Favorite Canned Food Brands?

I'm feeding Porter Wellness Core for now, but the flavors he likes are not sold at my local holistic pet food stores so I want to branch out and try some new things on him. 

They carry BFF, Taste of the Wild, Weruva, Fromm, Nature's Variety Prairie, Merrick, Great Life and Wellness Healthy Indulgence. 

Any favorites on the list or are there any I should avoid? The gal at the store told me that BFF is very popular with her customers. 

Thanks for any suggestions!

I feed Weruva (only the ones without Carrageenan) and Nutro Natural Choice.  Both of those are low carb and best of all, the cats love 'em.  And I've got ONE extremely finicky cat.  NONE of mine will touch BFF or Great Life, not even the one who usually will eat anything

Random Gemini said:

 
I'm feeding Porter Wellness Core for now, but the flavors he likes are not sold at my local holistic pet food stores so I want to branch out and try some new things on him. 

They carry BFF, Taste of the Wild, Weruva, Fromm, Nature's Variety Prairie, Merrick, Great Life and Wellness Healthy Indulgence. 

Any favorites on the list or are there any I should avoid? The gal at the store told me that BFF is very popular with her customers. 

Thanks for any suggestions!

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Off the top of my head, Fromm, Great Life, and Merrick are carb heavy, somewhere around 20%. Not really familiar with the others.

Sometimes you have to hunt a little or order online to get the best. I like Hound and Gatos, Dave's, or By Nature Organics (organic line). There are places in my signature that sell single cans so you can try them out. Or I can buy the food and send it for reimbursement. I have access to other food beyond what the stores in my signature carry.

Cat food is so different from dog food. Nutro's dog food is awful, but strangely their canned cat foods look excellent. I would never feed it to my dogs though. I may pass on that one just on principle, if you know how to make a good canned cat food, you can make a good dry or canned dog food too. The premise is the same. Low to no carbs, high protein. No unnamed animal ingredients, which is really bothering me this morning as the president of AAFCO stated publicly that it is LEGAL to use euthanized pets in pet food this morning and that's just making me sick to my stomach.

I'm liking what I'm reading about Weruva and BFF both (which are made by the same company). Their foods are human grade and produced in high tech facilities with very strict quality control. I can't order online, otherwise, hound and gatos looks good too! I'll forget to re-order until I'm down to one can of cat food and then poor Porter will starve. No, it's best if I find a local source. LOL! 

I like Tiki Cat a lot, but I'm not sure that Porter can eat a whole food like that. I have been sticking to the wellness core, because its a pate and a processed flaked food might be better for him to eat, than giving him whole pieces of meat that he will have to tear. He has two missing canines and I expect he's in for more dental work as the poor guy already has death breath again after the shelter pulled two of his teeth. 

Porter is at an age where I just want to feed him a quality food, that he likes eating. He's 10 and he's a rescue. He's either hunted for himself, or been fed a junk food his entire life before we adopted him. Whatever risk of cancer there was in cheap pet food, it's already happened to him. I want to be able to rotate at least four flavors on him, he gets bored with a food if you only feed one flavor, so I have to change it up. 

Random Gemini said:

I'm liking what I'm reading about Weruva and BFF both (which are made by the same company). Their foods are human grade and produced in high tech facilities with very strict quality control. I can't order online, otherwise, hound and gatos looks good too! I'll forget to re-order until I'm down to one can of cat food and then poor Porter will starve. No, it's best if I find a local source. LOL! 

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Haha. Well, at least you know your own weaknesses.

But seriously, here's what you could do: Buy a couple different cat foods online and rotate them in addition to the local foods. If you buy one case of food, then when that case is about 25% to 33% gone, place an order for a second brand. Reorder when each brand runs out. That way you are running out of one brand and reordering when there is still other food around. You can also use the local brands as a safety net.

Oh, another tip: I don't know where you've been looking, but try the independent pet stores, feed and tack stores, and pet grooming parlors. Grooming parlors carry boutique supplies and will often go higher end. I found Hound and Gatos at a feed and tack. By Nature I found at a grooming parlor.

Random Gemini said:

 
Cat food is so different from dog food. Nutro's dog food is awful, but strangely their canned cat foods look excellent. I would never feed it to my dogs though. I may pass on that one just on principle, if you know how to make a good canned cat food, you can make a good dry or canned dog food too. The premise is the same. Low to no carbs, high protein. No unnamed animal ingredients, which is really bothering me this morning as the president of AAFCO stated publicly that it is LEGAL to use euthanized pets in pet food this morning and that's just making me sick to my stomach.

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Just out of curiousity....what's so awful about their DOG food?  Dog's are NOT obligate carnivore's and therefore need some carbs, which accounts for them being in the dog food.  Just wondering.  I watched a video the other day about a Vet who made homecooked meals for his dogs in the crockpot, and he added in oatmeal towards the end of the cooking process.  I see Nutro has oatmeal in some of their dog food (I only looked at the canned food ingredients, just because kibble isn't good for dogs either, I'm thinking).  Anyway, just wondering.  (I DID see c arrageenan in ONE can, but not all)

Re. cat food versus dog food, if you look at a can of Nature's Variety Instinct chicken in either the dog or cat formulas, you will see that there is no difference in ingredients. The canned dog food contains taurine. There is one difference between the can sizes however, in that you can get a 13 ounce can in the dog cans, but not in the cat cans? If you are looking for a low carb canned, Nature's Variety is about 3%. When you purchase the 13 ounce, its a better deal.

I tried Weruva which is a decent food but it is manufactured in Thailand, which I am not so thrilled about. Not disputing what Weruva may be saying, but I would think all pet food companies are going to say that they have strict quality control at their facilities.

mrsgreenjeens said:

 
Just out of curiousity....what's so awful about their DOG food?  Dog's are NOT obligate carnivore's and therefore need some carbs, which accounts for them being in the dog food.  Just wondering.  I watched a video the other day about a Vet who made homecooked meals for his dogs in the crockpot, and he added in oatmeal towards the end of the cooking process.  I see Nutro has oatmeal in some of their dog food (I only looked at the canned food ingredients, just because kibble isn't good for dogs either, I'm thinking).  Anyway, just wondering.  (I DID see c arrageenan in ONE can, but not all)

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I'm happy to tell you what I think and why I think what I do. I do encourage you to do your own research on dog food because every dog and every breed has different dietary needs and concerns. My experiences may not suit the needs of your pets. 

First off, it is not economically feasible to feed a large breed dog a canned diet, so large breed dog owners either feed kibble, home cooked diets or raw. Kibble is the cheapest option, that's why it's so popular. Your average family Labrador needs 1600 kcals of food per day. Your average can of dog food contains about one quarter of the calories they need, meaning they need between 4 and 5 13 oz cans of food per DAY, if you are feeding the calorie dense, low carb stuff. It's actually cheaper to feed a large breed dog a raw or home cooked diet, than it is to feed them canned food.  For small breed dogs, I'm sure canned foods are ideal, but they just don't make sense for large, active dogs. 

I know that everyone says that dogs are not obligate carnivores, and while that is true it's interesting to note that wolves and feral dogs do NOT seek out carbohydrates as part of their daily diet. They only seek out carbs as a food source when they are sick, or starving. While dogs can process carbs, it doesn't mean that they should be expected to do so on a daily basis. In the wild, they don't live off of carbs the way that humans feed them, every day, all the time without exception. It is my belief that feeding dogs carbohydrate heavy diets is why we have seen an increase in diabetes, liver and kidney health problems, cancer and obesity in them over the last few decades, because they aren't built to process the sheer amount of carbs that they are fed. They are built to process very small amounts on very rare occasions when the need arises. There's a great article on the dogs needing carbs myth here: http://rawfed.com/myths/carbs.html

The reason why I would not feed Nutro is 1. Ingredient quality. They don't publish ingredient sources. Who knows where this stuff comes from? If I don't know, I don't feed it. 2. The protein content of their kibbles is way too low. 21% is not enough energy for my dogs. It really needs to be 26% or more, ideally, in the 30 and higher range. The kibble I feed now is 35% crude protein. 3. Nutro just had a recall last summer, not for salmonella, which happens to every processed pet food maker, but a poor quality ingredient which was tainted by the source, which caused diarrhea, vomiting and loss of appetite in cats who were fed the tainted product. 600 quality checks a day, so Nutro says, and they still managed to let that one slip by them and make it onto the shelves like that? That says a lot about how good their quality control actually is. 4. The fat content of their kibble is also too low. Rather than burning carbs for energy, dog's bodies are designed to burn fat for energy too. 12% (I'm looking at their grain free food for these numbers) is just way too low. That number needs to be above 15% for good nutrition for dogs and the amount of carbs in this food is way too high. 

Maybe I'm too picky, but my dogs, and Porter too, are part of the family. I want them to have good quality of life for as long as they can. I hate the fact that they don't live as long as we do and if every little bit of pickiness about what they eat and drink, means I get one more good day with them, I'll take it. 

 

My favourite canned:

1) Firstmate - gum and carrageenan free and low carb %
2) Wellness Core - low carb %

I feed my 16 year old cat two main brands of wet canned cat food which he likes. They are:

Soulistic (Good Karma chicken & Pure Bliss tuna)

Nutro Natural Choice (chicken, turkey, tuna & chicken, tuna)

All of them above are in gravy and they come in minced, slices and shred textures since he won't touch a pate texture even in the flavors he likes.

Soulistic is Petco's inhouse brand and for the last two months due to "distribution problems", it's been hard to get because it wasn't available in the two flavors he likes. Weruva makes Soulistic for Petco and the pet food plant is in Thailand.

I buy the 5.5 ounce cans of Soulistic and yesterday, I ran a few errands which included going to my local Petco. They finally got in the two flavors he likes in the bigger cans. I bought all they had (8 cans) and then the manager called a few more Petco's for me. They also had the bigger cans so I went to them (3 Petco's in all) and bought all they had too. I came home with 48 of the 5.5 ounce cans.

This is why I wanted my cat to eat other cat food brands. The third brand he'll eat is Sheba. BTW, I picked up a few cans of Fancy Feast Grilled (in gravy) in chicken and chicken & liver as a "taste test" for him. I liked the percentage of ingredients in it for protein, fiber, fat, etc. But the ingredients themselves; the two I didn't like were wheat gluten and corn starch, but I figure if something drastic happens with Soulistic, Nutro Natural Choice and Sheba, Fancy Feast will be my fourth choice (if he'll eat Fancy Feast and it doesn't harm him in any way).

My favourite canned food I get for my cat is President's Choice Nutrition First. AFAIK, it's only available in Canada, but it's also unbeatable for cost. No meat by-products, and no artificial flavours. Usually costs 69 cents a 3 oz can, and that's a lot cheaper than the pet store premium foods. 

Authority is also a good brand, but really smelly. 

My cat will eat anything resembling meat; the exception is turkey&giblets which makes him vomit  - hopefully that's the only one, knock on wood. I'll try sometime again with just turkey (no giblets) to see what happens. 

Chicken (any brand - by-product, to single protein premium labels) will vanish in under 5 minutes,

Beef takes him ~ 8 minutes,

Rabbit / duck / lamb / buffalo / venison take him ~ 30-45 minutes, with little breathers in between. 

I'll feed anything from Friskies & FancyFeast classic pates, Simply Nourish, Grreat Choice pates, PC extra meaty pates, Wellness, Evo 95%, Wild Calling 96%, Hound&Gatos,   

Weruva, Merrick, BFF -  I've tried but wouldn't bother with again due to other premium brands having better dollar value per ounce, with the same non-offending ingredients.  

Basically, my cat meows 40 minutes before meal time and when I take the top off I let him sniff it, for his approval.  He licks his chops, goes to his food matt, sits down and waits patiently (sort of) for me to microwave it and add some meds.  He hasn't decline yet. 

Since I had to run into town, 12 miles away, to do some errands, I stopped in at the local Petsmart and picked up a few more cans of Fancy Feast Grilled in the (non-pate) flavors of tuna and chicken & beef. He won't eat pate flavors at all.

My cat has his usual allergies at this time of the year and he stopped eating his Soulistic. With this said, I thought it was time for a taste test with Fancy Feast. 

I opened the tuna and he must have smelled the food. He immediately became quite vocal. He woofed that one down. The entire 3 ounce can. At mid day I tried the chicken and beef one and he woofed that one down too.

So it looks like I can add Fancy Feast to his list of favorite canned cat foods.