Natural Balance canned for overweight cats?

I'm switching my overweight cats to an all-wet diet. I've been getting a good deal on Natural Balance LID cans - usually the chicken/green pea or the duck/green pea have been around $1. I've read on another thread that Natural Balance canned foods are about 14.0% carbs. Is that on the higher end? Should I be looking for less?

They have been eating mostly dry food (Taste of the Wild) with some canned every other day or so - usually NB, Chicken Soup, Avoderm, Wellness (not Core).

But I want them to be on wet only. Are these wet brands good for losing weight or should I look into other brands? (I'd like to stay around the $1/can price).  Or is the fact that I am just switching to all wet diet be enough to help them to shed some pounds?

Thanks for any thoughts.

Natural Balance is one of the many high quality canned cat foods. I just went to the NB website and got the ingredient list for the canned food you mentioned.

Chicken, Chicken Broth, Chicken Liver, Pea Flour, Chicken Meal, Pea Protein, Salmon Oil, Dicalcium Phosphate, Guar Gum, Potassium Chloride, Taurine, Sodium Chloride, Flaxseed, Parsley, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Dried Cranberries, Carrageenan, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Vitamin E Supplement, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Niacin Supplement, Sodium Selenite, Thiamine Mononitrate, Calcium Pantothenate, Calcium Iodate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin, Vitamin A Supplement, Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement

Click to expand...

I highlighted some of the troublesome ingredients in bold for you. Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they eat meat only. Many people seem to think kitties are omnivores, which is why the pet food industry plays on this myth and adds a bunch of useless veggies to pet foods to appeal to the consumer. Cats also have a low thirst drive, and get almost all of their water intake from the food they eat..so high five for switching your kitties over to an all canned diet! Now, onto the ingredients:

Pea protein - Also known as pea fiber. There is a whole discussion on pea fiber here: http://www.petfoodindustry.com/6376.html This article seems to be in favor of pea protein as an alternative fiber source.

Guar Gum - Not as bad as carrageenan, it's often used as a thickening agent and can cause more litterbox odor in kitties.

Flaxseed, parsley, and dried cranberries - These ingredients are harmless, pretty much used as fillers though.

Carrageenan - This is an ingredient you really, really want to avoid. Degraded carrageenan has been linked to causing cancer (although undegraded carrageenan is the one used in pet food, it is not scientifically proven that it doesn't cause cancer) AND undegraded carrageenan has been linked to IBD in cats. We have a discussion going on about this ingredient here: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/246168/the-truth-about-carrageenan

Honestly, Natural Balance by Dick Van Patten is a great brand. If you can find one without carrageenan though, I'd be more of a fan.

A GREAT brand for overweight kitties is Weruva. It contains a lot of water and has much less calories than most cat foods. I buy it for about $1.10 a pouch here in Canada. Before switching to raw, I had my cats on this for a long time and will swear by this brand. BUT, be careful, some varieties of Weruva contain carrageenan, so just watch out for those and always remember to read the label.

Hope I helped! Another high five for switching your kitty to canned food!

Jen.

Thanks so much for your reply! I'll have to see if I can get a deal of Weruva locally. I don't recall of the of my head what the price was on PFD. I also really like Nature's Variety Instinct, but unless I can get a good sale, it's usually not something I can get.

Switching from dry to wet - how much wet should I be feeding? Especially if I start to incorporate other brands of wet?

I don't really know how much dry they were eating before, because I'd put down a set amount and with 5 cats, I couldn't be sure who was eating who's and how much. But I would guess with my overweight ones, they were probably eating about 3/4 cup per day each (about 250 calories if my calculations are right).  If each cat gets 1 can per day, split up into 4 meals, that would be about 220 calories per day.  Is that too much of a drop?

Thanks again for any ideas.

When my cats were eating wet foods, I had my adult kitties eating one 5.5oz can daily. Half a can in the morning, and half at night. NV Instinct is a great choice, too!