Rich Hippie food + Corporate Conspiracy food = Healthy Cat

I wrote something about this in a separate thread but I figured it merited its own separate thread on which I could be flamed independently

I believe the best diet you could provide your cat is one in which you insure that the cat is receiving every last nutrient it's system could possibly take advantage of (while minimizing the bad stuff). As such, a good strategy would probably be to feed your cat both the expensive "all natural hippie diet", bought at whole foods of course, alongside a more traditional big-name premium cat food such as Purina Pro-Plan or the like.

The hippie food would include all of the OMEGA-3 and other "oddball" nutrients that might come in handy, and the big-name food would make sure to hit up all the other stuff on the AAFCO's list. Feed your cat half & half and you're bound to have covered all your nutritional bases (with high quality food from both categories, of course).

This is what I'll be doing with my kitty, anyway. The wet food will be traditional "premium" food, the dry food will be the Whole-foods type stuff.

Any big disagreement I should be considering here?

-Steve

I guess if you were going to do it in the hippie non vegetarian way a raw food barf diet that you would prepare would be the way to go.

I have problems with dry foods. I don't think they shold be fed to cats. One reason being the dehydrating factor as they are not natural big drinkers.

I don't know what is in the canned that you will be feeding but if it is cat food that you are buying from whole foods I would have no problkem with that.
I also have no idea why you think your post should be flamed
I will end this with--- peace and love

for many yrs my cats got grocery canned and dry about 50/50 .... NONE had medical issues till well into teens ( about 15 and 19 respectively)... Now grocery foods used to be half decent ( ie what today mid level true premium are)... Said cats also got table food and raw organs ...

Today, I read and double check all ingrediants .. those that will get regular raw ( daily) with grain free drys ... the others get grain free drys and mostly grain free wet ..

They do sell some less than premium IMHO at whole foods .... Mostly do to high grain levels and things like digest and corn in the foods ...

IMHO a true premium dry has no animal by products , no digests , no grd corn ( or very very little( ie no higher than 6th ingrediant) , grain/ starch to meat ratio is NO higher than 1.5 to 1 ( I prefer 1 to 1 or .5 to 1), no chemical preservatives and no artificial dyes

wet should have very little to no grain

Try and find a store that sells premium brands, Petco and Petsmart largely don't carry them.

Look for brands like Nature's Variety and Merricks for wet, look for stores that carry Innova Evo or Orijen for dry. Find that store and shop there.

Every single ultra-premium brand adds Omega's and they usually make a good point of it.
For example, Nature's Variety Instinct canned food has whole Flaxseeds in it.

Im a hippie too, so what I look for is companies that are far away from "corporate farming" and look for pet food companies to go to lengths to serve your cat the best quality "human grade" meat possible.

For me I feed kitties the above mentioned dry foods mixed together, and the wet foods I mentioned.

Originally Posted by Korina

Try and find a store that sells premium brands, Petco and Petsmart largely don't carry them.

Look for brands like Nature's Variety and Merricks for wet, look for stores that carry Innova Evo or Orijen for dry. Find that store and shop there.

Every single ultra-premium brand adds Omega's and they usually make a good point of it.
For example, Nature's Variety Instinct canned food has whole Flaxseeds in it.

Im a hippie too, so what I look for is companies that are far away from "corporate farming" and look for pet food companies to go to lengths to serve your cat the best quality "human grade" meat possible.

For me I feed kitties the above mentioned dry foods mixed together, and the wet foods I mentioned.

Click to expand...

Just a FYI on Human grade .. One there is no AFFCO or USDA description of it for pet food .. and many using it simple USE a human facility after hours ... Cats CANNOT digest whole flaxseeds ... they dont digest grd flax well either .. flax oil is great ...

Since most of the "'all natural hippie diet'" foods also meet the AAFCO standards, I'm not sure where the benefit comes in, except in saving money.

I'm not sure how doing it the 'hippie' way, will save any more than feeding super premium diets across the board; the last time I checked, in my area, atleast, Purina Pro Plan, and Purina ONE, along with other 'mid line' foods, were JUST as much, if not more than the premium foods I feed (Mine are currently on Solid Gold); and I go through much less per week on the super premiums, than I have on the mid priced ones. Earlier this fall I switched to some different 'cheaper' foods, and my cats went through them like wildfire through the bush...they just couldn't get satisfied (I had tried Diamond, Eagle Pack, and Authority); I have since gone back to Solid Gold, and it's been weeks, and they still haven't gone through half the bag.

Not sure, where that fits in with this thread, just that I think a 'half and half' type diet isn't going to save "that much" in regards to $$$...cheaper foods make a cat have to eat more to get satisfied, and mixing the two, may not get the desired result, anyway. I know that when you mix feeds for horses together, the nutrients just cancel each other out, so you wind up having to feed twice as much, to get the desired result; I'm not sure, but it 'could be' the same way when mixing different foods for our other pets.

Me, I would rather not mix different quality foods, and stick with what I know works for my kitties; they get wet food a couple of times a week, along with their free feed kibble.

Originally Posted by faith's_mom

I'm not sure how doing it the 'hippie' way, will save any more than feeding super premium diets across the board; the last time I checked, in my area, atleast, Purina Pro Plan, and Purina ONE, along with other 'mid line' foods, were JUST as much, if not more than the premium foods I feed (Mine are currently on Solid Gold); and I go through much less per week on the super premiums, than I have on the mid priced ones. Earlier this fall I switched to some different 'cheaper' foods, and my cats went through them like wildfire through the bush...they just couldn't get satisfied (I had tried Diamond, Eagle Pack, and Authority); I have since gone back to Solid Gold, and it's been weeks, and they still haven't gone through half the bag.

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I think perhaps the lower/midline go on sale more, but we paid $7 or 8 for a small bag of Purina 1 when we adopted our kitty from the shelter, and the Solid Gold we're transitioning her onto is only $1 or 2 more. I'll also ditto that the cat may eat less on a premium diet. We're currently up to half and half, feeding twice a day, and whenever I go to refill her food, there's still a bit left over, even though I've cut down her portion sizes due to the vet's advice.

For the wet "corporate conspiracy" food I had "Purina Pro Plan Selects" in mind.
For the dry "Rich hippie" food I had Innova Evo in mind

Both very high quality I believe.

-Steve

Originally Posted by SteveKukla

For the wet "corporate conspiracy" food I had "Purina Pro Plan Selects" in mind.
For the dry "Rich hippie" food I had Innova Evo in mind

Both very high quality I believe.

-Steve

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pro plan selects is IMHO great for purina but too grainy for a wet food and the Unknown liver in many formulas makes it a low end premium IMHO

Evo reads very very well and was the first of the grain frees IMHO no longer in the top five as other companies have made food that has less of a " issue" rate

Originally Posted by sharky

Just a FYI on Human grade .. One there is no AFFCO or USDA description of it for pet food .. and many using it simple USE a human facility after hours ... Cats CANNOT digest whole flaxseeds

... they dont digest grd flax well either .. flax oil is great ...

Click to expand...

I guess when I put faith in a company that says "human grade" I would hope they would use meat tested in fashions similar to humans.
I guess I latch on to that for reasons of safety and quality.

Hey, human grade for humans (USDA) isn't always perfect, remember that story this year where some slaughter house was caught using forklifts to take sick cows to slaughter, I think it lead to a huge human recall.
Or even remember after the gluten recall, they realized alot of human grade chickens were fed the same thing (and they decided by a narrow margin not to recall).

So as we spoke in the other thread, I would love to see a petfood company with open doors. Im not looking for the marketing or elitism of human grade food, just the safety. (although I LOVE to brag to my friends about my kitty's elite food, I know, i know, I take pride in being the crazy cat lady man)

Now as far as whole Flaxseed, Sharky, your breaking mine and Korina's heart.
She LOVES her NV Instinct, to the point where when she knows thats what she's eating she runs into my legs for NV chicken and rabbit (doesnt do it for anything else)

Now interestingly enough, Korina had some teeth pulled (feline gingivitis) and I abstained her from NV Instinct cans as I feared a flaxseed would get caught in her stiches in her gums.
And when I first bought NV Instinct cans I thought the whole flaxseed thing was for show/looks and marketing, my instinct screamed gimick at me, but as I said, Korina loved it so much I got over it quick.
Can you give me a link or PM me some more information on whole flax seeds and kitty cats. I want to review it and throw it by my vet.

Thanks again Sharky.