OMG I've become a cat food snob!

miao_kitty

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So there I was, standing in the pet food aisle at the supermarket, staring down the bags of dry cat food. Since dry food is not the main part of his diet, I just wanted to find something to hold my kitten over until I made it to Whole Pets (like a natural food store, but for pets!). It didn't matter if it was "natural", "wholesome", "real food", "heathy bites", "complete nutrition" etc. etc., all of them had the same first 3 ingredients: not meat, not meat and not meat. Well, ok, I guess they all had chicken meal in them (i'm not quite sure of what that is). Also included were: by-products, bone meal, fat-type things that sounded scary, wheat, corn, soy...I want to be careful because I'm trying to figure out if Luna is allergic to anything (wheat and soy in particular) so I am VERY hesitant buying that stuff.

Anyways, this got me to thinking. Why do I care so much about what my cats eat when I'm notorious for pigging out on fast food (tonight I had Wendy's)? Is it because they don't really have a choice on what they eat and they do not know the consequences for eating junk food? I definitely try to eat healthy in general, work out etc. especially if I regress and eat junk food occasionally. Does anyone else hold their pet's food standard above their own?
 

nekochan

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My pets eat MUCH better than I do! I usually won't let them have anything with corn, wheat, soy, chemical preservatives or by-products, even if it's just treats I always read the ingredients and only buy ones that are high-quality! Yet, I almost never read the ingredients of the foods I eat, although I do try to eat healthy I admit I eat 'convenience foods' at times and many things I would probably not even look twice at if it were a pet treat instead!

I was going to say that the main reason I am so careful about what my pets eat is that pets tend to eat the same food every day for a very long time, so it is important that food has proper nutrition and good quality ingredients. There are things that can be harmful over time if given all the time. However I realized that this doesn't explain why I am so careful about their treats too since the treats aren't given every day! I guess I just want to make sure I am giving them the best nutrition possible to help them be as healthy as they can. I suppose I should feel the same way about feeding myself, but I am just not are careful for some reason.
 

sakura

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I know what you mean. I am much more picky about the food that my cats eat than the food that *I* eat.

It's easy to make a cat eat healthy, not so easy to make yourself do the same.

 

faith's_mom

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In a way I guess I do...I can't afford a homemade diet, or RAW, but I do make sure that my pets get a decent premium food; cats, and dogs both.

Tonight, we had some fish for dinner, and all three of my kitties enjoyed an extra 'snack' too...ofcourse, I am sure they were wishin' that this wasn't just an occasional treat!!!
 

katya

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I'm that same way. Nothing but the best for my furkids, I hate it when I'm stuck buying grocery store brand foods, I'll read every ingredient in every bag before I pick out a bag of food for them.

Meanwhile I've been knows to scarf down plates of onion rings covered in gravy, pizza, cakes . . .

I just want my little ones to be healthy and to have them around for as long as possible.
 

Asteria

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Yep, my dogs and cats all eat much better than I do. I'm very careful with them and I feed the best food I can find. Now, me? I just ate mozarella sticks and fritos.
 

zenoah

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Kisa May has a horrid time with food. If I dont get the right kind, she throws it up. So far we've had good luck with Iams healthy narurals and, as my mom says, we've seen no sign of 'yak'


For a while we made our own cat food with boild chicken, but she did'nt like that...go figure...she's so picky...
 

creativgirl

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I can relate -- Rocky has grain allergies and Oliver needs to lose a couple pounds, so I'm very careful about what I feed them. They get Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance food, which so far they seem to like. Meanwhile I live on pasta, fast food, black coffee and Red Bull. . .
 

cathaus

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I'm notorious for wanting to get the best food possible, especially for my scottish fold. She barely has anymore teeth in her to chew so I try and get an in-betweener like the sheeba (sp?) canned stuff with gravy and actual slices of meat (can we say yummy duck?). I also try and find her the best souffle type foods with eggs and veggies.

Everyone else does fine on hard food but boy are they picky! They tend to really enjoy Natural Choice, Fancy Feast and the Good Life.

Our pooch gets Beniful healthy weight since she's prone to easily gaining weight. NOO people food for her though, ever, unless it's fresh cooked egg. Poor girl we learned has a sensitive stomach with ulcers
Learned that the hard way on a 6 hour ride home after my dad accidentally/lovingly gave her leftovers. 6 hour drive should have been only 3.5, but we had to keep pulling over to clean up the pooch pukes. She's all better now :p

Even our lizards get super gutloaded goodies before I feed them (which should be done anyway for best nutrition).
 

natalie_ca

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Originally Posted by miao_kitty

Does anyone else hold their pet's food standard above their own?
Yep! Me too!

It's no secret that money is really tight for me so I've had to make a strict budget. In order to get my grocery budget to stretch, I've been going without some things and buying no name brands of others. However, when it comes to my cats food and litter, I haven't made any changes. In fact I've increased my spending on cat food
I gave Abby a treat of Fancy Feast Grilled Salmon cat food for New Years and she loved it!

Up to that point she would only eat the w/d feline dry food from the Vets. However she's been packing on the pounds and I've been trying to get her to eat wet food.

So with the addition of Fancy Feast, on top of the Friskies for Chynna, and the bag of w/d Feline from the vets, I spend $72.00 per month on cat food.

I could buy them "junk" dry food from Safeway, but I want them to have good nutrition and food that they enjoy eating.
 

mrblanche

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I always try to keep in mind, however, what the natural diet of a cat would be.

There ARE historians who say that the domestication of the cat by the Egyptians was the last little step that allowed man to develop into an agrarian, stable society. They patrolled the graineries, allowing the Egyptians to safely store their grain until the next harvest.

OK, so what did cats eat? Mice and rats full of grain. If you think the cat ate around the grain, you've never watched a cat eat a mouse.

While cats are strictly carnivorous, they ate the whole animal and thus whatever the animal had eaten. This way, they DID eat grain and plant materials, ever since their original evolution.

To reject food with any grains in it is a little extreme, even if the intention is only the best.

We feed our cats Science Diet. Not because it's the best on the market, or because it has the most expensive ingredients, but because it's all Punkin will eat. He is one fussy eater! By the way, Science Diet dry food was one of the few untouched by the tainted food scandals last year.
 

sweetie kitties

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It's crazy how much more careful we are with our kitties than ourselves, because I am another one guilty of eating whatever is the quickest thing around, or skipping meals, and just not eating properly, but when it comes to my babies, they get the best. They only eat Prescription Diet, and occationally, they will get a treat. But only top of the line for them, for me, McDonalds!
 

misty8723

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I'm way pickier about what I feed my cats than what I feed myself. I'll read cat food labels, search the internet, etc. for hours. For myself? Wendys, Arbys, never read labels, etc.
 

forensic

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My cat and my rats both get the good, high quality stuff (or, as high quality as my wallet can take,
) And the dog does too, when I buy for her. Me? Mmmm.... donuts.
 

stormy

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I can't afford to get the best quality of canned food but I do make a point of getting the best dry food I can, lately I've been feeding them Blue Buffalo brand. They all seem to like it well enough, except for Spyder who won't eat any dry food at all.
 

sharky

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Originally Posted by mrblanche

I always try to keep in mind, however, what the natural diet of a cat would be.

There ARE historians who say that the domestication of the cat by the Egyptians was the last little step that allowed man to develop into an agrarian, stable society. They patrolled the graineries, allowing the Egyptians to safely store their grain until the next harvest.

OK, so what did cats eat? Mice and rats full of grain. If you think the cat ate around the grain, you've never watched a cat eat a mouse.

While cats are strictly carnivorous, they ate the whole animal and thus whatever the animal had eaten. This way, they DID eat grain and plant materials, ever since their original evolution.

To reject food with any grains in it is a little extreme, even if the intention is only the best.

We feed our cats Science Diet. Not because it's the best on the market, or because it has the most expensive ingredients, but because it's all Punkin will eat. He is one fussy eater! By the way, Science Diet dry food was one of the few untouched by the tainted food scandals last year.
Very good pts ... but SD had the FIRST tainted dry


I feed one homemade with a touch of dry ... one two drys since I dont agree with either fully and assortment of wets that often are $$ than my own ... but I eat like they do since if I didnt I would be VERY ill
 

mrblanche

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Maybe I'm wrong, but the only SD dry I find on the recall list is the prescription m/d, which is made in pretty small amounts, and was recalled AFTER everything else (March 30). Their wet food did have a pretty big recall, however, on March 17, along with a lot of others. The m/d was the only dry food they made that had wheat gluten from an outside supplier.

But I'm not crazy enough to think any of the manufacturers are immune. We were just lucky. We use the Science Diet Light Hairball Control. Which doesn't. Control hairballs, that is. It's just what Punkin likes.
 

laureen227

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yeah, i try to feed the best i can afford & that they will eat, especially dry, since i have 2 'dry food only' cats. Cable, Chip & Firefox get wet once a day, dry is out all day for everyone. i feed Chicken Soup, wet & dry, when i can get it at the feed store [sometimes they don't have any]. when i can't get it, i sometimes get Authority, or Nutro MaxCat, the 2 best i can afford at the pet store.
but i read labels even on people food, because i have several food allergies, & have to avoid stuff.
ETA: BTW, chicken meal is chicken with most of the liquid removed. it's a good ingredient, vs. chicken by-product meal, or even just regular chicken. having 'chicken' on the list first is misleading, because once the water is removed, it goes quite a bit further down the list.
 

kittytales

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Originally Posted by CatHaus

Our pooch gets Beniful healthy weight since she's prone to easily gaining weight.
You should take a look at the ingredients in Beneful.
 
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