I've decided to go grain free

@Nerdrock- I noticed that myself. However, I'm confused as well, because I didn't mention sodium to them in my question so for her to bring up is very interesting. Here is what I sent to them:

I am interested in switching to your pet food brand, however I am concerned with the ingredient "Montmorillonite Clay". The explanation you have in your ingredient list is very vague and does not tell me very much. Other than this ingredient I find that your Instinct foods seem be very high quality and I will highly recommend them to others if I can find out more about this ingredient. Are you adding calcium montmorillonite clay to your foods?

I am hoping you are correct, because I quite happy with the ingredients in the food otherwise, but to be safe I am not feeding it to them until I know more. When you say you checked with your supervisor, what type of supervisor are you referring to?

Nerdrock, you may want to forward the info to your supervisor, so someone can correct Shannon in Customer Service.

Myself, I don't mess with emails when I have the option to call.  In an email it is easy to appear calm and have time to think about your response even if it is total BS.  On the phone, I believe you get a more honest response.  I have called Blue Buffalo headquarters; Wellness headquarters (the same company I believe as Blue Buffalo, I could be mistaken, though.  Maybe they are just really near eachother?); Taste Of The Wild headquarters, etc... I was not impressed with Nature's Balance they have no idea what they are talking about.  They fumbled their words a lot.  But the others mentioned were very thorough and happy to tell you all about what is in the product and why.  They may not match your thinking but they will tell you why they feel it is a good ingredient.

LDG said:

Nerdrock, you may want to forward the info to your supervisor, so someone can correct Shannon in Customer Service.

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I have forwarded that to her. She's in Nova Scotia right now training some new demonstrators so she might be a bit slow to respond. 

Violetxx said:

@Nerdrock- I noticed that myself. However, I'm confused as well, because I didn't mention sodium to them in my question so for her to bring up is very interesting. Here is what I sent to them:

I am interested in switching to your pet food brand, however I am concerned with the ingredient "Montmorillonite Clay". The explanation you have in your ingredient list is very vague and does not tell me very much. Other than this ingredient I find that your Instinct foods seem be very high quality and I will highly recommend them to others if I can find out more about this ingredient. Are you adding calcium montmorillonite clay to your foods?

I am hoping you are correct, because I quite happy with the ingredients in the food otherwise, but to be safe I am not feeding it to them until I know more. When you say you checked with your supervisor, what type of supervisor are you referring to?

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She's part of the representative team for the company, before she got back to me she double checked with her manager. I can't see why they would use sodium montmorillonite clay in the food when they are so careful with everything else to make sure that it's not genetically modified and that the meats are antibiotic and hormone free... the montmorillonite clay packaging that they showed us in our training was definitely the calcium montmorillonite clay too. This is just odd. 

Well shoot I appreciate you both looking into the clay ingredient for us. I had fed one can of NVI before I read this about the clay.

@Nedrock - Thanks for clarifying that for me, I didn't realize you worked for them. I'm so glad they use the calcium Mont. clay, that's a relief.

@P3 and the King - I don't completely agree with that. Email is a legitimate way of obtaining information especially in today's day in age. It also gives you a chance to think about want you want to say before you send it out, which is why everyone is so surprised about what she sent me. As was I. Yes you may lose emotion, however its a way of getting a copy of something someone stated. I'm sure if I said I called them, people would be less reluctant to believe me especially on a blog where nobody knows anything about me other than that we all share a love for cats and want to learn more and teach others about them. There is also less of a chance that I would mix up my information b/c its documented. And in this generation, email/internet (i.e. this blog) is one of the main ways of passing on knowledge.

@Hobo08 - No worries. I'm just glad that its all cleared up and that no animals are being harmed by it, that was my worst fear. Especially when there's such little information out their on it.

Update:  Getting back to the topic... Things are going great on the new diet!!  They seem to like Taste Of The Wild better as it seems to be gone through faster.  Who can blame them?  It does sound pretty good when you read it!  Wellness is an OK rating with them.  I am looking into other grain free and top rated that they might like a little better, though. 

So far, Paige has put on nearly 2 pounds!!  I am so happy to see her eating and not picking at her food anymore!!  Less waste to clean up and not as much hairballs either it seems. 

P3 and The King said:

Update:  Getting back to the topic... Things are going great on the new diet!!  They seem to like Taste Of The Wild better as it seems to be gone through faster.  Who can blame them?  It does sound pretty good when you read it!  Wellness is an OK rating with them.  I am looking into other grain free and top rated that they might like a little better, though. 

So far, Paige has put on nearly 2 pounds!!  I am so happy to see her eating and not picking at her food anymore!!  Less waste to clean up and not as much hairballs either it seems. 

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Glad it is going well for you and the kitties! I do suggest you see if they like the Earthborn Holistic foods. Either the Primitive Feline formula http://www.earthbornholisticpetfood.com/us/cat_formulas/primitive_feline/

or the Wild Sea Catch formula http://www.earthbornholisticpetfood.com/us/cat_formulas/wild_sea_catch/.

Hobo loves the Wild Sea Catch.
 

Violetxx said:

@Nedrock - Thanks for clarifying that for me, I didn't realize you worked for them. I'm so glad they use the calcium Mont. clay, that's a relief.

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Yup! I'm a product demonstrator, so I know quite a bit about the foods that they make. Anything that I don't know, I can usually get the answer pretty quickly. I prefer to go straight to my boss, the customer service people don't always know the full answer and I imagine their job can be quite stressful (if you've ever worked customer service, especially in a call center, you probably know that, lol). Not that that's an excuse for misinformation or anything... if you have any questions, feel free to PM me. 

Hobo08 said:

Glad it is going well for you and the kitties! I do suggest you see if they like the Earthborn Holistic foods. Either the Primitive Feline formula http://www.earthbornholisticpetfood.com/us/cat_formulas/primitive_feline/

or the Wild Sea Catch formula http://www.earthbornholisticpetfood.com/us/cat_formulas/wild_sea_catch/.

Hobo loves the Wild Sea Catch.
 

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Thank you, I will look into those suggestions!!
 

You may want to rethink your choice of Before Grain.  Their canned food has carrageenan in it.  Carrageenan is a known carcinogen.  There is presently a petition to be presented to the FDA to have carrageenan removed from human foods.  However, the USDA doesn't seem to care that it is in pet food.   Carrageenan can be found in most processed foods.