Question about brands of food...

i am currently feeding Monster Purina Kitten Chow and he gets 1/2 a can of Fancy feast twice a day.. i had always been under the impression that these were good brands, but after reading several threads about this i have seen that many of you dont think that they are good. i only want the best for him and if these foods can cause problems for him or arent of good quality then i want to get better food for him. what do you guys suggest?

Here is a thread I started for the WHAT and WHY folks feed

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...ight=cat+foods

These brands contain byproducts and other ingredients which are not something I would eat or feed my loved ones; I opt for premium brands containing "human grade" ingredients (the only exception being ProPlan, which I am trying to phase out, as it seems to upset two of my boys' stomachs) such as Nutro Max Cat, Natural Choice and Complete Care; Natural Balance; Optimum Nature's Recipe; Solid Gold Katz-n-Flocken; PetGold; Triumph; Trader Joe's; and the abovementioned ProPlan. All of these except Trader Joe's are obtainable at Petco, PetsMart, and other "pet" supply stores. Trader Joe's is the store's own private label.

You are not alone... When I was growing up we fed our two family cats "purina cat chow" because we thought it was a good food too... AND it IS good food when compared to some of the others that contain dye (which can make your cat throw up) or the semi-moist foods which are very bad for your kitty.

That said, when I adopted my first cat, Toby, I wanted to do some research and find out which brands of food were better for him.

I decided to go with Nutro Natural Choice dry, for several reasons,
1.) It's available at petsmart and petco as well as one other store in town "petland" (which I don't shop at). So, I know that if I travel and run out of food (or move) it should be available in my area.
2.) It is a deacent price (I usually get the 4lb bag on sale for $9.99). Which is cheap compared to some more expensive high-end foods.
3.) It comes in several types / varieties (I have two kittens that are on the kitten nutro right now and Toby is on weight managment). Especially, if you consider nutro MAX as well (it is a little cheaper than natural choice).
4.) Nutro usually has coupons fairly often (nutro reps come to various stores on a schedule and usually hand out or leave coupons). They also have a free trial bag promotion (check out the "free stuff" thread...can't remember the exact title of it). AND, they even had a $6 off a bag rebate a couple months back, which I just recieved in the mail.

Other than the dry (which is the staple of their diet), I feed a variety of wet foods... chiefly the petsmart "authority" and nutro "max" and "natural choice" although I do mix in the meow mix market selects cups and others for varietie's sake.

I have also heard great things about chicken soup for the cat lover's soul and I would feed it if it were available in my area... I emailed their customer service and recieved a free sample of the kitten, adult, and adult light formulas. It is also supposed to be a little cheaper than nutro and the ingredients look good to me.

HTH,
Art