Very confused about food!!!!

I have been feeding my kitten a combination of wet and dry Hills Prescription Diet W/D Gastrointestinal food due to his chronic loose stools. I have been mixing the dry and canned w/d and feeding it to him a few times a day. He "grazes" on the dry food between meals. My cat eats this food as well (but the dry version only), due to her sensitive stomach (she sometimes vomits after she eats and was eating Iams Indoor formula dry food before this). She eats only dry food and has no tolerance for wet food. I have offered it to her and she likes it, but she will vomit immediately after eating it. Anyway, my vet has now instructed me to stop feeding my kitten the wet food and switch him over to only dry to see if it improves his loose stools. I have seen on this site how a lot of you say that dry food is bad for cats. Do you think I should follow my vet's advice or have another conversation with her about the food? Any suggestions about brands that work well for cats with sensitive stomachs? I know that there are some grain-free options out there (I'm considering that my adult cat could have a grain allergy), but I am not sure what to do. The vet suggested that Blue Buffalo Sensitive Stomach could be an option for both the cat and the kitten if the w/d won't work. However, I did some research on Blue Buffalo online and found some horrific reviews from people that have tried it (projectile vomiting, diarrhea, crystals in urine, UTIs to name a few). I looked into EVO as well, but it seems to have been recalled. Pure Vita could be another option, but it seems to be a fairly new and unestablished product. Sorry for the long rant, but finding the right cat food is very frustrating. I have heard about a raw food diet, but I'm not even sure how to go about doing that. Are there any commercial cat foods that are safe any more?

Your vet sounds very old school about feline nutrition. I would ask your vet what it is about the dry food that is appropriate for an obligate carnivore with loose stools or vomiting after eating. To be honest I am not a fan of any of the Hill's foods. They all contain species-inapprpriate ingredients, especially the dry foods. They all contain a high amount of carbs. Cats have no nutritional need for carbs. Grains, starches, any veggies, fruits, herbs, etc that are added to cat foods can cause an issue. Cats need meat and more meat. They are geared to getting their moisture from food and have a low thirst drive. Dry food can cause chronic mild dehydration which is not only hard on the kidneys but can cause chronic digestive upset as well including constipation and diarrhea.

I would encourage you to check out www.catinfo.org and www.littlebigcat.org. These are sites written by vets who have a different outlook on feline nutrition than most traditional vets. They offer some information on raw feeding as well. If you are interested in learning more about raw feeding, there is a great Resources thread at the top of the Raw Feeding Forum.

In answer to your question about SAFE commercial cat foods, yes, there are some safe foods out there...for the moment. (lots of them)   The problem is, today they may be ok, tomorrow there may be a recall.  This is why we like to suggest that people feed more than one brand of canned food.  It's much trickier if you feed kibble, because it's not that easy just to switch brands, particularly if you've already got a sensitive stomach cat

If both of your cats appear to have sensitive stomachs, the first thing you might do is get them on probiotics.  Seriously!  Many of us here give out cats probiotics, and we give them HUMAN probiotics, not the ones made for cats or dogs.  We just usually cut the dose in half.  So I give my furkids 1 capsule per day, sprinkled into their food (but mine don't eat kibble,  mine eat either raw or canned, depending on the cat).

Then you start reading the links Vball gave you and look at the food chart on catinfo.org, and ask more questions like the rest of us to, and hopefully you'll stumble on some canned (or raw?) foods your cats really love and can tolerate

I actually was giving my kitten probiotics prescribed by the vet for about 2 months, but they really didn't seem to change anything one way or another. He has been on a couple of different medications as well, with no change. That is why she is trying to change his diet to see if that helps, but I am not sure if the Hills dry will work or not. Aside from having loose stools, he seems to be in very good health, so I'm not even sure if I should worry about the loose stools anymore.

Tabbysia said:

I actually was giving my kitten probiotics prescribed by the vet for about 2 months, but they really didn't seem to change anything one way or another. He has been on a couple of different medications as well, with no change. That is why she is trying to change his diet to see if that helps, but I am not sure if the Hills dry will work or not. Aside from having loose stools, he seems to be in very good health, so I'm not even sure if I should worry about the loose stools anymore.

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The vet probiotic fortiflora is really not the best quality probiotic and the ones formulated for humans are much better. I agree with vball that you should take a look at www.catinfo.org for great information on feline nutrition written by a vet who knows her stuff, unlike a lot of vets who do not actually get a lot of nutritional training on felines in vet school. Dry food is really not the best thing to feed cats and it should not in my opinion ever make up the majority of their diet.

I understand a lot of cats love dry food because of the additives they coat the food in which makes it addictive. Actually fortiflora also contains this additive and a great way to get cats to eat wet is to pour fortiflora on top.

I was able to transition my dry food addict who also had a lot of GI issues to a wet diet. I recommend for cats with GI issues to try a novel protein and I was able to transition my guy using nature's variety pride wet food in duck and lamb. During the transition I used the limited ingredient turkey dry food from nature's variety as well and this dry food is better than most because it is grain free and does not contain many ingredients that would irritate a cat with a sensitive stomach. I was able to get my cat to eat wet by putting the dry food on top along with his favourite treat, freeze dried chicken. My cat would not eat wet since he was a kitten and was a total kibble addict, so if he can be transitioned to wet any cat can imho. 

Another thing to think about is looking into a raw diet. A lot of cats with loose stool do really well on this and some cats were not able to have a normal stool until trying raw. Here is an interesting thread about a cat with IBD who was treated with a raw diet (http://www.thecatsite.com/t/239771/...lucky-bugsy-and-hope-to-raw-challenges-galore)

Have you tried honest kitchens "perfect form" supplement? I used that for my dogs as well as one of my cats that was diagnosed with IBD

I think for now I will have to stick with the vet prescribed Hills dry food because his stools finally got better a few days ago, and I am afraid to change anything and mess it up again. Of course, I have also been giving him a new medicine--Sulfasalazine--so that is more likely the reason that he got better. She told me that I could start mixing just a little bit of canned food with his dry starting in about a week (I asked her if I could give him canned), as long as his stools remain normal. She really seems to think that dry food is better for him. He is only on the Sulfasalazine for a few more days. Hopefully, when I start giving him some canned, his stools will remain normal. I think that the poor little guy is really craving his canned food. Whenever, I open the cabinet where the canned food is kept, he comes running over and screaming at me like crazy.

That's the problem with more than one change at a time: it's hard to figure out what actually worked.