New Tiki Cat line of wet food (Gourmet Carnivore)

[goholistic]

Tiki Cat has come out with a new line of canned cat food called Gourmet Carnivore that uses organ meats in an attempt to "replicate a true wild prey diet." Here's the news release: http://www.na-sd.com/SAND/October-2013/New-Gourmet-Carnivore-Cat-Food-Launched/

What drew me to this food was the fact that is has NO carrageenan, NO guar gum, NO xanthan gum, and NO cassia gum. Hallelujah! 

  In fact, it doesn't contain any of the ingredients that I have been avoiding for so long (flaxseed, kelp, dried egg product...the list goes on).

Since Sebastian is on his beef rotation, I purchased a small case (only 8 cans) of the Beef and Liver flavor from PetFlow to try. It's definitely an interesting food. This particular flavor has beef, beef lung, and beef liver. You can easily decipher what is what. The lung looks like lung. The liver looks like liver. The beef is shredded. The lung and liver chunks are rather large, however...IMO, too large for a cat to eat comfortably and I had to cut them up for Sebastian. The liver is very dense. It was mostly lung and liver and broth.

I was only giving him a tiny bit. He likes it and licks the bowl clean, but I'm almost wondering if it's too rich for him. He didn't always come back to the kitchen after eating it, which he usually does, so perhaps it upset his tummy.  

  Since this food essentially contains organ meats, is it possible that it's a little rich for him?

I think it's great that Tiki Cat has come out with this new line since their original foods are almost all fish. You can view all Gourmet Carnivore flavors on this page of PetFlow (scroll down a little).

I do wonder if there is too much organ meat in some of these foods, though. The Chicken and Liver flavor, for example, uses only chicken liver, chicken gizzards, and chicken hearts...no muscle meat (please correct me if I'm wrong in my terms). Also, I'm not sure I like seeing "dextrose anhydrous" in the ingredients list, which is basically sugar. And my final gripe....it's super expensive.

All-in-all, I'm on the fence. I really like their idea of replicating "a true wild prey diet" in a canned food (how convenient!), but I don't know that I'll re-purchase based on my few complaints and the cost.

What are your thoughts?

 

[vball91]

Raw feeders consider gizzards and hearts to be muscle meat because they are not secreting organs like liver, kidney, spleen, etc. I do wonder if the liver is still too high as it seems to be the first ingredient.

I really dislike Tiki's marketing on this new food. "The Ultimate Wild Prey Nutrient Profile?" Which wild prey is composed of 50% liver, gizzards and hearts?

 

[goholistic]

Oh, okay...gotcha. Good to know. Would you feed a meal entirely of, say, chicken hearts and chicken liver? Yeh, it seems their percentages don't actually match a true prey model diet, right?

Yes, there is a lot of liver in the flavor I purchased. And from what I learned of everyone, liver is pretty high in certain vitamins. Even if it worked out really well for Sebastian, I wouldn't feed this food on a regular basis, but in rotation once or twice a week is probably fine.

It's interesting to hear the opinions of raw feeders about this. I wonder if Tiki Cat consulted with raw feeders. Or, since their target market is really canned feeders, perhaps they figure they don't know any better. 

 

[vball91]

Frankenprey raw feeders aim for about 80% muscle meat (which includes gizzards and hearts), <10% bone, 5% liver and 5% other secreting organ like kidney which is supposed to model small prey like rodents. So would I feed a meal of just hearts and liver? Sure, probably as one meal (maybe two depending on how the numbers worked out) in a week of meals balanced overall.

 

[remmiebrandt]

I don't know but it seems like a lot of sugar & fat - olive oil & dextrose are high up in the ingredient list - it also contains copper sulfate which all their foods do - another controversially toxic ingredient. I'd also like to know where they sourced the calcium from - is that phosphate coming from rock or bone ? Bone from deceased animals can be a problem depending where its sourced from - and this is made in Thailand isn't it? My cats tried it to mixed reaction - the chunks were too big and they kept spitting them out or carrying them away like they were prey - then leaving them all over the place. So they really weren't eating most of it. They didn't seem to love the juice either and normally when they get food with gravy they lick that up too - I think maybe it was too oily for them. When I opened the first can I made a mess all over my clothes because I wasn't expecting so much liquid in the can - be careful if you try this brand. There is a lot of liquid in it and not much solid food. It looks like my cats would need about 4 of these or more to feel full. But because of the copper sulfate & the olive oil & dextrose - I would feed this only as a supplement and certainly not daily. My cats aren't even really sure what to do with it. At least there is no mendione in it. And this is the first grain free food product I have seen that isn't filling up with toxic cranberries - from the oversupply that farmers have - despite them containing benzoic acid - and no deadly yucca extract or rosemary extract or those other ridiculous ingredients - vegetables and fruit and starches. So its better than a lot of the so called premium grain free brands but I'm not sure it is entirely healthy and I'd have to grind it or cut it cut it up for my cats too. Plus yeah - its really expensive considering how many cans you'd need to feed a cat since there seems to be only a couple spoon-fulls of actual food in the cans.

 

[alistair]

They look like decent formulas on paper but the price is a blatant rip-off! Around 40% of the can is liquid and organ meats are less expensive than muscle meat.

Prices like this are exactly why I feed half home made raw (Hare Today) and half canned from Hound and Gatos

 

[smartyfoj]

I was wondering how you guys felt about the chicken and turkey flavor. Here is a link http://www.petflow.com/product/tiki...rain-free-chicken-with-turkey-canned-cat-food.

I didn't see any mention of anything but chicken and turkey unlike the beef flavors that say liver and lung are included.

I feed the chicken from the original tiki cat line and all our cats like it.

 

[alistair]

For only 5% turkey, I would keep feeding the chicken and just add a little of your own turkey. Would be much more economical.

I used to get the Chicken and Egg Tiki before I found out that both my cats don't do well with chicken and at least they put a lot of meat in the can.