The best of the worst?

My kittens currently eat Blue Wilderness canned food and are free-fed regular Blue dry food. They are 14 weeks old.

I'm going to have to cut down on my budget a bit and instead of putting them exclusively on dry food, which I do not want to do even in the worst case scenario, I'd like to get a cheaper wet food. There has been beaucoup discussions of less expensive wet food but I was wondering if there were any opinions on which is the least crappy of them. I do have a bottom line I'm trying to meet, but I'd rather cut other things than buy the worst food available to save money.

My main concern is sugar. When things get stabilized I intend to go back to higher quality food and don't want to have formed junk food addicts who refuse to eat the better stuff when they get it again.

What would you recommend as the best of the lower quality brands? Has anyone had difficulty transitioning back and forth between different qualities of wet food?

Thanks in advance.

How low are you looking at? Authority is pretty good and certainly cheaper than Blue Wilderness, but not in the lowest price range. Nutro canned food isn't bad, and not too expensive. And I've heard that Trader Joe's has a decent canned food.

Of the really cheap brands, Sophistacat is probably the best--no grains, artificial colors or flavors, or added sugar. There are also some Fancy Feast flavors that don't have the nasty additives but I'm not sure exactly which ones. But FF isn't really inexpensive.

I don't know what you're price range is - and I really don't know what those other brands mentioned cost to tell you the truth! I know that I feed Weruva, a lot of the time I get it on Amazon with Prime shipping by the case it breaks down to cheaper than my stores at about $1.50 ish a can. My mom and I split cases for flavor variety so we usually by 4 at a time

BFF is Weruva's "b line" and the ingredients are pretty good and it's cheaper. I used to feed the tiki cat sometimes with the Weruva, but it's only in the small cans in it's really expensive!

The Wellness isn't too bad - but I switched away from all Wellness after they got bought by Eagle Pac (plus their cans -at the time- were not BPA free).

The Newman's Own isn't supposed to be too bad but I haven't done any research on it myself so I can't say. Solid Gold (?) is also supposed to be okay.

I would definitely do some price comparison to Amazon with Prime shipping if you can - I know it saves me. Also look into Petflow.com - and google some coupon codes , sometimes they have freeshipping deals and % off

Originally Posted by parsleysage

My kittens currently eat Blue Wilderness canned food and are free-fed regular Blue dry food. They are 14 weeks old.

I'm going to have to cut down on my budget a bit and instead of putting them exclusively on dry food, which I do not want to do even in the worst case scenario, I'd like to get a cheaper wet food. There has been beaucoup discussions of less expensive wet food but I was wondering if there were any opinions on which is the least crappy of them. I do have a bottom line I'm trying to meet, but I'd rather cut other things than buy the worst food available to save money.

My main concern is sugar. When things get stabilized I intend to go back to higher quality food and don't want to have formed junk food addicts who refuse to eat the better stuff when they get it again.

What would you recommend as the best of the lower quality brands? Has anyone had difficulty transitioning back and forth between different qualities of wet food?

Thanks in advance.

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Nutro Max wet is reasonably priced. Nutro Natural Choice is pricier so if you're looking for a little budget relief, the Nutro Max would be a decent choice. Now and then I feed my feral cat some Sophisticat. I only feed it because it's the only other brand she will eat outside of the Nutro Max wet. It's a pretty decent food considering the price of it. I don't know much about Fancy Feast or Friskies. Now and then I'll pick up a couple of cans of Fancy Feast just for variety but it's so seldom I don't remember what the ingredients are like.

I also don't know how low of price range you want, but here are some options:

Sophistacat is $0.38 for a 5.5 ounce can. Most of the flavors are low carb (under 10%). The Poultry Platter flavor is probably the best - ingrediant wise. If you want to use other flavors as well, make sure to read the ingrediant list to see if they are using menadione in the food or not. If they are, that is something I would avoid, that stuff is nasty!

Trader Joe's has two non-fish flavors of canned food. It is their storebrand, so if you don't have a Trader Joe's near you, you probably can't get it. This brand doesn't have by-products and is $0.59 for a 5.5 ounce can.

Most flavors of Friskies canned I have looked at do contain menadione, but if you find one that doesn't then you could probably get that as well. Friskies is typically around $0.50 for a 5.5 ounce can.

http://ibdkitties.net/CommercialFood.html has a list of grain free/dairy free/ foods that you could look through as well.

Also, if you buy the bigger cans, it is cheaper. Most high quality 13.2 ounce cans, that I have seen, cost around $2.30.

Thanks everyone for the replies!!

I pay $1.39 per 3oz can of Blue Wilderness. (I KNOW! lol!) Keeping them on a can per day per cat runs me $80 a month and I'd like to cut that in half, ideally.

I would be fine to buy the 5.5oz cans as they will eat that in a day, but the 13.2 cans would take them up to 3 days to finish so that won't be as good of an option for me.

I do have a Trader Joe's nearby. They also have a fairly good variety at the Petsmart here, and I know it includes Sophisticat. I like that it's below 10% carbs so I'm thinking I may check it out. Are there other concerns with its ingredients? Meat by-products I'm thinking is the cause for its low price? I'll check them out.

Furryfriends, that was a great link. Thank you!

We've got 4 days left on the Blue so I'll be going shopping this weekend.

As I suspected, meat by-products are the cause for the low price of Sophisticat. Hmm, by-product just means non-muscle meat, right? Dr. Lisa at CatInfo.org says they're okay to feed, or better than dry anyway.

These are the foods/flavors I'd choose if I went with Sophisticat:

Beef & Chicken Dinner, Chopped Grill, Gourmet Chicken Dinner, Tender Beef Dinner, Tender Liver & Chicken Dinner, Turkey & Giblets Dinner.

A concern I have is that the flavors in bold list "Animal Liver" as an ingredient. I can't recall off the top of my head, but I remember reading a caution about that somewhere. Possibly at CatInfo, I'll have to check. Any opinions?

Furryfriends, there is menadione is Sophisticat brand foods, but only in 3 of the seafood flavors (according to this Petsmart document), which I will not be feeding.

I'm not sure why I mentioned Poultry Platter as a Sophistacat flavor. The one I was thinking of was the Elegant Entree - the first two ingrediants are poultry by-products and then turkey.

http://www.mypetsmart.com/petcare/ma...ned-cat-food-0 also lists some more of the flavors of Sophistacat and the ingrediants.

I don't think that "animal liver" is a bad ingrediant as long as it isn't the top ingrediant- though it would be nice to specify which animal. Of course, they are nice enough to say that it is animal liver - like plants have livers

If you want to PM me your email address, I can send you a document that has the carb amounts for the Sophistacat flavors.

Also, if you sign up to recieve emails from Petsmart, they occasionally will send out a coupon for $5 off any purchase of $5 or more.

I met a friend for dinner earlier and stopped by the Petsmart while I was waiting. At first all I could find were the 3oz Sophistacat cans. So I checked them out for awhile, and then found the 5.5oz cans... on the opposite aisle... on the opposite end.

What was interesting to me is that they are completely and totally different flavors. What's up with that, do you think? There were between 18-22 choices for the 3oz cans (which were 48 cents btw!!!!!!!!!) and only about 12 choices for the 5.5oz cans (which were, as Furryfriends said, 38 cents ). I wonder...?

I took pictures of the ones I liked and would feed all the time, and then ones I liked but had fish, which I would feed only occasionally. Yeah, I could have written them down, but a simple solution for a simple problem would make my iPhone irrelevant!

3oz cans -

I liked these:



Only concern is Animal Liver is the 2nd ingredient in the Turkey & Giblets Dinner so I'm not sure how much would be in there. (I found the info I was looking for, it was on catinfo.org. She didn't say anything about "Animal Liver" in particular, just that it shouldn't be the first ingredient.)

Second choice due to fish content:



I'd buy the 3oz if they were out of the 5.5oz, but otherwise probably wouldn't bother. That price just drives me nuts, lol.

Here's what I liked for 5.5oz:



My concern here is - what the heck do those flavors mean??? They all have basically the same ingredients, meat by-products, poultry by-products, etc. Prime dinner has beef and country dinner has chicken listed as ingredients - maybe that makes the difference between them? I don't want them to get bored of the flavors. What do you think?

And then second choice due to fish - I'll probably feed these twice a week if I get them, though, simply for variety's sake due to the flavor concerns above.



NutroMike, I wanted to give you a shoutout as I really did like the ingredients for Max! At 85 cents for the 5.5oz can, though, I think that's a better choice for me in the future than right now.

All in all, I really like Sophistacat. I don't see any evidence of wheat, gluten, corn, or soy in these particular flavors (some of the 3oz did have wheat gluten), so the nutritional profile is in line with what they've been eating, except the meat is of a lesser quality. Still, this will allow me to actually increase the amount of wet they eat (over the last week or so I've been doing 1 3oz can per day instead of 2, or in other words a half can each, to compensate for cash flow issues - come on pay day!) to basically unlimited, supplemented by dry if they want it while I'm away at work. 1 5.5oz can per day is $11.78 a month! WOW!!!! So I could get more than that and give them more than the 2.75oz each if they wanted it, and still pocket 65% of what I'm paying now. The more wet they eat the less dry they eat, and Blue's expensive so that helps me there, too.

Woooooo......... I feel like I've run a marathon with this post!! Thanks for all the input Willowy, Kittymom4, NutroMike, and Furryfriends!

I agree with the suggestion to look for online discounts. Petco and Petsmart send me frequent emails with good sales and coupon codes. Petfooddirect.com does also and they have a large selection of food from bottom to top.

The 3-oz cans are "Supreme"--I think they're supposed to be comparable to Fancy Feast. Maybe cats like them better? I don't know, I never ever buy 3-oz cans . Whereas the 5.5oz cans are more basic, like Friskies or something. I basically choose flavors based on what the cats like best. . .none of them like Mixed Grill. At all. Idk why; they like Friskies Mixed Grill. And Elegant Entree smells like cat pee to me, lol, but the cats don't seem to mind. So it might take some experimenting with your kitties.

Parsleysage, to answer yiur question about by-products, the AAFCO defines.meat by-products as:
The non-rendered, clean part, other than meat, derived from slaughtered animals. It includes, but is not limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. It does not include hair, horns, teeth and hoofs.

In contrast, poultry by-products:

"Must consist of non-rendered clean parts of carcasses of slaughtered poultry such as heads, feet, viscera, free from fecal content and foreign matter except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice."

Basically, pet food in general is whatever is left after the parts for human consumption are removed. As Rachel Ray would say, "yum-o".

The definitions above were taken from the book, "Feed Your Pet Right" by Marion Nestle and Malden C. Nesheim.

Sorry I dont have any suggestions as to wet food. Im in Canada so undoubtedly the prices are different. I hope things work out for you though.