Trying To Avoid Seafood And They're Making It Difficult!

[lsanders]

We try to avoid giving our cats any seafood-flavored foods. Occasionally, we'll give them some seafood we are eating (like a bite or two, or the liquid from a can of our tuna as a rare treat), because I was told that seafood has little nutritional value for them, it's bad to give them the contaminants (mercury and other stuff) that's in it, and they can like it so much that they won't eat anything else.

We're switching wet food from Wellness to...still trying to determine what. They've decided that they won't eat paté, and Wellness doesn't have enough options of non-seafood, non-paté foods.

We're considering Weruva- they have lots of non-paté, and on the surface, lots of non-seafood, but a couple of them have fish oil as an ingredient. It's usually at least the fifth or sixth ingredient, but if you were trying to avoid seafood (for the reasons we are and not for a specific allergy or sensitivity issue), would you worry about it?

 

[darg]

Fish oil contains Omega-3 fatty acids which is generally recognized as a good thing. As long as the source of the fish oil is good, it shouldn't be an issue and it's not the same as feeding a fish based diet. If it's far enough down on the ingredients list it's not like the food is loaded with it. I know that some of the homemade cat food feeders add salmon oil or other fish oil to the cats food.
Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to feed a know, good quality cat food that contains some fish oil.

 

[DreamerRose]

I have to avoid fish because Mingo is allergic, but my vet actually recommended fish oil to help grease hairballs through and to improve their dry skin.

 

[lsanders]

Oh duh, that’s all true. Ok, I feel better about it. Thanks!!

 

[LTS3]

If you're trying to avoid all seafood, even fish oil, give this handy chart a try: Check This Out.... Chart For Cat Food Ingredients

 

[ailish]

I tried to avoid fish for about two years and finally gave up. Ailish loves the fish-based Weruva foods and she gets a pretty good rotation of different fishes and non-fish. I try to do two non-fish to one fish. I feed her good quality foods always, and hope for the best. I felt that I was overthinking when it came to food and just decided that variety was the best bet to avoid issues with individual ingredients.

 

[Rini]

I tried to avoid fish for about two years and finally gave up. Ailish loves the fish-based Weruva foods and she gets a pretty good rotation of different fishes and non-fish. I try to do two non-fish to one fish. I feed her good quality foods always, and hope for the best. I felt that I was overthinking when it came to food and just decided that variety was the best bet to avoid issues with individual ingredients.

This is what I do. I purchase Weruva cans and pouches variety packs and they do include some fish flavors. I just try to balance them out so he gets maybe 1 fish flavor every other day and poultry/beef the rest of the time.

When I buy single flavor packs, I always make sure it's non fish. He seems to like poultry and beef better anyway. He's iffy about salmon, will sometimes eat tuna and seems to enjoy mackerel. He won't touch any kind of seafood flavor pate--shreds/chunks of fish only.

It's a high quality brand so I worry less. I'd never feed him an all fish diet, especially from a lower end brand.

 

[divyanka2111]

Even the chicken food I give my cat contains 'ocean fish'. It's hard to avoid completely because it seems to be almost everywhere. I wouldn't worry about mercury contamination, as many cats do fine eating seafood.