Is the cheapest canned food really better than a premium (orijen etc) dry food

Reading few many posts on here, I see many people insinuating that the cheap canned food (brands such as friskies pate) are healthier for a cat than a premium dry kibble.  Are brands like friskies canned honestly better than brands such as Orijen dry food?

Please read through Dr Lisa Piersen's site http://catinfo.org   She does an amazing job at explaining why dry food is not the best choice for cats. You can go to the short version if you like near the top of the intro page. To answer your question, she says Yes. From her site:

Before you get too confused and frustrated when reading this section, I will say at the outset:  I would much rather see a cat eat any  canned food versus any  dry food  - regardless of quality level of the canned or dry food.  This includes Friskies, 9-Lives, Fancy Feast, etc., canned options. 

I am so tired of seeing cats suffering tremendously from blocked urethras and other urinary tract diseases because of Man's love affair with dry food

I agree with the poster above, too. Even though I've only been on this forum for a very short time, I've noticed how very common it is for cats to develop struvite crystals or worse, the cats urethras get blocked from these crystal formation all due to kibble fed cats. These blockages are an emergent situation, painful to look at, and costly to treat! It places stress on both the cat and cat owners! 

I say if you can afford Orijen cat food, surely you can afford incorporating a decent brand of wet food in their diet? I find a lot of premium quality wet foods not available at your ordinary big box stores, though. If you can, try go to one of the smaller independent pet stores in your area and compare prices for the quality you can get. 

Wet foods will be more expensive, but over time if your feline is just healthier from receiving adequate moisture, you'll have some cost-savings in vet bills in the future. Hope you think about it, especially if you have a male cat! 

mydaddysjag said:

 
Reading few many posts on here, I see many people insinuating that the cheap canned food (brands such as friskies pate) are healthier for a cat than a premium dry kibble.  Are brands like friskies canned honestly better than brands such as Orijen dry food?

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Hmm... I am a little stuck on this line as well since Friskies pate isn't too available here and all I can find for sheba is full of Fish products around here. However, having said that, there is a comparison to be made since Hugo is on half wet (Merricks' mostly since there is nothing cheaper that is not Friskies) and half dry (Orijen) - the carbohydrate comparison (which is not needed for cats) is about 17% for Orijen as opposed to 3% or so for Merrick's.

I would love to feed Hugo all wet but there is the irregular hours and not to mention the lack of affordable grain free wet around here (other than Merrick;s). So, my middle road is to do both and he seems well.

It depends on the canned food too - even cheap canned food can be divided into the good, the bad, and the ugly. Friskies is one of the cheaper brands that isn't so bad because it's still pretty high in protein and pretty low in carbs, especially relative to some dry brands. However, there are also cheap brands that contain fairly high concentrations of things like corn or rice or flours that add more carbs. It's not as much as what's in dry food, but there's a level of quality to consider there too.

The main argument is that most cats tend to not drink as much water, and so that leaves them in a state of chronic dehydration which in turn leads to a lot of other problems because every organ needs sufficient water to flush it out. I think if you're going to feed an all-anything diet, an all-wet would be a generally better route than all-dry, for example.

I like to have a good balance and variety, and if you can afford to do that, great! If not, while a lot of people take a strong stance on wet vs dry as a general debate, when considering the type of food you're really left weighing the risks of feeding or not feeding specific things and in what quantities. For example, if all you can get are wet fish flavours like @lucentstreak (just using you as an example because you happened to post right above me ), maybe do one can of fish a week among a mixed wet/dry diet. I don't think grains will make or break a cat's health unless there are any allergies or sensitivities and I don't mind seeing them in low concentrations, but that's just my preference.

mydaddysjag said:

 
Reading few many posts on here, I see many people insinuating that the cheap canned food (brands such as friskies pate) are healthier for a cat than a premium dry kibble.  Are brands like friskies canned honestly better than brands such as Orijen dry food?

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Not necessarily. Commercial wet canned food provides some meat protein, but often in the cheaper brands it can't be determined what type of meat this is, or its source. Wet canned will also provide a certain amount of moisture content that cats do require, but many economical brands feature synthetic ingredients that can be hazardous to the health of a cat, and for this reason, should not be fed exclusively if it can be helped. As for Orijen cat food, it is a high quality dry food that contains 7+ sources of meat protein as first ingredients. The source of the meat is reliable, and the company is a small regional business that is dedicated to sourcing quality products. When it comes to deciding between cheap canned foods and premium dry food, both have some merit, but neither should be fed exclusively.

I agree with that statement to an extent.  I feed about 80-90% wet and 10-20% dry.  I feed high quality dry, and a mix of low, medium, and premium quality wet.  I have everything from Friskies to Sheba to Merrick to Tiki Cat.  I rotate wet foods all the time. 

Friskies pates are a decent quality for a cheap food; as in there is a good protein to carb ratio.  However, there are ingredients some people are opposed to, like meat by products and synthetic Vitamin K.  A cheap food that is very well received by both of my cats, are Sheba pates and cuts.  The cuts are a minced/ chunky food that still has a relatively low carb content.  

Some cats have a preference for texture.  Our kitten prefers non-pate, our senior prefers pate.  While your cat is young, feed him/her the texture you WANT him to eat first, and hope for the best.  If he doesn't get too much variety from a texture perspective, he won't develop a preference.  I wish I had never introduced our kitten to chunky foods!  In general, the pates tend to be more calorie dense, and therefore more economical.  Our kitten's favorite foods are from Weruva/Soulistic.  They are about half the calories of other foods, so I have to feed twice as much, and they are not cheap!  

Anything "with gravy" tends to be higher carb than pates in general.  Most of the cheaper chunky foods (Friskies, Fancy Feast, etc) also have wheat gluten, and other binders/fillers that increase the carb content of the food and make it less desirable.  

In the end, it's cat food.  I love my pets to pieces, but there are only a few things I avoid when choosing foods for them.  I avoid wheat gluten, corn & wheat, and any food I feed must have protein as the first 2 of 3 ingredients (water or broth is usually in the top 3- the other two must be meat- named or unnamed). By-products don't bother me.  

@chloe92us   . I just recently started feeding my cats about 90 % can/wet diet .. They also get 1/8 cup of Annamaet Grain Free kibble per day .

I also plan on rotating between brands of  wet food .. 

Should I not worry about these 2 particular ingredients ?   Carrageenan or Menadione sodium bisulfite 

Thank you ..

2Cats4Me said:

 
@chloe92us   . I just recently started feeding my cats about 90 % can/wet diet .. They also get 1/8 cup of Annamaet Grain Free kibble per day .

I also plan on rotating between brands of  wet food .. 

Should I not worry about these 2 particular ingredients ?   Carrageenan or Menadione sodium bisulfite 

Thank you ..

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I don't worry at all about Carrageenan, but the MSB is a bit scary.  It seems it is in ALL of the cheaper foods, and some of the expensive ones too.  I don't avoid it personally, but that is why rotation is good in the long run.  Some foods will have a bit of this or that, but if you rotate around a bit at least the exposure evens out.  I do know that If I avoided everything controversial, I would be left with very few choices.