MyFavorite Cat Food(TM)

So, I got this... gaggle... of cat food that I've just brought. It was pretty affordable, like $1.00 (and something-something cents) per pack, and each pack contains four cans. I'm getting a kitten (or two?) soon from an animal shelter in about a week or two, and I'm preping. I'm no wiz at cat feeding, as the closest I've ever come to owning a cat before was taking care of my grandfather's - who he cleverly named Cat - so there we're three or four flavors, and I brought three of them. I know that the ingreidents are important, and from what I can tell, a good number of people here are pros at decipering this jibberish. So I'd like to know weather it's good or bad:

MyFavorite Cat Food - Chicken Dinner

Ingredients:  Chicken, Poultry By-Products, Water Sufficient For Processing, Soybean Meal, Egg Product, Guar Gum, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Choline Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin Supplement, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin A Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex, Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement), DL-Methionine, Carrageenan, Taurine, Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Manganous Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite).

I got it from Shoprite(TM), heh, I meant to get something like Wellness, as I've seen it reccommended a billion times, but there was none there at the time. Is this fine, or shop I invest in a diffrent type? If so, suggestions? If not, suggestions anyway; and can you tell me what you know about nutrition kit-wise?

-Artemis

I'm not too opposed to by-products in a canned food, but I REALLY don't like the soybean meal in there. Soy isn't very good for cats.

It's not likely you'll find any really good foods at Shoprite. You usually gotta go to a pet store to find the decent stuff. Although Trader Joe's store brand canned food is pretty good.

Canned food is better than dry so keep that up! You can feed a small amount of a grain-free dry food for snakcs and to keep kittens full, but most of their diet should be canned or raw. Whole Foods has a frozen "raw" (it's pasteurized so they can't call it raw, but it's not cooked) food that's pretty good. And some pet stores have other brands of prepared raw.

Other than the soy, which is one of those ingredients you really just want to avoid, period, it looks like a decent food! I'm not in love with by-products. Pet food is made from the left-overs of the human food industry to begin with, and by-products are the garbage of the leftovers. Cats, of course, eat "by products" in the wild - they naturally eat organs, etc. in their prey.

When looking for foods, just remember cats are carnivores, and are designed to get all the nutrition they need from meat, bones, and organs. Period. In the wild, they don't eat rice, corn, carrots, peas, blueberries, etc. Those are generally designed to appeal to us and lower the cost, or help some foods get to the AAFCO nutrition guidelines with fewer vitamin supplements.

As to the soy meal... all you need to know about "meals" in general is that they are dry. Ingredients are listed by weight, and meat is typically 75% water, so "chicken" will weigh a lot. But chicken meal, being powder, means you'll have a heaping giant pile of "meal" and it'll still be lower on the ingredient list. So if a label says, "Chicken, chicken broth, corn meal, .... " etc. you KNOW that the bulk of the protein in that food is coming from the corn meal, because you've got heaps of meal and it'll still weigh less than the chicken and broth. I'm not a fan of any meal in cat food - but I feed raw, so I'm biased. Any type of meat meal is better than a non-meat meal though.

Basically you want to find foods with short ingredient lists, no grains, and low carbs, and the fewer veggies or fruits or whatever, the better. The amount of carbohydrates isn't listed on the cans, and often not listed on the websites either. You can ask here, or calculate it yourself with a dry matter basis calculator. Basically, with the calculator, you enter the information the companies DO provide in the guaranteed analysis, and it'll calculate the carbohydrates for you.

I'm not a big fan of byproducts in any food, wet or dry but that is just me.  The soy is the only thing I don't care for in the ingredient list and Laurie went on with a similar explanation that I would have given.  Hope you kitty likes it and you find that it fits into your budget
 

same here. You also need to check the ingredient list on each flavor. They won't all be equal even when it's the same brand/line of food. I use one brand that I will feed only 3-4 flavors to my cats because they start with a named meat: chicken, beef liver, etc. The rest of the flavors with the same label start with "meat byproducts".

Let us know when you get your new kitten(s), and don't forget the ix:

Remember two words: BLUE BUFFALO.The first ingredient is REAL MEAT - either chicken or salmon - and there are NO byproducts, artificial flavors, or preservatives. It is not perfect, but as close to it as I have seen so far. I will always feed Patricia that for the rest of her life. My next cat will get the purrfect diet any feline nutrition expert would recommend, but for now, Blue Buffalo will stay in my pantry.

Hello Artemis, welcome to TCS! You are certainly in the right place to get feeback on cat food.

I am very picky about cat food, so my best answer would be that I personally would not feed this food. I don't like by-products because it just gives too much leeway to the manufacturer to put whatever animal sludge leftovers they want in the recipe, it has soy which is a no-no for cats because it can cause thyroid problems and it contains Menadione AND Carrageenan, both controversial food ingredients.

EmilyMayWilcha said:

Remember two words: BLUE BUFFALO.The first ingredient is REAL MEAT - either chicken or salmon - and there are NO byproducts, artificial flavors, or preservatives. It is not perfect, but as close to it as I have seen so far. I will always feed Patricia that for the rest of her life. My next cat will get the purrfect diet any feline nutrition expert would recommend, but for now, Blue Buffalo will stay in my pantry.

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Especially with a recall going on right now, it's actually not a good idea to food only one brand to your cat. If Blue Buffalo got added to the recall list (God forbid), and your cat doesn't want to eat anything else because all you've ever fed it is BB, then you will be in quite a pickle. There are many many other good brands that you can add to your cats diet and feel good about, just take a look around the Nutrition forums.

Avoid anything made by Diamond. They have had several recalls in their history. I'm hoping that Wellpet decides to.stop having some of their foods made at Diamond.

you are.starting your kitten off right with canned food. I don't like the menadione bisulphite complex in the food. It is used as a.substitute for vitamin k and is thought to cause health problems. I figure any type of substitute for the real thing can't be good or readily digested by a human or animal.

And just be aware that just because the ingredient list has real meat as.the first.ingredient, it.doesn't mean that it is the predominant ingredient in the food. The meat is weighed before cooking. much of the weight is water So the amount of 'real meat' you are getting is not what you think. it is a marketing gimmick. But overall, you want to see meat or meat meal as the protein source.

Minka said:

Especially with a recall going on right now, it's actually not a good idea to food only one brand to your cat. If Blue Buffalo got added to the recall list (God forbid), and your cat doesn't want to eat anything else because all you've ever fed it is BB, then you will be in quite a pickle. There are many many other good brands that you can add to your cats diet and feel good about, just take a look around the Nutrition forums.

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You can't just go by if that brand was on the recall list. Also check which product (kitten, senior, hairball control, etc.)  was recalled. During the melamine scare in 2007, Blue Buffalo recalled one product, but it was not the one for senior cats. Patricia is almost 16, so she is safe.

For a long time I fed Science Diet. Emily, fmy first cat, did not like Purina Kitten Chow, so I gave her what the vet recommended. (Back then, I did not know anything except cats are obligate carnivores and should only drink milk when they are little kittens.) Now I know the best food for a cat cannot be found in a bag and vets do not always recommend what really is best for their patients.

EmilyMayWilcha said:

Minka said:

Especially with a recall going on right now, it's actually not a good idea to food only one brand to your cat. If Blue Buffalo got added to the recall list (God forbid), and your cat doesn't want to eat anything else because all you've ever fed it is BB, then you will be in quite a pickle. There are many many other good brands that you can add to your cats diet and feel good about, just take a look around the Nutrition forums.

Click to expand...

You can't just go by if that brand was on the recall list. Also check which product (kitten, senior, hairball control, etc.)  was recalled. During the melamine scare in 2007, Blue Buffalo recalled one product, but it was not the one for senior cats. Patricia is almost 16, so she is safe.

For a long time I fed Science Diet. Emily, fmy first cat, did not like Purina Kitten Chow, so I gave her what the vet recommended. (Back then, I did not know anything except cats are obligate carnivores and should only drink milk when they are little kittens.) Now I know the best food for a cat cannot be found in a bag and vets do not always recommend what really is best for their patients.

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Seeing as new products are being added every day, there is no way to know if the food you are feeding today could be on the list tomorrow. It's just not worth the risk to me.