Mitten's Morsels?

ladytimedramon

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So I received a sale email from a pet food store and went to check out to see if they had what I wanted. Their "store brand" called Mitten's Morsels popped up.

It looks interesting, but I can't find ANYTHING on it anywhere but the store's website.

Has anyone seen or tried it?

It's supposedly made in Canada with US sourced food. This is the info on one of their items:

Water Sufficient For Processing; Chicken; Meat By-Products; Fish; Animal Liver; Turkey; Wheat Gluten; Poultry By-Products; Natural Flavors; Salt; Guar Gum; Potassium Chloride; Sodium Tripolyphosphate; Added Color; DL-Methionine; Vitamins (Thiamine Mononitrate; Vitamin E Supplement; Niacin Supplement; d-Calcium Pantothenate; Pyridoxine Hydrochloride; Riboflavin Supplement; Vitamin A Supplement; Biotin; Vitamin D3 Supplement; Vitamin B12 Supplement; Folic Acid); Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate; Zinc Oxide; Copper Proteinate; Potassium Iodide; Manganese Sulfate; SodiumSelenite); Choline Chloride; Taurine; Carrageenan.
Guaranteed Analysis:
Crude Protein (Min) 11.0%; Crude Fat (Min) 4.0%; Crude Fiber (Max) 1.5%; Moisture (Max) 78.0%; Taurine (Min) 0.05%; CALORIE CONTENT (CALCULATED): 1;091 kcal ME/kg; 93 kcal ME/3 oz can. Mitten's Morsels Chunky Chicken Entrée cat food is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profiles for growth and maintenance.


Thoughts?
 

Maurey

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Doesn't look great, imo. Unspecified meat byproducts is generally a poor quality ingredient. Fish as a 4th ingredient also isn't great; both due to the fact that it's just 'fish' without any particulars (fish species, what part of the fish), and the fact that fish shouldn't be fed as a primary diet (phosphate, heavy metal, addiction concerns). For similar reasons, 'animal liver', 'turkey', 'chicken' (instead of specified parts of the animal), and unspecified 'poultry byproducts' isn't great, and indicates poor protein source quality.

This wet food also contains carrageenan, which is almost universally considered a harmful thickener in cat food, and is to be avoided, on top of guar gum, which is the most allergenic/IBD-triggering of the 'gum family' used in cat food thickening. On top of that, this food finds the need to *also* add in wheat gluten, which has no nutritional value, and is yet *another* thickener.

I'm also highly skeptical when cat foods feel the need to add colourant and natural flavourings -- probably a reflection on the fact they use so little quality meat that a cat wouldn't eat it otherwise.

For the nutritional breakdowns. On a DMB, this food is 50% protein, which is passable, though I'd suggest something closer to the 60-70% range, 18% fat, which is pretty standard in wet foods, ~7% Crude Fiber. By elimination (and it's very shady that they don't outright state their DMB for everything), this food has a very high (for a wet food) 25% carb load -- you want to be feeding no more than 10%, maybe 15% carbs, with under 5% being ideal for most cats.

Wouldn't recommend buying this food, if for no other reason than it containing carrageenan (and generally poor quality ingredients).
 
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ladytimedramon

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Thanks ya'll.

I figured I'd ask about it before I even decided to try it. I just find it odd. Its supposedly been around a couple of years and there is no info about it beyond pet supplies plus.
 

Sean35

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Yeah, this is one of the Pet Supplies Plus house brands. Redford Naturals is another one, and seems to be more upmarket that Mittens Morsels. I bought the Redford Naturals for the ferals once, and they only showed interest when it was below freezing outside and they were less picky.
 

millita

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My 3 cats love it. But I only give it as a treat, not as a maintenance food.
 

LisaOH

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I just received this can cat food as a replacement. If it says 'animal liver' exactly what animal might that be? I'm a little hesitant to feed it when it also states imported products.
 

AJ16

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My cat got a few teeth removed and ever since, she is hungry but is really really picky with what she will eat. She basically only wants cat treats and fancy feast broth. She's lost some weight, so I have been trying all different food to get her to eat. I bought the Mittens Pickins Turkey Dinner in Gravy from Pets Supplies Plus and it's the only food so far that she actually ate ALL of! I did a Google search to see who else sells it since it's out of stock now and saw this post. I don't know if it's a good or bad food, but my picky cat loves it! For now anyways!
 

Babypaws

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I think Mittens is actually Pet Supplies Plus “store brand”. I tried a few cans for my cats but they wouldn’t eat it. I didn’t care for the appearance either.
 

LTS3

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Mitten's Morsels is only sold at Pet Supplies Plus stores. It looks like you can order online and pick up in store or have it delivered: Mitten's Morsels

If it's the broth and texture your cat likes, try Weruva or Soulistic or Tiki Cat. Petco's Whole Hearted Brand includes some food in broth (video comparison here).
 

Caspers Human

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While I don't think this food is terrible, it does seem like a run-of-the-mill store brand.

I'm not opposed to by-products as an ingredient but, still, by-products can mean almost anything.
When a meat processing plant finishes taking all the meat from a carcass, anything left over is considered "by-products." It could be scraps of meat that were too small to be sold on their own. It could be entrails and organs. It could have pieces of bone or cartilage in it. It might even be chicken feathers. As part of the whole, by-products aren't bad but there needs to be some whole meat to fill out the menu. What happens, here, is that meat processing plants sell off the leftovers after processing the rest of the meat for human consumption. Meat companies make a few extra bucks selling stuff that would normally be thrown away. Pet food companies save a few bucks buying leftovers instead of whole meat.

Gluten, starch, guar, carrageenan or similar things aren't bad, by themselves, but they are all based on starch. Starch isn't particularly good for cats. A little bit is okay to use as a thickener or to add texture but more than a small amount isn't good for cats. Their digestive systems aren't designed to handle so much starch and sugar.

Ingredients wise, it's "Not great but not terrible." If you look around, you can easily find better.

I like Pet Supplies Plus. It's a nice store and, in my area, it is better than PetSmart or Petco. The employees are nice and more helpful than the other places. I think store brands are okay. After all, a company does have the right to sell its own products. No problem with store brands.

My disagreement with store brands is subtle. Anybody can commission a product and sell it with virtually nobody looking over their shoulder to be sure that they are doing things right.

If you wanted to go into the cat food business, all you would need is to call up the right people, sign some contracts and pay the right amount of money and you could be in business in a short time. You won't have to buy a factory. You won't have to hire employees. You won't have to buy ingredients or raw materials. You don't need to buy machines, trucks or anything.

There are factories out there that do nothing but make products on contract. Some businessman calls them up and says, "I need 10,000 cases of frozen pizza." Contracts are signed. Money is paid. Trucks, filled with pizzas, start rolling out of a warehouse, somewhere, and delivering them to grocery stores.

I used to work in factories like that. One place I worked at made:
Screamin' Sicilian Pizza
Oprah Winfrey pizza
Tyson Chicken bites
Kellogg's Breakfast Bagel sandwiches
Devour microwaveable sandwiches
Red Baron French Bread Pizzas

All these nationally known food products were made in one building, on the same assembly lines by the same people. The only real difference is what label they slap on the box before they ship it out.

I know because I used to be the assistant "Label-slapper-on-er!"

Do you think that Rachael Ray ever touched that can of cat food that you just bought at the grocery store? She probably never even touched one! Her manager probably just showed her some pictures and gave her a few product samples to look over for approval and that's the last she's ever seen of it. She just cashes the royalty checks and that's it!

Did you know that Bobby Flay just signed the contracts to sell cat food under his name? He's probably cashing those fat paychecks, right now!

You don't know who actually made that can of cat food you're feeding your cat. You don't know where it was made or what goes into it. It could, literally, have come from some guy chopping up dead cows out back of his garage.

At the end of the month, when contracts run out, people like Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay will just find a new factory to make their cat food for them. Unless you know how to read the codes on the back of the can, you'll never be able to tell where your cat food was actually made. The labels, the cans and even the cardboard cartons that the product comes in are all virtually identical. You can't tell them apart unless you know what to look for.

We feed Casper food made by Purina. While it's not the greatest cat food, it is made in a factory owned by Ralston Purina and somebody there is responsible for overseeing production.

With some store brands, you never know what you're getting.
 

Flybynight

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I see what you are saying Caspers Human Caspers Human .
I think with pet food though, it is generally made in factories that produce pet food.
So at times more than one brand is produced there but I don't think it is the norm they would use the same production lines as for people food such as pizza.
But more than one make produced in a factory yes. Including store brands that may mimic name brands or brands sold abroad under different names. Different small producers using the same production facilities yes.
 

Caspers Human

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No, pet Food would never be produced in a facility that makes human food. If that ever happened, the place would probably get shut down in a heartbeat!

Pet food factories are similar to human food factories in terms of logistics but the rules are completely different.

The place where I worked made human food, not pet food.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear about that.
 

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So I received a sale email from a pet food store and went to check out to see if they had what I wanted. Their "store brand" called Mitten's Morsels popped up.

It looks interesting, but I can't find ANYTHING on it anywhere but the store's website.

Has anyone seen or tried it?

It's supposedly made in Canada with US sourced food. This is the info on one of their items:

Water Sufficient For Processing; Chicken; Meat By-Products; Fish; Animal Liver; Turkey; Wheat Gluten; Poultry By-Products; Natural Flavors; Salt; Guar Gum; Potassium Chloride; Sodium Tripolyphosphate; Added Color; DL-Methionine; Vitamins (Thiamine Mononitrate; Vitamin E Supplement; Niacin Supplement; d-Calcium Pantothenate; Pyridoxine Hydrochloride; Riboflavin Supplement; Vitamin A Supplement; Biotin; Vitamin D3 Supplement; Vitamin B12 Supplement; Folic Acid); Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate; Zinc Oxide; Copper Proteinate; Potassium Iodide; Manganese Sulfate; SodiumSelenite); Choline Chloride; Taurine; Carrageenan.
Guaranteed Analysis:
Crude Protein (Min) 11.0%; Crude Fat (Min) 4.0%; Crude Fiber (Max) 1.5%; Moisture (Max) 78.0%; Taurine (Min) 0.05%; CALORIE CONTENT (CALCULATED): 1;091 kcal ME/kg; 93 kcal ME/3 oz can. Mitten's Morsels Chunky Chicken Entrée cat food is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profiles for growth and maintenance.


Thoughts?
The brand is fine. There’s a lot of scare tactics used by savvy cat food companies that market themselves as wholistic, organic, etc. And their primary method is to tell you why all of the main brands are trash so that you only buy their premium quality brand for $3.50 a can or if you’re really trendy: raw food.

None of them tell you the truth about their own products. None of them mention that almost none of their claims are backed by peer reviewed studies, etc.

There are plenty of articles that debunk a lot of the premium pet food claims and plenty of vets who are willing to give better perspective.

My cats eat Mitten’s Morsels (along with other brands) and they love it. Here is why I went this route:

when I got my first kitten, I got him a premium brand dry food that was top rated on all the websites and supposed to be high protein. He blew up like a balloon and developed an addiction to carbs. I switched him to canned food and fed him per the can recommendations. He stayed chubby, (although seemed a lot healthier and thinner out in the face).

I found myself spending hundreds of dollars per month buying the top rated pet foods for both my cats. When the recession was at its peak and cat food prices were jumping by a 3rd or even doubling, I just couldn’t afford it any longer. I started researching cat foods and found that the brand matters much less than the individual product offering. (For example, FancyFeast’s Turkey Pate may be highly rated with great nutrition and better ingredients, whereas the same brand’s Chicken may be less quality). I started finding individual products within my budget. But even those prices started going up.

When I found Mitten’s Morsels, I was skeptical. But when I read the nutrition facts, I saw that they were very close to most of Purina’s mid-level offerings (Purina One, certain Fancy Feast items, etc.) and it was 10-20 cents cheaper. I started testing it out on my cats. They have been eating it for a year now and are totally happy with it.

Both of them are at optimal weight, don't have any gastrointestinal issues and they have tons of energy. Their coats are just as smooth and shiny as they were on the premium brands.

Here's the thing: all of the claims about people's cats not liking certain foods has very little to do with quality. Cats don't have the same aversions that we have. But cats are picky about smell, texture, etc. And they don't like what they don't like. Cats have personalities and each cat is different. Both of my cats love different things. Both of them rejected different premium products. Had nothing to do with the quality.

Also, most of the comments about unspecified meat byproduct and "fish" are irrelevant. Cats do not eat like humans do. I have watched my cats attack a bat and eat it from head to toe. Humand care what goes into their food in a different way than cats do. We think about how it looks and smells and what is normal to eat in our culture. But that had zero to do with nutritional value. Many of the most nutritional parts of foods are left out of our diets because culturally, we just don't eat them. Those things get labeled as byproduct and end up in pet food. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Fancy pet food companies have learned to market food to your taste buds, not your cat's. It has nothing to do with nutrition.

That being said, Mitten's Morsel's is fine and probably better than several other brands.

DISCLAIMER:
Yes,I do know that some cheap brands are absolute junk food and your cat should almost never eat them. And yes,I know in most cases, the most average cat food is 100% better than the best dry food.
 

travisj

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Correction: the most average wet cat food is better than the best dry food.
 
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