Nutro

For the price, you can get much better foods. Google Nutro recalls...they recall their food so often...and the ingrediants aren't to great either. I'd avoid it if you can, IMO

Not so great. . Way over priced for what you get. Wasn't too bad before it was bought out by Mars, but like all foods after they get bought by the big companies, down it went.

There are several dry formulas, you can read up on the ingredients here:

http://www.nutro.com/natural-cat-foo...-cat-food.aspx

Nutro is an all natural product. The last recall, which was voluntary, was in June of 2009. You can Google just about any brand using the same criteria you outlined above and find some kind of recall on them.

Nutro is a guaranteed product and Nutro has their own plants. Yes, Nutro, unlike so many of the other so called "premium" brands, manufactures all of their own products. The products are tested 600 times before hitting the shelves.

No need to avoid it. It's a win-win situation for the consumer. If they don't like it after purchase, return the unused portion to the place they bought it and they'll receive a no questions asked refund.

Personally my cats have thrived on the Nutro products and I'm not saying that because I work for them. There are several options for you and otto pointed you to a link which will give you an overview. If you ever have questions about it feel free to post in the forum or send me a private message

I personally like Nutro! It doesn't make my cats stink LOL We tried a "higher end" brand and It seemed too rich for my babies. I also like they put out coupons!

As far as recalls. There has been recalls on super expensive food too!

Otto

Don't know how much you know about the Mars/Nutro alliance. Nutro was a privately held company looking for a larger, privately held company to either merge with or buy them out. The owners of Nutro wanted more money for expansion efforts (manufacturing plants, testing etc.) without incurring a large debt. The owners of Nutro also wanted to expand their philanthropic efforts. Mars is privately held by the Mars family and it was a logical choice. There are no stockholders to answer to The only difference I can tell since Mars bought Nutro is the procedures in the HR policy.

Nutro operates as a completely separate entity. The formula changes have been due to market demand, the cutting edge scientific information proved to us by Waltham Center for Pet Nutrition' and for the better health of the pet. Any formula changes in Nutro products have been implemented by Nutro and not Mars, or stockholders demanding profits.

My cats wouldn't eat Nutro Dry and I stopped buying the cans (which I did buy once in awhile, but never their main food) after the last round of recalls.

My crew loved Nutro, however, in my area at least, there are equal, or better quality feeds at lower prices, and times are pretty tough.

Thanks for the info. I used to feed Nutro as part of my rotation, years ago. When the new bags came out, after the buy out or whatever it was that happened, my cats would no longer eat it. Not even the cats who will eat anything would eat it, ANY kind. They walked a wide berth around any dish I put down with Nutro in it and looked at me like I was trying to get them to eat poison.

When I contacted Nutro (it took two tries to get a reply) with my concerns I was told that "there was nothing wrong with the food and if your cats won't eat it they must be sick and you should take them to the vet." Those were the exact words of the response.

That was the last time I shelled out big bucks for a mediocre food.

All the Natural choice foods start with: Chicken Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Wheat Flour, Ground Rice, Powdered Cellulose, Dried Plain Beet Pulp and the list does not improve.

The Maxx cat foods are the same.

The canned foods are slightly better simply because they are canned, but they are still grain heavy and contain wheat gluten.

The only thing canned Nutro has above canned Fancy Feast for example, in my opinion, is that the Nutro doesn't contain the dyes,artificial flavors or artificial preservatives that FF does, so the labels say.

^This.

I know you (NutroMike) don't have a direct say in anything (besides nutrition, obviously :P), but if Nutro wants better credit with owners who look into foods like the people around here do, they should have better customer service than that. They should at least reply nicely to customers questions, and respond to the thousands of complaints addressed against them. Other higher brand companies do.

They should either move Corn Gluten Meal further down the list of their food, or remove it completely IMHO. It's a super cheap way to pump protein into a food so that not as much real meat is needed. Here is the definition from the AAFCO - "the dried residue from corn after the removal of the larger part of the starch and germ, and the separation of the bran by the process employed in the wet milling manufacture of corn starch or syrup, or by enzymatic treatment of the endosperm."

So it's basically the bare bones leftover from corn. Which is already genetically modified to be it's own pesticide. Yum. That combined with 4 of the 5 first ingredients being plant products in a food that is for a carnivore doesn't sit well with me.

Cats don't "chew" dry food, they don't have chewing molars. At most, they may be able to crunch a kibble once or twice.

A cat won't "learn" from regurgitating, to "chew" his food. Nor will he learn to eat more slowly. Cats are not able to reason that way.

If your cat is regurgitating his kibble, it is because he is eating too much all at once. Schedule feed smaller portions more often, or better yet, put him on a canned diet.

Brushing him every day will cut down on ingested fur.

For what its worth, Blue has really good customer service as I contacted them a couple times because I had questions about their food and I got a reply within 24 hours. Wellness also replies quickly as well. I have never had to contact Nutro as I won't feed the dry food, but I do feed the cans once in a while in rotation. My cats love the chunks in gravy and I can always be sure that it will be gone. I don't like the fact that there is wheat gluten in it, but I keep a close eye on recalls and I would hope that after the 2007 scare you'd think that they would be even more vigilant in QA for their food.

Hmmm... Not to sound negative but it sounds like you local pet store person might have been trying to upsell you to plump up the bottom line.

Misty, what are you using for wet now?

No, I have no control over customer service but the people I have talked to have had very good CS with a variety of issues. They do respond to complaints, issues, questions on a timely manner AFAIK. And about these "thousands of complaints" you're referring to - Where do you get this information from?

http://www.google.com/search?q=nutro...ient=firefox-a

Sorry Minka. You're going to have to do a little better than a simple Google search that leads to a pay per click site to have any credibility in your original statement. You can find the same information on just about any brand of food on that website. The more hysteria generated the more hits to the site. I know you don't like Nutro and that's your business. But knocking ANY food citing non credible evidence is really not in your best interest.

What is ConsumerAffairs.com? a. During the FDA investigation rumors and cat food recall, much attention was drawn to the Consumer Affairs website, which claims to have over 800 complaints of sick or deceased pets as a result of eating Nutro. Despite a lack of credibility, these stories were referenced as concrete evidence against Nutro on Twitter, blogs, forums, comments, and other social media sites. The site continues to post complaints and still sometimes references Nutro foods in articles. It was after these events that a group of hostile users became active on Twitter, posting almost exclusively about Nutro in a negative way.
b. From the site: ConsumerAffairs.com is an independent Web-based consumer news and resource center. We are not a government agency, not affiliated with any other consumer organization and not affiliated with any of the corporations whose products are reviewed on our site.
c. From Consumer Affairs regarding affiliation with lawyers: Yes, lawyers read all of the complaints submitted to us by consumers. On occasion, the lawyers will find something they believe could form the basis of a class action suit on behalf of consumers. If a consumer has indicated on their complaint form that they want to be contacted by a lawyer, they then research the issue and, now and then, contact the consumer and file suit on his behalf. Since our founding, hundreds of class action suits have been filed on behalf of consumers. We are not a party to those actions and do not profit from them.

Edit: I also meant to add -

Nutro has been around well over 80 years. It stands to reason they will have more complaints than the newbie companies cropping up all over the place. Every pet food company will have it's share of complaints.

A variety of foods, including Soulistic, Natural Balance, Merrick, and (sadly) Fancy Feast Classic (because sometimes its the only thing I can get Cindy to eat).

'A' pay per click site? My link leads to HUNDREDS of sites that have complaints about Nutro.
Consumeraffairs, efoodalert, petfinder, complaintsboard, cocothebloggingdog, cat.about.com, truthaboutpetfood, wikipedia, yahoo answers, ripoffreport, securepet, dogster, clubchi and thebark, just to name a few.

'Before Grain complaints' gives no results (only reviews)
Evo yields the same.
Innova has a few but not many.

I have a feeling you forgot Nutro's recall history.

Here is a list of most (if not all) of the Nutro recalls:
http://google2.fda.gov/search?q=nutr...td&getfields=*

This information was current as of noon May 16, 2011
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/script...=NUTRO&pet=Dog

Also, here are lists of several complaints against Nutro foods.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/nutro.html
http://petnblog.preciouspets.org/?p=560
http://www.securepet.biz/wordpress/2...suspect-nutro/

If you want to backup your claim that they do 600, can you explain to me just why the May 2010 "toxic levels of vitamin D" in Nutro cat food happened? Or how come Nutro is ever recalled? After all, considering how many tests Nutro goes through, none of that should EVER happen After all, pieces of hard hat in puppy food (October 2009) has got to be hard to miss, after all those tests. Not to mention a recall for levels of excess zinc & under-supplemented potassium in Nutro cat foods (May 2009)...how does one miss that?

All Natural? Yes, corn is natural, but it is one of the hardest foods for a human to digest, so can you even imagine just how well a carnivore can digest corn? Yeah, not so well, obviously! Corn Gluten Meal, Ground Rice (known to deplete taurine levels), wheat flour, natural flavors (oh, does it not taste like food without it? What are the natural flavors - leftover restaurant grease as pet food companies love to use?), Dried Plain Beet Pulp, Sunflower Oil, Soybean Oil, Oat Fiber, Dried Yeast, Dried Vegetable Pomace, Soy Protein Concentrate, Cranberry Pomace,...I would imagine any carnivore is just drooling over that ingrediant list. "Bring on the meat" is what my cats would prefer to say

Then, of course, the infamous Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (source of Vitamin K activity). Something banned for human use, but it is just fine to add to pet foods of course! http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/art...-pet-food.html http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Mena...ulfite-9924604

Yes, it is a pay per click site. Has absolutely no credibility regarding recalls etc. Nutro has been around 80 years. They will have more complaints than the brand new pet food companies. Some of these companies have only been around a few years and have already experienced recalls.

Nope. I know every recall Nutro has experienced. I also know the recall history of most of the other brands. I also know who manufactures the food for which pet food company.

I can post hundreds of links regarding recalls, pet nutrition etc.

You may want to try and determine what the difference between a market withdrawal and recall is.

I know you are an avid Nutro hater. That's fine by me. You are entitled to your opinion but don't try and bamboozle me with link after link after link of information. I've probably already seen it and read it. I know what it is.

Don't you feed a raw diet to your cats?

A lot of pertinent points have been made, and I think the OP has already made their choice, but I just wanted to add one more piece of evidence for not feeding Nutro cat food (which I wouldn't feed to my foster kitties even if it was given to me free) or other products composed of similar ingredients.

Here is an excerpt from the book "Food Pets Die For", as illustrated on the site run by Jeff Feinman, VMD, CVH (http://www.homevet.com/petcare/foodbook.html):

Powdered cellulose is purified, mechanically disintegrated cellulose prepared by processing alpha cellulose obtained as a pulp from fibrous plant material. In other words, sawdust.

Yes, you read that right - sawdust.

And a footnote from the Feline Nutrition Education Society on the use of cellulose, in the article "Diabetes and Obesity: Preventable Epidemics":

Other canned foods have high levels of indigestible fiber (wood cellulose), supposedly because this slows the absorption of sugar and calories from the food in which it is included. This is supposed to assist in the control of overweight and/or diabetes. The foods do neither very well. High fiber diets, canned and dry, limit the digestion and absorption of many vital nutrients, especially in a species with a short gastrointestinal tract and limited capability to extract nutrients from vegetation. They represent an irrational approach to meeting the nutritional needs of the overweight or diabetic cat and contain egregious amounts of simple carbohydrate, including carbohydrate and sugar from corn.

I would venture to say that rather than an "irrational approach", adding sawdust to a "food" intended for an obligate carnivore is a "bottom line" approach.

AC

You know, I'd trust Nutro and Mars, their vets and certified nutritionists, way more than ConsumerAffairs and their bunch. Talk about an interesting background search.

And, honestly, any company is damned if they do, and damned if they don't, regarding recalls. Heck, Trader Joe recalled their wet pet food during the big recall out of an abundance of caution.

But, I suspect food is one of those issues where you have 'true believers' and others, and rarely will the twain meet. Then again, I feed my boy Hills C/D - and I know a lot of people have knee jerk reactions toward prescription foods, and Hills in particular. I just like a healthy cat, myself.

Recall, withdrawel, same thing. Something was wrong with the food, and it had to be taken out of stores

I wouldn't hate Nutro if they had not given me so many reasons to do so

Raw feeding is a personal choice. Like your personal choice to like Nutro. I do not see how that has ANYTHING to do with this! Besides, I also feed commercial food to some of my cats, from companies I can trust So, do you then have a hatred towards all raw feeders, as you so like to point out if one is a raw feeder or not

Ainsworth Pet Nutrition has been around for over 75 years. Yet a search for complaints against them yields very few results

True but there is an enormous difference between being forced off the shelves by a government agency and finding the problem and immediately being proactive about it.

[/quote]I wouldn't hate Nutro if they had not given me so many reasons to do so

Raw feeding is a personal choice. Like your personal choice to like Nutro. I do not see how that has ANYTHING to do with this! Besides, I also feed commercial food to some of my cats, from companies I can trust So, do you then have a hatred towards all raw feeders, as you so like to point out if one is a raw feeder or not[/quote]

Anything we feed our pets is a personal choice, and a passionate one How on earth did you get the idea I hate raw feeders or raw feeding? How can I hate you? I don't even know you. I was asking you a simple question. There was no reason, or need, for you to feel defensive about it. I have made it abundantly clear in more than one post I don't have enough knowledge of raw feeding to make ANY intelligent remarks on the subject.

What I take issue with is misinformation. I've been around the Internet since it's inception, and before the Net was around I managed NNTP servers hosting Usenet sites. There is now, in this day and age, a lot of misinformation and misinterpretation out there and a lot of people are making a lot of money spreading it. I don't care if it's Nutro, or any other brand of pet food, kibble or wet feeding or raw feeding. People deserve the best information they can get their hands on.

Most of the major market share pet foods have had recalls. The important thing for me is that it's a voluntary recall. And you're right about the "damned if they do, damned if they don't" statement

The Waltham Center for Pet Nutrition endorses Nutro. They are one of the leading pet nutrition centers in the world.