Low Carb Wet Food Recommendations

My boy, Monstro is wee bit hefty and our veterinarian recommended that he lose about eight pounds to bring him down to a healthy weight. Monstro is currently on an all wet food diet (3 oz in the morning an 3 oz at night). He's currently eating the PetSmart Simply Nourish brand though, the more that I'm reading about it, the more that I'm thinking that there must be a better option. One of the past threads on here seemed to have trouble locating where the food is produced which makes me a little nervous. Also, looking at the ingredients I noticed that the brand includes things like potatoes which can't possibly be good for a hefty who is trying to drop some weight.

I'm very much determined to make sure that my fur kids are eating as healthy and natural as possible so I've been shying away from brands like Fancy Feast and Iams. I was hoping that you all might have some recommendations for wet foods that are natural, grain free and also low carb.

Fancy Feast classics were what saved my diabetic Grey's life. It's really not that bad a food when comparing labels.

Check out www.catinfo.org for a canned foods list and maybe consider raw feeding.

Hmm, interesting. I'll have to look into FF a bit more. My vet had cautioned me against it and pointed me toward brands like Wellness and Blue Buffalo so I had gone with his recommendation. I'll have to look I to those other brands that I've been passing over. It would certainly be cheaper than what my boy eats now!

I apologize, I'm terrible at links and my phone. Use the link I provided, send it to the vet if necessary (the site owner is a vet). You'll see a link/tab on the right side of the page for commercial foods. From there you'll find a list that will help you find low carb canned foods.

First, make sure he eats something! You can't starve a fatty into thinness; hepatic lipidosis can be fatal. Vary the foods so you can always have something on hand that he'll eat.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

No need to apologize! That whole site is very useful. I have some light reading for the night. I think my vet was recommending those foods since that's what they stock in their little mini "store" in the veterinary hospital. I think his recommendation was a bit self serving.

I'm going to do a bit more research on high quality wet food for him. I've been rotating him through the different flavors of Simply Nourish and he loves them but I really want to get away from the brand after reading so many negative things about it. There's always food left over after meals so I feel pretty good about him having enough food to feel full but I would like to find a brand that I'm more confident in that I know is going to have good quality ingredients, low carbs and a reasonable amount of calories.

Thank you so much for the link! Hopefully I'll find one that my boy and I both love.

I believe Simply Nourish is made in Thailand.

8 pounds is an awful lot to shed, but you're feeding on the high side of average. Any idea where the extra weight comes from besides food? Inactivity?

Whatever food you go with, I find I helpful to add a little water to the canned food. It helps kitty feel more full. Bit do be careful about trying to reduce his weight too fast. There is a formula somewhere that shows a safe weight loss goal.

Hey 

l just wanted to chirp in that although l feed raw to my cats, l do occasionally give them the pate chicken Fancy Feast.

They love it, and like yours, my cats eat between 5.5 and 6oz each per day, but are highly active.

Here is the chart that helped me when l was transitioning from kibble to canned (to raw):

http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf

lt helped because some foods that l had been avoiding, like Merrick's Cowboy Cookout, turned out to be much better food on the nutrient chart than was suggested by the ingredients list on the side of the can. Cowboy Cookout became a staple for a while, but is expensive here in Canada. lt's high protein, mid-low fat, and very low carb. Midrange calories (only slightly lower than Fancy Feast), but more protein per calorie.

Raintyger said:

I believe Simply Nourish is made in Thailand.

8 pounds is an awful lot to shed, but you're feeding on the high side of average. Any idea where the extra weight comes from besides food? Inactivity?

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My kitty is 25 pounds which is why we were told to feed a little more than the average cat (I probably should have included that in my first post so you all don't think I'm stuffing my cat!). To drop him down much lower than 6 oz a day would be far too little for a kitty his size. As he loses the weight though, the amount that we feed him will no doubt decrease a bit.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about his past. I only recently adopted him from the shelter about three weeks ago. When he first got to the shelter in February, he was even larger and weighed 27 pounds! Since then he's shed about two pounds. I don't have a lot of information about his past. He was abandoned in a pretty filthy hoarder house from what I was told. The officers who rescued him said that the house was absolutely trashed and my boy was that size when they found him. They suspected that he was living off the human food in the house and had most likely been fed table scraps from his original owners as well.

Adding to his problems is the fact that his original owners had him declawed and it's pretty obvious watching him walk that he's not a happy camper on his feet. He's not the most active of boys but I have found a feather toy that he seems willing to indulge for a few minutes before he goes back to lounging in a window somewhere. So I am working to get him more active in addition to a diet. I figure it's much like humans losing weight... it's can't just be the food changing, he needs to start playing a bit too.

I know someone who says the only way she can get her kitty to exercise is to throw a treat down the stairs!

Hello. I'm wishing you much success on your furbaby's journey to weight loss.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Kittenlove said:

I know someone who says the only way she can get her kitty to exercise is to throw a treat down the stairs!

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Too funny!!  I was giving up hope on exercise for my boy. I bought him all kinds of toys hoping that he might take an interest in one and he just turned his nose up at all of them. The other day I caught him climbing into a cabinet where I keep my other cat's old toys and he comes out dragging a feather wand with little glittery streamers on it. I had bought that stupid toy months ago for my other cat and she couldn't care less about it. And now here's Monstro ... in love with his feather wand. He loves to chase it and then when I put it away he digs it back out and sits on it. I think that it's love.

Thank goodness we found something though! I was beginning to think that extent of his exercise would be him running away from me as I try to give him his eye drops every morning (he has kitty herpes too. Poor guy)!

There are kitty exercise balls where you put a few treats inside. The ball has holes in it, so as they play with the ball treats come out. Some have adjustable size holes so you can vary how often the treats come out. Not the best way to lose weight, but I suppose if the cat's expending more energy than the treat, that's gotta be better than no exercise at all.

Raintyger said:

There are kitty exercise balls where you put a few treats inside. The ball has holes in it, so as they play with the ball treats come out. Some have adjustable size holes so you can vary how often the treats come out. Not the best way to lose weight, but I suppose if the cat's expending more energy than the treat, that's gotta be better than no exercise at all.

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Yes, they are called food puzzles. Could put freeze dried treats in it. They are extremely low cal. 100% protein. My cats love them. I use them as food toppers too.

I'll give the puzzle thing a try. I don't know if he'll entertain it, but it's worth a shot! The freeze dried treats is also a great idea. Those would be a great for little snacks in between meals. Thank you all so much for pointing me in the right direction!

Here is another great list of good cat foods (http://www.naturalcatcareblog.com/2010/12/the-7-best-natural-commercial-cat-foods-so-far/). Mine love Weruva (though I think it has a slightly higher carb count but is actually very low cal) tiki cat (chicken flavours). Hound and Gato is also a great brand and I wish my picky eater would eat it but he only will eat shredded foods and will not eat pate style. 

You may want to take a look at the raw feeding forum as there are quite a few threads about cats losing a bunch of weight on a raw diet. 

This is awesome! Thank you! I've been considering the Tiki Cat wet food so I'm happy to see that it's on this list.... it means that I must be on the right track!

I'll be spending a lot of time on the raw forum as well. I would like to include raw as a portion of his diet.

Be careful with the Weruva. Franksmom is right about it being low calorie--approximately half the calories of your average cat food! We all want our kitties to be a healthy weight, but a 50% calorie reduction would be dangerous. Cats can get organ damage if you don't cut back slowly. The Weruva has gone through some controversy. Initially on Lisa Pierson's catinfo.org website, she listed the typical nutritional values as being very high in carbs. I heard she had conversations with Weruva and the values were revised. The revised numbers were a rather drastic change, though.

A very important consideration to be made is the ingredients list. You mentioned that your cat food contained a lot of potatoes and were correct in thinking something was off. Cats are carnivores and grains/wheat is not a part of their natural diet. Search for foods that are high-protein; whatever food you end up choosing, check the list of ingredients to make sure that the first ingredient listed (what the food contains the most of) is some type of meat. A lot of cat foods will contain large amounts of carbohydrates to "fluff up" the food; this can actually cause your cat to eat more (imagine how you feel after eating a steak [unless you're vegetarian!] vs. after eating a potato).

I wish you and your cat the best of luck!

You were so good to take him. I hope he is doing well. I know your post is 3 years old.