, taurine, the end?

Navigating the commercial cat food choice is challenging, at it's best. I have asked this same question...why so much junk? There are a lot of good canned cat foods out there, but in my opinion, none of them are perfect. It comes down to picking the one that best meets both your individual cat's needs, and your dietary preferences for him/her.

Here are a few brands you might want to take a look at, to see if they might be a good fit for your cat....

ZiwiPeak

Hounds & Gatos

Weruva

Tiki

By Nature

Some of the shredded varieties (like Weruva and Tiki, for example), tend to be a bit lower in calories than the pate style. Just something to keep in mind, as you may have to feed a little bit more than you might be used to.

 

[claud]

Great. Thank you very much for taking the time to write this.

i will definitely look at those brands.

You are right, no one food will be perfect.   If we made the canned food it would be.   That's because we LOVE cats.

I am starting to consider doing a bit of each. Finding some semi decent canned food and also cooking (I'll give it a shot) some of his food.

I am reading through the other posts here also. (I didn't realize veg and fruit in their food was bad for them.)

Thank you for your help.

 

[claud]

 semi decent canned food

No, that didn't come out right.

I will find the very best canned food I can.  ( I meant considering none of them seem to be completely free of some problem ingredients)

 

[burkey]

 
Great. Thank you very much for taking the time to write this.

i will definitely look at those brands.

You are right, no one food will be perfect.   If we made the canned food it would be.   That's because we LOVE cats.

I am starting to consider doing a bit of each. Finding some semi decent canned food and also cooking (I'll give it a shot) some of his food.

I am reading through the other posts here also. (I didn't realize veg and fruit in their food was bad for them.)

Thank you for your help.

You're welcome!

Veggies & fruit aren't automatically bad for cats.... they just can't utilize them as efficiently as they do protein & fat.  Provided that it's not a problem ingredient for your cat, a small bit of vegetable matter in the food can be perfectly ok in most situations. But at the same time there are foods that are fully-loaded with veggies, fruits, grains...which means as a result they have less of the protein & fat that cats thrive off of.

I have certain criteria that I look for in canned foods.... A) zero grains, B) carbs under 10%, under 5% even better (catinfo.org has a great chart), C) a short ingredient list with words I recognize and minimal vegetable/fruit...but not necessarily zero.  I'd like to eliminate the various gums & carrageenan too, but that's difficult if not nearly impossible when feeding a commercial canned diet.

Everyone's opinions will be slightly different, which makes sense..... it's a matter of deciding which ingredients you like/don't like, what makes your cat healthy & happy, and what fits your budget.  I wish there were one magic answer, as it would make things easier for me too.

You can definitely feed canned and home-cooked at the same time. However, it's very important that whatever you are cooking is nutritionally complete... so utilize the home cooking / raw forum. There's lot of great info to be had over there.

 

[chromium blues]

The only cooked food I can think of is Urban King, but I don't know if that will work for you. I don't see anyone else talking about it here, so maybe its not all they boast it is...I don't know much about it.

 

[LTS3]

 
Has anyone tried cooking their cat food? And is it difficult to get them all the nutrients?

You can try cooking meat with a product called U-Stew. U-Stew is a premix that contains all of the vitamins and minerals a cat needs. You just cook the meat of your choice, add in the premix, stir and feed. Leftovers can be frozen.

Here's a simlar cooked recipie using the TC Feline premix: http://tcfeline.com/2010/08/16/cooked-meat/

 

[Willowy]

There are other pre-mixes beside U-Stew if you decide to homecook. Check out the homecooking resources thread for more info.

I just wanted to point out that many foods contain natural glutamates. Unless he's particularly sensitive to glutamates you don't necessarily have to avoid foods with those ingredients.

 

[raintyger]

If you have the time and energy, head over to the Raw and Homecooked Forum. Lots of knowledgeable members there who will help.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/263751/cooked-recipes-thread

 

[claud]

Wow, you are very helpful people. I've gotten jaded so this is so nice. I like the format of this site too.

So, I've copied everyones advice to my notebook and will be looking at all of them.

At the moment I have decided to give him the Newmans Organic Turkey, add Newman's Organic Chicken , and also try Tiki Chicken with Turkey.

Newmans has carageen, and Tiki is not organic. But I have to feed him something. I am done with Wellness, which I used to love, but I am 80% certain it is what is causing his hives.  On Newman's they go away.

I will also attempt to cook some food for him. I have to read more. I will look at all the options and stuff you can add. In the meantime I think I will just try cooking a little chicken breast, free range because I'm paranoid, and just see how he digests that. He will have the canned so I don't need to worry about basic nutrients for now.

I'll read what people here say about cooking ground meat, like turkey, bison, etc. I gave him a very small amount of boiled ground bison once & he loved it and seemed okay with it. But you know, it could be a little hard to digest.   I mainly think if i can I would desire to give him a varied plan  but within a range like this. So if one is not perfect, he get's the other bits too. I also give him little amounts of organic kefir. i mean like a teaspoon several times a week. he likes it and I believe it helps his system.

 

[claud]

I have to tell you all - you couldn't possibly know but I have been going through the worst time of my life. It has been horrible. And I found this cat  2+ months ago starving.

I am having a hard time focusing, concentrating, but desperately want to get him healthy. He has FIV. I feel so tired sometimes, i am so slow thinking, but look and look online to figure it all out.

I am telling you this in my messy way to say You have made a very very happy difference to me.  You are sincere and lovely. It is good because I am using Evernote and I can just highlight and drag the relevant info to a note so I won't lose it.

Then I can follow up on your ideas and make notes, etc.

I feel way happier about his diet now,  I feel hopeful. I feel safe.  Like I've got a foot hold now. Cheers to all of you.

(PS I"ve put notes on each message with the thumbs up. )  

((((((((ALL OF YOU))))))))

 

[maureen brad]

I just found a canned food named Wild Calling. They are 96% meat , no by -products, no soy, corn etc. it does have guar gum but other than that just meat and taurine etc. They have Rabbit, buffalo, duck, salmon, Chicken & salmon, chicken, turkey and beef. My FIV cat does love it! If you can't find it in a local store I have seen it on Chewys.com.

 

[lisahe]

 
I just found a canned food named Wild Calling. They are 96% meat , no by -products, no soy, corn etc. it does have guar gum but other than that just meat and taurine etc. They have Rabbit, buffalo, duck, salmon, Chicken & salmon, chicken, turkey and beef. My FIV cat does love it! If you can't find it in a local store I have seen it on Chewys.com.

I'm glad your cats like them, Maureen... I think this is a love-it-or-hate-it food, with our cats on the other end of the spectrum from yours! Our two will pick at it, eat about a quarter of a can, and walk away, never to return. At least it wasn't an expensive experiment! I tried them on the poultry flavors but maybe I'll see if they'll eat beef or buffalo or something.

 

[raintyger]

Originally Posted by Claud  

I am telling you this in my messy way to say You have made a very very happy difference to me.  You are sincere and lovely. It is good because I am using Evernote and I can just highlight and drag the relevant info to a note so I won't lose it.

Then I can follow up on your ideas and make notes, etc.

I feel way happier about his diet now,  I feel hopeful. I feel safe.  Like I've got a foot hold now. Cheers to all of you.

(PS I"ve put notes on each message with the thumbs up. )  

((((((((ALL OF YOU))))))))

Thank you, Claud.

It's nice to hear that all this posting makes a difference.

 

[claud]

Thanks Maureen, It is encouraging that your FIV cat does well on it.  I've just looked at that site and they look really interesting. I'm ordering some today and give it a go. I might try one flavor and try that for a few weeks and see if these sores go away.  Then add in other flavors. I also bought some ground lamb, and am going to try lightly boiling it and see if he likes it. Thanks!

 

[claud]

Raintygear    

 

[bonepicker]

Wow, you are very helpful people. I've gotten jaded so this is so nice. I like the format of this site too.

So, I've copied everyones advice to my notebook and will be looking at all of them.

At the moment I have decided to give him the Newmans Organic Turkey, add Newman's Organic Chicken , and also try Tiki Chicken with Turkey.

Newmans has carageen, and Tiki is not organic. But I have to feed him something. I am done with Wellness, which I used to love, but I am 80% certain it is what is causing his hives.  On Newman's they go away.

I will also attempt to cook some food for him. I have to read more. I will look at all the options and stuff you can add. In the meantime I think I will just try cooking a little chicken breast, free range because I'm paranoid, and just see how he digests that. He will have the canned so I don't need to worry about basic nutrients for now.

I'll read what people here say about cooking ground meat, like turkey, bison, etc. I gave him a very small amount of boiled ground bison once & he loved it and seemed okay with it. But you know, it could be a little hard to digest.   I mainly think if i can I would desire to give him a varied plan  but within a range like this. So if one is not perfect, he get's the other bits too. I also give him little amounts of organic kefir. i mean like a teaspoon several times a week. he likes it and I believe it helps his system.

This is what I feed to give you more choices Pride rockstar rabbit, Natures Variety rabbit, nutro natural choice chicken or turkey chunky chicken loaf, wellness Devine Duos chicken/duck flavor, natural balance catatouille stew, weruva Peking Ducken, tiki cat puka puka chicken. I also feed two with carageenan in the rotation Merrick duck or chicken pate. I found ones that everyone likes with good ingredients and rotate them daily to avoid allergic reactions, boredom, recall issues etc. I feed NO dry.

 

[losna]

My cats love Wild Calling, so I recommend them as well.

I also recently discovered Grandma Mae's. You can see the nutritional info online: http://www.grandmamaes.com/formulas/cat-formulas-cans/

I have completely switched over to Mae's. I don't like the ingredient list as much as I like Wild Calling, and Sinbad and Tempest don't eat it with as much gusto - but something about this food has really improved Sinbad's health! He's struggled with respiratory infections since we adopted him ... we've had him on a ton of different medications and supplements from the vet, trying in vain to boost his immune system. None of which have done anything. But a week on Grandma Mae's and his breathing has completely cleared up. Just amazing. To test, we gave Sinbad a day of WIld Calling again and the respiratory distress started coming back.

I will note that it's not Wild Calling that causes it, he's had this problem no matter what he eats - until Grandma Mae's.  I have no idea what's in there that's doing it, but Sinbad can purr without spraying wet droplets everywhere now, so I give it a thumbs up.

 

[ldg]

I can't feed raw ( I would) because he is FIV pos.

C claud , as others have pointed out, you can make homemade - it doesn't have to be raw. There are cooked recipes in the Raw & Cooked Cat Food forum. If you're on a laptop, you should be able to see the sticked threads at the top of the forum. If you're on a mobile, switch the view to desktop so you can see those threads. As was already pointed out here, there are also supplements that make it quick and easy to make homemade cooked.

But I wanted to address this "can't feed raw" because your kitty has FIV. I feed my FIV+ cats raw food. I feel that sick cats, perhaps more than any others, need raw. Of course, it's a personal choice, based on experience. But the decision to do it in the first place was based on an evaluation of the risks vs rewards, and my having come around to an understanding that there is a lot of myth and fear surrounding raw feeding our pets. In fact, I switched to raw because of my cat with cancer (now in remission). I switched to raw during his chemotherapy, also supposedly a "no-no." Well, he's almost 3 years into remission from large cell lymphoma that presented as a massive mass in his stomach. To minimize the risk, I also give the cats probiotics: keep their stock of healthy bacteria strong! (I use a rotation of Nexabiotic, Natural Factors double-strength acidophilus+bifidus, and Renew Life Ultimate Flora (15 billion CFU) with Nutricology S boulardii).

I have three FIV+ cats in the feral colony. They eat canned food left out all day in the summer, they hunt, they eat garbage, they eat rotting deer a car hit.... raw food we provide our cats isn't going to be worse than that. :lol3:

We just moved, and went through an incredibly stressful time. It was hardest on my FIV+ boy (the inside one. He was rescued as a feral at "3 or 4" years old, and we brought him rather than release him as part of the normal TNR - he was so very ill at the time :heart2: ). He did develop a URI. I gave him Transfer Factor, Colostrum, upped his lactoferrin and thymus supplement, and I bumped up his lysine: it cleared up in 3 days.