Fancy Feast

Anyone here feed there kitties Fancy Feast? I'm thinking of starting my diabetic cat on it. They have low carb, high protein, no grain flavors. The carbs I calculated on one can is 5 carbs, which is pretty good.

Here are the ingredients and the guaranteed analysis:

Meat by-products, beef broth, beef, chicken, poultry by-products, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, guar gum, potassium chloride, salt, taurine, iron oxide, Vitamin E supplement, sodium nitrite (to promote color retention), thiamine mononitrate (Vitamin B-1), ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, Vitamin A supplement, copper sulfate, pyridoxine hydrochloride (Vitamin B-6), dicalcium phosphate, niacin, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement (Vitamin B-2), cobalt carbonate, Vitamin D-3 supplement, Vitamin B-12 supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), folic acid, potassium iodide, biotin.

Crude Protein (Min) 10.5%
Crude Fat (Min) 6.0%
Crude Fiber (Max) 1.5%
Moisture (Max) 78.0%
Ash (Max) 2.8%
Taurine (Min) 0.05%

I use fancy feast here as well as friskies not "the best" but it's the only wet they'll eat, so some is better than none

i do not have any diabetic cats though so i can't comment on the use the foods with one that does.

Originally Posted by LovesMyCats

Anyone here feed there kitties Fancy Feast? I'm thinking of starting my diabetic cat on it. They have low carb, high protein, no grain flavors. The carbs I calculated on one can is 5 carbs, which is pretty good.

Here are the ingredients and the guaranteed analysis:

Meat by-products, beef broth, beef, chicken, poultry by-products, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, guar gum, potassium chloride, salt, taurine, iron oxide, Vitamin E supplement, sodium nitrite (to promote color retention), thiamine mononitrate (Vitamin B-1), ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, Vitamin A supplement, copper sulfate, pyridoxine hydrochloride (Vitamin B-6), dicalcium phosphate, niacin, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement (Vitamin B-2), cobalt carbonate, Vitamin D-3 supplement, Vitamin B-12 supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), folic acid, potassium iodide, biotin.

Crude Protein (Min) 10.5%
Crude Fat (Min) 6.0%
Crude Fiber (Max) 1.5%
Moisture (Max) 78.0%
Ash (Max) 2.8%
Taurine (Min) 0.05%

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Fancy Feast is not a good food - it's kitty crack! notice the first ingredient is Meat by-products. Nobody really knows what's in that!

Most of us look for foods that have no by-products at all.

Sharky is our resident nutrition expert and if you do a search on this forum or even just look around at some of the threads you will find recommendations for many better foods than Fancy Feast and Whiskas.

Having said that, if FF is the only wet food your kitty will eat, it's better than no wet food, in which case it would be better to feed a really good dry food and FF as the wet food.

If my cat would only eat FF, I personally would keep adding a bit of a better food to the FF each day, gradually increasing the better food until he was weaned off the FF completely.

I don't like the "meat" by-products....when they don't name the meat, it could be anything. Pork, chicken, turkey, beef, roadkilled deer, euthanized horses, etc. It's a very low-quality ingredient.

But......Fancy Feast is the only canned food some cats will eat. And if you have to get water into them, well, it might be a necessary evil.

Try Natural Balance canned food. It's much better quality, and costs about the same.

Mine only want Fancy Feast and Friskies too. We've tried everything, and it's less stressful on all of us if they get the wet food they want. I threw away way too much expensive cat food trying to get them eating something else--some close to $2 a can I feel that it doesn't matter how good it is, if they won't eat it.

I have a FF addict too who is now supposed to be on K/D for early kidney disease. I don't know how I'm going to get her off the FF, but like someone else said, no food = no cat. Not a good solution.

My 14 y/o cat has been a Fancy Feast addict her entire life up to this point...when I learned that FF was junk, I tried to switch her to Wellness. FF is still the only thing that she'll eat consistently, but I am able to give her Wellness a few times a week and she eats that, but when she gets suspicious of it I have to mix in some FF. She also has early kidney disease so she's on a wet-only diet right now.

I don't like fancy feast in general, but Cindy loves it so she gets it as a treat once in a while. But the kind she likes is the elegent medleys, which at least has the meat by-product lower on the list. I call her my little junk food junkie (not unlike her momma).

With my first cat, I was ignorant and fed her Fancy Feast and Friskies dry. She lived to almost 20 with no illnesses at all until near the end.

However, when I adopted my current boy 8 months ago, I knew better and was determined to feed him better. I tried almost every premium wet food there is; he wants Fancy Feast (or Meow Mix) only. I DO give him Fromm and Taste of the Wild dry (he likes both), but he only
"snacks" on that--wet food is his major diet.

It's possible that he's just totally spoiled because when he was hospitalized for five days, the vet told me that they fed him Pro Plan, so I bought that, hoping he'd continue eating it. He did for about a week and then refused it completely. Somehow he knows there's Fancy Feast in the cupboard (OR that I'll give up at get it at the supermarket:-)

I'm getting so many mixed reviews. A diabetic cat site that I'm on says FF is okay and Wellness isn't. I'm so conflicted. I don't know what to put her on.

My cats get some Fancy Feast grilled chicken and I think its ok as it doesn't make up their whole diet. They enjoy a variety of drys as well.

Weird how addictive Fancy Feast is, huh? Mia would only eat FF Turkey Florentine for the longest time.. she would go on hunger strike if I tried something else, then she'd eat it like she'd never seen food before if I brought some home.
The fact that she liked it THAT much is actually what got me worried about it... didn't seem natural. Eventually I weaned her off it but it was tough. Not sure if this was relevant to the post, but basically my opinion is that FF is kitty crack, and I avoid it now because it seems to have some strange addictive quality.

Originally Posted by LovesMyCats

I'm getting so many mixed reviews. A diabetic cat site that I'm on says FF is okay and Wellness isn't.

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With a DIABETIC cat the food choices are important for different reasons. Its all about the protein and carbohydrates. I do not have a diabetic cat, but my friend does.

You are right about Wellness vs FF. Quality as for a "premium" food may be different, but the carbs are higher in the Wellness. So certain FF is better for diabetes.

This is a list of foods posted on a diabetic forum.

http://www.yourdiabeticcat.net/faqs/foodlist.htm

You are doing the right thing by getting the proper diet for a DIABETIC cat.

Best to you and finding a food your baby will do well on.

Originally Posted by Skimble

With a DIABETIC cat the food choices are important for different reasons. Its all about the protein and carbohydrates. I do not have a diabetic cat, but my friend does.

You are right about Wellness vs FF. Quality as for a "premium" food may be different, but the carbs are higher in the Wellness. So certain FF is better for diabetes.

This is a list of foods posted on a diabetic forum.

http://www.yourdiabeticcat.net/faqs/foodlist.htm

You are doing the right thing by getting the proper diet for a DIABETIC cat.

Best to you and finding a food your baby will do well on.

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I guess that's where I was getting confused because I'm a part of the your diabetic cat forum and they say FF is fine, but others say its not. Thank you for the vibes. I really appreciate them. What does your friend feed her kitty?

If you have a diabetic cat, and are considering feeding FF, please consider adding some quality grain free low carbs dry food to his diet, so that he can get proper nutrition... This way he could have the water from FF, and nutrients from the dry food.
The only good thing about Fancy Feast is really the water- the rest is pretty much junk.
Good low carb food examples (dry) are:
Orijen - 15% carbs from fruits and vegetables, also with ingredients that help to control insulin levels;
EVO Cat and Kitten - 50% protein, less than 7% carbs (this is the lowest carbs in dry food);
Wellness Core: Very high protein, low carb from potatoes, and fruits.

Out of these three, EVO has the lowest carb % in it...

Originally Posted by carolinalima

If you have a diabetic cat, and are considering feeding FF, please consider adding some quality grain free low carbs dry food to his diet, so that he can get proper nutrition... This way he could have the water from FF, and nutrients from the dry food.
The only good thing about Fancy Feast is really the water- the rest is pretty much junk.
Good low carb food examples (dry) are:
Orijen - 15% carbs from fruits and vegetables, also with ingredients that help to control insulin levels;
EVO Cat and Kitten - 50% protein, less than 7% carbs (this is the lowest carbs in dry food);
Wellness Core: Very high protein, low carb from potatoes, and fruits.

Out of these three, EVO has the lowest carb % in it...

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PLEASE if you can DO NOT feed a diabetic cat ANY DRY food ...

Wet food : FF is okay in small amounts IMHO ... some are grain free and animal by product s ... most have HIGHER than ave carbs in a wet food thou...

What is avail to you???

I know several on here with Diabetic animals go for wets with under 10% carbs ... I asked my vet and she said under 15%

Originally Posted by sharky

PLEASE if you can DO NOT feed a diabetic cat ANY DRY food ...

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Sharky - Sorry, can you please explain this? I though Diabetes was related to insuline and sugar levels, and not with water intake? Just asking -

Originally Posted by carolinalima

Sharky - Sorry, can you please explain this? I though Diabetes was related to insuline and sugar levels, and not with water intake? Just asking -

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remember the digestive aspect ... dry food is hard to digest and if a wet and dry have the same carb level the wet will NOT raise the glucose as much as the dry

Anything that PetSmart, Krogers, and Walmart sells is available to me.

Originally Posted by Skimble

With a DIABETIC cat the food choices are important for different reasons. Its all about the protein and carbohydrates. I do not have a diabetic cat, but my friend does.

You are right about Wellness vs FF. Quality as for a "premium" food may be different, but the carbs are higher in the Wellness. So certain FF is better for diabetes.

This is a list of foods posted on a diabetic forum.

http://www.yourdiabeticcat.net/faqs/foodlist.htm

You are doing the right thing by getting the proper diet for a DIABETIC cat.

Best to you and finding a food your baby will do well on.

Click to expand...

"By-products" in pet foods are a hot button for a lot of people. They automatically dismiss any food containing them as being "low quality". FF contains by-products therefore they consider it to be low quality.

I've never had a diabetic cat but my understanding is that it is critical to get them on a low carb,wet diet. I do have a friend who was able to not only bring her diabetic cat back from deaths door but was able to completely reverse her diabetes by switching to a low carb diet. Her cat no longer needs *any* insulin. The low carb diet was raw, not processed though.

If I had a diabetic cat I would make feeding wet foods with less than 10% carbs as my top priority and concerns about by-products be d**ned. I would feel it is much more important to relieve her current suffering from diabetes rather than be concerned that the food might not be absolutely the most nutritious available.

If I could find foods with less than 10% carbs that also didn't have by-products and that my diabetic cat would eat, I would definately feed that over FF.

Even though I'm more accepting of by-products in foods than others are, I still avoid feeding anything with by-products as the first ingredient.

I assume people on the other forum made clear that not *all* FF is low in carbs, right? It's the "Gourmet" line that is.