Vital Essentials freeze dried raw

[msserena]

So I have been using this brand off & on for a couple of years now. I buy the nuggets & crush them up, put water on it & make a slurry. I have always felt "rocks" when mixing it up with my fork. I wrote the company after I picked out good sized chunks of bone & they told me in 2022 that they had much feedback about the bones & were going for a smaller grind. I just bought some bags a couple months ago & I am again picking out pea sized chunks of bone.

Does anyone else do this?

My logical brain is telling me, bone that is freeze dried isn't going to rehydrate in a minute or two. I can't imagine that going through my cats guts, it would be like glass I think. I am also concerned that someone will crack a tooth trying to chew it, so I pick them out. The pics attached are just from one feeding.


On Monday, October 31, 2022, 06:34:35 AM PDT, Hailey Lajeunesse <[email protected]> wrote:
Hello,
Thank you for your recent purchase of Vital Essentials and we appreciate your feedback regarding the bones found in the food. I am happy to say that our production and quality assurance team has been hard at work to achieve a smaller bone grind in our entrees. The teams have been successful with this endeavor, so new products being made will have minimal to non-existent visible bone pieces. This was done largely in response to the feedback received from pet parents such as yourself and the uneasiness of feeding their pets food containing larger pieces of bone.

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Best regards,
Hailey

On Sun, Oct 30, 2022 at 9:35 AM msserena <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi again, I did think of something else I wanted clarification on.

I have been feeding the chicken and turkey freeze dried to my cat the last few months. I've been noticing pea sized chunks of bone pretty much in the chicken. My understanding of freeze dried is, everything is ground up, the moisture is removed, then it's packaged.

When we rehydrate, bone is hard, I don't see how that would soften. It concerns me that these chunks are so big. I can imagine it's like glass going through their guts, which probably isn't the case but that's why I wanted to hear about the bone chunks from you all. I've actually been picking them out. Little ones are fine but the bigger ones, I don't want her breaking a tooth or something trying to crack it before swallowing it.

Thanks

 

[Jabzilla]

I wouldn’t feed that food anymore if I were you. Those bones would be okay if they were surrounded by and attached to meat, like a chicken neck. The fleshy meat would protect the cats from any pointy bits of bone. Finding large pieces of naked bone in the food is quite concerning. That’s one of the many reasons why I make my cats food myself. Most commercial raw food has too much bone overall and in this case, too large chunks of naked bone.

If you want a freeze dried food with bone, I recommend the grinds from Hare Today. I got a bag of their freeze dried rabbit grind and there weren’t any bone chunks in it. It’s finely ground into almost a powder. My cats get a small amount of that every month or so as a part of their homemade rotation.

 

[msserena]

I wouldn’t feed that food anymore if I were you. Those bones would be okay if they were surrounded by and attached to meat, like a chicken neck. The fleshy meat would protect the cats from any pointy bits of bone. Finding large pieces of naked bone in the food is quite concerning. That’s one of the many reasons why I make my cats food myself. Most commercial raw food has too much bone overall and in this case, too large chunks of naked bone.

If you want a freeze dried food with bone, I recommend the grinds from Hare Today. I got a bag of their freeze dried rabbit grind and there weren’t any bone chunks in it. It’s finely ground into almost a powder. My cats get a small amount of that every month or so as a part of their homemade rotation. View attachment 474503View attachment 474504

I didn't know they did freeze dried, haven't bought from them in years. Yes I will give it a try, thanks!

 

[Jabzilla]

You're welcome, glad I could help! =D

 

[lisamarie12]

I wouldn’t feed that food anymore if I were you. Those bones would be okay if they were surrounded by and attached to meat, like a chicken neck. The fleshy meat would protect the cats from any pointy bits of bone. Finding large pieces of naked bone in the food is quite concerning. That’s one of the many reasons why I make my cats food myself. Most commercial raw food has too much bone overall and in this case, too large chunks of naked bone.

If you want a freeze dried food with bone, I recommend the grinds from Hare Today. I got a bag of their freeze dried rabbit grind and there weren’t any bone chunks in it. It’s finely ground into almost a powder. My cats get a small amount of that every month or so as a part of their homemade rotation. QUOTE]


That's interesting re: Hare Today freeze dried raw. When I fed HT almost 10 years ago, they didn't have a fd raw option for cats, I'm going to give it a try. For the turkey on the HT site, it indicates there isn't more than 10% bone which is still a bit high for a cat but no doubt lower than the commercial fd raw for cats.

I also was using VE, primarily the rabbit and occasionally chicken fd for my cat, mainly because it is one of the few fd raw options that doesn't include dry kelp in their products and was lower in iodine than other fd raw (hyperT cat), however, I suspect the bone % is higher than 10% because my 14 year old cat was getting constipated on it.

Anyway, thanks so much for the HT info, I'm going to give it a try.

 

[lisamarie12]

Oops, my post was hidden:

That's interesting re: Hare Today freeze dried raw. When I fed HT almost 10 years ago, they didn't have a fd raw option for cats, I'm going to give it a try. For the turkey on the HT site, it indicates there isn't more than 10% bone which is still a bit high for a cat but no doubt lower than the commercial fd raw for cats.

I also was using VE, primarily the rabbit and occasionally chicken fd for my cat, mainly because it is one of the few fd raw options that doesn't include dry kelp in their products and was lower in iodine than other fd raw (hyperT cat), however, I suspect the bone % is higher than 10% because my 14 year old cat was getting constipated on it.

Anyway, thanks so much for the HT info, I'm going to give it a try.

 

[Jabzilla]

Yeah! I'm glad Hare Today has expanded their freeze dried options, though I wish they used a bit less bones for cats. I really like that their ground rabbit is the entire rabbit with all of the organs, minus the stomach and fur. That's the closest mix I've found that uses more than just liver, heart, and kidney. I wish they would make a version that's does contain the head and fur too. I've been slowly trying to get my cats to accept whole prey as food, but it's slow going. True Carnivores up here, thankfully has ground whole quail which is very helpful. Hopefully one day in the future we will have ground and freeze dried foods for our cats that are literally whole prey via using the entire rabbit, mouse, quail, rat, Guinea pig, etc.

I also like that the Hare Today freeze dried foods dont contain anything added as well. You dont have to worry about too much of any vitamin/mineral supplement being added. I do wish their other ones (namely chicken, duck, and turkey since they're smaller animals) used more organs though. Only rabbit uses the pancreas, thymus, lungs, head (eyes and brain) etc. It's the inclusion of all organs, blood, meat, etc that would make the food truly complete without a need for using supplements to make up for missing nutrients.

 

[msserena]

Yeah! I'm glad Hare Today has expanded their freeze dried options, though I wish they used a bit less bones for cats. I really like that their ground rabbit is the entire rabbit with all of the organs, minus the stomach and fur. That's the closest mix I've found that uses more than just liver, heart, and kidney. I wish they would make a version that's does contain the head and fur too. I've been slowly trying to get my cats to accept whole prey as food, but it's slow going. True Carnivores up here, thankfully has ground whole quail which is very helpful. Hopefully one day in the future we will have ground and freeze dried foods for our cats that are literally whole prey via using the entire rabbit, mouse, quail, rat, Guinea pig, etc.

I also like that the Hare Today freeze dried foods dont contain anything added as well. You dont have to worry about too much of any vitamin/mineral supplement being added. I do wish their other ones (namely chicken, duck, and turkey since they're smaller animals) used more organs though. Only rabbit uses the pancreas, thymus, lungs, head (eyes and brain) etc. It's the inclusion of all organs, blood, meat, etc that would make the food truly complete without a need for using supplements to make up for missing nutrients.

I looked up the True Carnivores website, saw the ground quail. It doesn't say anything about whether it's frozen or what. I can't imagine grinding up a dead animal & just packaging it & then shipping it. I would think it would be dripping in blood. YUCK. This is why I deal with freeze dried food. LOL I've fed raw before, even bought feeder quail & couldn't deal with the yellow liquid coming out & other things coming out when my cats played with them first. Too messy for me.

I thought freeze dried food is supposed to be whole animal, that is my understanding. Wysong is whole animal, VE is whole animal. I prefer that they add taurine at the minimum, don't want to worry about my cats not getting vital nutrients they need. What I don't like is Primal & S&C because they add way too much "fluff" stuff, things to me that are not necessary. Plus my cats don't like them anyway. I also checked out the Hare Today freeze dried & will probably not go that route because there are no supplements in them. My cats won't eat anything with Alnutrin or fish oil so I can't add that stuff to any food lacking in them.

 

[Furballsmom]

Have you tried Northwest Naturals? The bag states it's 98% chicken, organs and bone. I'm not seeing anything on their website regarding bone so I sent in a communication with them, although it's been mentioned on this site that their bone content is lower than S&C (10%) and Primal, with NWN at about 7%.

I like the nuggets (they call them Nibbles) - I haven't found any issues with fragments, each nugget crumbles nicely.

 

[Jabzilla]

I looked up the True Carnivores website, saw the ground quail. It doesn't say anything about whether it's frozen or what. I can't imagine grinding up a dead animal & just packaging it & then shipping it. I would think it would be dripping in blood. YUCK. This is why I deal with freeze dried food. LOL I've fed raw before, even bought feeder quail & couldn't deal with the yellow liquid coming out & other things coming out when my cats played with them first. Too messy for me.

I thought freeze dried food is supposed to be whole animal, that is my understanding. Wysong is whole animal, VE is whole animal. I prefer that they add taurine at the minimum, don't want to worry about my cats not getting vital nutrients they need. What I don't like is Primal & S&C because they add way too much "fluff" stuff, things to me that are not necessary. Plus my cats don't like them anyway. I also checked out the Hare Today freeze dried & will probably not go that route because there are no supplements in them. My cats won't eat anything with Alnutrin or fish oil so I can't add that stuff to any food lacking in them.

I haven't looked into Wysong, but Vital Essentials isn't the entire animal. If you read the ingredients, its a combination of muscle meat, bones aren't listed but they're clearly in there, gizzard for ducks, liver and one or two other organs. Some batches such as duck dont even have heart listed on there at all. Pork doesn't have heart listed either, just meat spleen and liver. Their rabbit is the closest thing to being the whole animal since it has meat, liver, heart, lung and kidney. Chicken and turkey are both meat, heart, and liver. That's why when I say the whole animal, I literally mean the entire animal. rather than meat, bone, and a few of the organs.

The ground quail at True Carnivores is frozen. They sell whole quail chicks and whole adult quail. For the longest time those were their only options. It's been maybe a year or 6 months now that they've offered the ground whole quail as well. I defrost it and divide it into ice cube trays for small amounts that later defrost quickly and I feel less bad about potentially being wasted as I continue to try to teach my cats that they're food. When its defrosted, I dont find the ground quail to be any more bloody than any of the other fresh meat that I feed to my cats. Quail are still small birds, so there isn't blood gushing everywhere, lol. Speaking of which though, I found a place that's a whole animal butcher shop that sells dehydrated blood flakes for dogs. I ordered a bottle of pork blood flakes, but my cats rejected it. It's now another item on the list of things to slowly teach them is food, since blood is an excellent source of heme iron.

Anyway, at one point True Carnivores had cryogen freeze dried quail chicks. I got a bag of those and one of my cats accepted them after a bit. There wasn't any blood or other fluids to seep out since the bird had been freeze dried. My hope is that they will one day accept whole feeder quail, mice, rats, and rabbit. I know it'll be messy to clean up, but I would be happy to feed them their natural prey. I just require the feeder prey to already be euthanized. I know some folks raise their own feeder animals for their cats/ferrets/snakes/whatever, but I don't want to kill an animal to feed it to my cats. As long as it's alive, the animal isn't in the food category.

 

[msserena]

Have you tried Northwest Naturals? The bag states it's 98% chicken, organs and bone. I'm not seeing anything on their website regarding bone so I sent in a communication with them, although it's been mentioned on this site that their bone content is lower than S&C (10%) and Primal, with NWN at about 7%.

I like the nuggets (they call them Nibbles) - I haven't found any issues with fragments, each nugget crumbles nicely.

I bought all their varieties when the product came out, my cat ate all of them, then over time she stopped. Typical.

 

[msserena]

I haven't looked into Wysong, but Vital Essentials isn't the entire animal. If you read the ingredients, its a combination of muscle meat, bones aren't listed but they're clearly in there, gizzard for ducks, liver and one or two other organs. Some batches such as duck dont even have heart listed on there at all. Pork doesn't have heart listed either, just meat spleen and liver. Their rabbit is the closest thing to being the whole animal since it has meat, liver, heart, lung and kidney. Chicken and turkey are both meat, heart, and liver. That's why when I say the whole animal, I literally mean the entire animal. rather than meat, bone, and a few of the organs.

The ground quail at True Carnivores is frozen. They sell whole quail chicks and whole adult quail. For the longest time those were their only options. It's been maybe a year or 6 months now that they've offered the ground whole quail as well. I defrost it and divide it into ice cube trays for small amounts that later defrost quickly and I feel less bad about potentially being wasted as I continue to try to teach my cats that they're food. When its defrosted, I dont find the ground quail to be any more bloody than any of the other fresh meat that I feed to my cats. Quail are still small birds, so there isn't blood gushing everywhere, lol. Speaking of which though, I found a place that's a whole animal butcher shop that sells dehydrated blood flakes for dogs. I ordered a bottle of pork blood flakes, but my cats rejected it. It's now another item on the list of things to slowly teach them is food, since blood is an excellent source of heme iron.

Anyway, at one point True Carnivores had cryogen freeze dried quail chicks. I got a bag of those and one of my cats accepted them after a bit. There wasn't any blood or other fluids to seep out since the bird had been freeze dried. My hope is that they will one day accept whole feeder quail, mice, rats, and rabbit. I know it'll be messy to clean up, but I would be happy to feed them their natural prey. I just require the feeder prey to already be euthanized. I know some folks raise their own feeder animals for their cats/ferrets/snakes/whatever, but I don't want to kill an animal to feed it to my cats. As long as it's alive, the animal isn't in the food category.

I don't know where you're looking but it's pretty clear to me that the whole animal is used - read 1st ingredient.
Chicken, chicken heart, chicken liver, herring oil, mixed tocopherols (preservative), vitamin E supplement, zinc amino acid complex, iron amino acid complex, copper amino acid complex, manganese amino acid complex

They take the chicken, grind it up & then add heart, liver & other things to give it more vitamins & balance it out. That's what I get out of it anyway. There is even a little picture that states: WHOLE ANIMAL PROTEIN.

They're all like that Duck, duck gizzard, duck liver, herring oil, mixed tocopherols (preservative), vitamin E supplement, zinc amino acid complex, iron amino acid complex, copper amino acid complex, manganese amino acid complex.

They grind up the duck then add the other things listed. When it states whole animal, I would think they grind up the entire animal. They are pretty good about questions so I will send an email - stay tuned!

The FAQS on the bottom of their website also list this

What are the percentages of meat, organ and bone in your food?
Our complete and balanced frozen and freeze-dried food is formulated as a Prey-Model Diet which is based on 45% meat, 45% organ and 10% bone. We follow these percentages as a general guideline when crafting our food, however these percentages may vary based on the specific protein in each of our recipes.

That's good to know the ground quail is frozen, wish they would say that on the website! I just might order some & see what my cats think. There are plenty of ferals running around so if my cats don't eat it, I can always give it to the outdoor cats. They're happy to get any type of food.

 

[Jabzilla]

I don't know where you're looking but it's pretty clear to me that the whole animal is used - read 1st ingredient.
Chicken, chicken heart, chicken liver, herring oil, mixed tocopherols (preservative), vitamin E supplement, zinc amino acid complex, iron amino acid complex, copper amino acid complex, manganese amino acid complex

They take the chicken, grind it up & then add heart, liver & other things to give it more vitamins & balance it out. That's what I get out of it anyway. There is even a little picture that states: WHOLE ANIMAL PROTEIN.

They're all like that Duck, duck gizzard, duck liver, herring oil, mixed tocopherols (preservative), vitamin E supplement, zinc amino acid complex, iron amino acid complex, copper amino acid complex, manganese amino acid complex.

They grind up the duck then add the other things listed. When it states whole animal, I would think they grind up the entire animal. They are pretty good about questions so I will send an email - stay tuned!

The FAQS on the bottom of their website also list this

What are the percentages of meat, organ and bone in your food?
Our complete and balanced frozen and freeze-dried food is formulated as a Prey-Model Diet which is based on 45% meat, 45% organ and 10% bone. We follow these percentages as a general guideline when crafting our food, however these percentages may vary based on the specific protein in each of our recipes.

That's good to know the ground quail is frozen, wish they would say that on the website! I just might order some & see what my cats think. There are plenty of ferals running around so if my cats don't eat it, I can always give it to the outdoor cats. They're happy to get any type of food.

Thank you for asking them! I'm very suspicious of companies with food since I've seen many of them selling raw food that they claim is balanced or claim is the whole animal, but when you read the ingredients, they very clearly aren't. Thats why I like that Hare Today specifically lists all of the parts of the animal that are included. An example of this misleading marketing can also be seen here Back 2 Basics Duck With Bone - 1lb Portions from $4.99/lb (truecarnivores.com) and their ground turkey of the same brand, which looks like they're currently sold out of. Both the duck and turkey are called duck w/ bone and turkey w/ bone, which would make you think its duck/turkey meat and ground bone. (Organs wouldn't be expected in this case since their Back to Basics brand is supposed to be a meat base to use for making your own food) But if one didn't read the ingredients, you wouldn't know that the duck is just duck frames, which is whats left over once the good meat has been removed from the duck. It's mostly bone with some scraps of meat on there. For their turkey w/ bone, it's just ground turkey necks, not turkey breast/thigh/leg and bone. I dont trust companies enough to believe that just listing chicken, for example means literally a whole bird. Just saying chicken could be anything from necks, thighs, breast, legs, feet, wings, etc since all of those things are indeed chicken. But a food made from just wings and feet and labled as chicken wouldn't be as good as a food made with breast and thighs.

This dressed quail Prepared Quail - Raw Whole Quail without Feathers (truecarnivores.com) is very different from this actual literally whole quail Whole Prey Quail - True Carnivores. Both are labeled as whole quail but one doesn't have any of its organs, no head, etc. In that case its easy to see the difference but if those were both ground freeze dried nuggets, they could both very easily be called whole quail despite the dressed quail not actually being the whole animal at all and unless the company straight up said which one was made with dressed quail and which one wasn't, there'd be no way to know the difference.

I hope that makes sense. I've learned a lot from making my own cat food and continuing education about nutrition and the make up of different cuts of meat. The more I learn, the more I doubt that companies are using the best cuts of meat available. The fact that the vast majority of commercial raw food has too much bone is already a red flag and shows their cost cutting by using more boney pieces of meat instead of the more expensive muscle meat. I'm looking forward to hearing what Vital Essentials says!

 

[msserena]

Thank you for asking them! I'm very suspicious of companies with food since I've seen many of them selling raw food that they claim is balanced or claim is the whole animal, but when you read the ingredients, they very clearly aren't. Thats why I like that Hare Today specifically lists all of the parts of the animal that are included. An example of this misleading marketing can also be seen here Back 2 Basics Duck With Bone - 1lb Portions from $4.99/lb (truecarnivores.com) and their ground turkey of the same brand, which looks like they're currently sold out of. Both the duck and turkey are called duck w/ bone and turkey w/ bone, which would make you think its duck/turkey meat and ground bone. (Organs wouldn't be expected in this case since their Back to Basics brand is supposed to be a meat base to use for making your own food) But if one didn't read the ingredients, you wouldn't know that the duck is just duck frames, which is whats left over once the good meat has been removed from the duck. It's mostly bone with some scraps of meat on there. For their turkey w/ bone, it's just ground turkey necks, not turkey breast/thigh/leg and bone. I dont trust companies enough to believe that just listing chicken, for example means literally a whole bird. Just saying chicken could be anything from necks, thighs, breast, legs, feet, wings, etc since all of those things are indeed chicken. But a food made from just wings and feet and labled as chicken wouldn't be as good as a food made with breast and thighs.

This dressed quail Prepared Quail - Raw Whole Quail without Feathers (truecarnivores.com) is very different from this actual literally whole quail Whole Prey Quail - True Carnivores. Both are labeled as whole quail but one doesn't have any of its organs, no head, etc. In that case its easy to see the difference but if those were both ground freeze dried nuggets, they could both very easily be called whole quail despite the dressed quail not actually being the whole animal at all and unless the company straight up said which one was made with dressed quail and which one wasn't, there'd be no way to know the difference.

I hope that makes sense. I've learned a lot from making my own cat food and continuing education about nutrition and the make up of different cuts of meat. The more I learn, the more I doubt that companies are using the best cuts of meat available. The fact that the vast majority of commercial raw food has too much bone is already a red flag and shows their cost cutting by using more boney pieces of meat instead of the more expensive muscle meat. I'm looking forward to hearing what Vital Essentials says!

wow well I'm learning things from you! Thanks At least the website lists that it's no organs or just duck frames. When I saw that I was like what the heck is a duck frame. Had no idea about stuff like that! I guess it's always good to read the fine print.\


I did get a response - here it is:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2024 at 07:38:25 AM PDT, Vital Essentials Customer Service (Carnivore Meat Company) <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Lori,

Thank you for your email regarding Vital Essentials. Vital Essentials entrees, including toppers, are formulated to duplicate the vital and essential nutrients common to all prey species. We use whole animals in making our foods, which contain meat, organs and bone. You will find ground bone in our food that may vary in size, but is consumable by your fur family members. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Kindly,
Vital Essentials Customer Service
Phone: 800-743-0322

This email is a service from Carnivore Meat Company. Delivered by Zendesk
On April 23, 2024 at 1:15:14 PM UTC, lori b [email protected] wrote:

Form: Contact Us
Submission: 5896873135191117851
Email: [email protected]
Message: Hello, I know on the freeze dried cat food there is a little picture that states Whole Animal Protein. What exactly does that mean? To me it means you take the entire animal & grind it up. Head, lungs, feet, everything. Please clarify.
Thanks

 

[Jabzilla]

No problem! They sold duck frames as RMB’s for dogs at TC. I don’t know if they still do, but that’s how I saw what they were. Thanks for sharing Vital Essentials answer. It’s pretty unsatisfactory imo. You asked a specific question and they gave a vague response. They didn’t actually say what they mean by whole animal. So I definitely wouldn’t assume it’s literally the entire animal in their food. I would say if the ingredients list “duck, gizzard, and liver plus supplements” then that’s all it is. By duck, it sounds like it’s just whatever duck meat and bone, not the entire animal. If it’s a dressed duck, a duck frame, or various cuts, we don’t know. Their vague answer is suspect imo. That doesn’t mean the food is bad. The fact that they didn’t answer your very specific question is telling though.

 

[sophie1]

Yes, I think you're entitled to conclude that the amount of bone in that food is likely very high. Still, they may be evasive for legal reasons rather than trying to hide something.

I got a similar answer from Viva Raw, but I finally decided to try the food and use my cats' poop, vomit frequency, and urine (via the Pretty Litter indicator) to get an idea of the bone content. None of the badness has returned, like I saw with the Nature Variety medallions (15-20% bone).

 

[Furballsmom]

In case it was missed, I'm repeating my comment from above;

Have you tried Northwest Naturals? The bag states it's 98% chicken, organs and bone. I'm not seeing anything on their website regarding bone so I sent in a communication with them, although it had been mentioned on this site that their bone content is lower than S&C (10%) and Primal, with NWN at about 7%.

I like the nuggets (they call them Nibbles) - I haven't found any issues with fragments, each nugget crumbles nicely. Their rep stated that their cat formulas have 6-8% bone in the recipes.