Which brands (and flavors) of grain-free, limited ingredient diet cat food do you recommend?

meowfrau

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I've been looking at Natural Balance, Royal Canin, Holistic Select, Nature's Variety, and Blue Basics, but I'm open to suggestions. I'm admittedly hesitant towards Nature's Variety and Blue Basics. Nature's Variety includes clay which concerns me (should a cat even be eating clay?), and when I have fed Blue Buffalo Wilderness to my cat in the past, it gave him really bad diarrhea. So what grain-free, limited ingredient canned cat foot do you recommend? (Feel free to suggest a brand outside of what I have listed, but no raw please!) Thanks in advance! Trying to reduce the amount of stool along with stool odor and gas. (Vet has already checked him out to make sure he has no internal parasites or sicknesses.) 
 

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I
I've been looking at Natural Balance, Royal Canin, Holistic Select, Nature's Variety, and Blue Basics, but I'm open to suggestions. I'm admittedly hesitant towards Nature's Variety and Blue Basics. Nature's Variety includes clay which concerns me (should a cat even be eating clay?), and when I have fed Blue Buffalo Wilderness to my cat in the past, it gave him really bad diarrhea. So what grain-free, limited ingredient canned cat foot do you recommend? (Feel free to suggest a brand outside of what I have listed, but no raw please!) Thanks in advance! Trying to reduce the amount of stool along with stool odor and gas. (Vet has already checked him out to make sure he has no internal parasites or sicknesses.) 
If you are talking canned food (that is what I feed). I like pride by natures variety and so do my cats, rockstar rabbit is their fav! I alternate it with nutro natural choice chunky chicken loaf. Neither have carrageenan. Pride has clay, I have no problems with it! They also like Devine duos by wellness and catatouille stew by natural balance. Weruva Peking Ducken if they like shreds (some cats do not)!
 
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rlavach

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I also noticed that Nature's Variety Instinct had clay, but my picky cat actually really loves it. He loves the limited ingredient turkey & the non-limited rabbit. I'm sure someone on here with more knowledge could provide info on the use of Montmorillonite clay.
 

LTS3

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The clay is used as an anti-caking agent and is AAFCO approved for use in pet foods.
 

abbyntim

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I also noticed that Nature's Variety Instinct had clay, but my picky cat actually really loves it. He loves the limited ingredient turkey & the non-limited rabbit. I'm sure someone on here with more knowledge could provide info on the use of Montmorillonite clay.
My cats are doing very well on both of these foods. Stool size and odor definitely decreased after switching from Wellness grain-free canned to Instinct. As mentioned above, the clay is an anti-caking ingredient and some people believe it also removes toxins. The health of my cats greatly improved on this food- soft, shiny coats; smaller, less frequent, and less smelly stools; no need for flea treatment; reduction in digestive issues. It's also a calorie-dense food and low residue, so I don't have to feed as much.
 

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Wellness Core 

It's mostly meat,grain free,non soy,wheat,or  by products. Does not have lots of vegetables like other grain free food.

$2.09 a 5.5 oz can!

Laura
 

donotsurrender

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Hello,

Wellness is also a good higher grade of wet food. It is available in grain free. Note I have discovered that if a cat food is grain free, another form of starch has been used instead; as apparently, some form of starch is needed to bind the ingredients. It is often tapioca. Tapioca is not at all good for cats. Google it).To make the best choice, you have to teach yourself how to read cat food labels.

After looking up the ingredients on line of a dozen high end wet cat foods, and then looking up what is in each ingredient ie "meat by products". I  became better equipped to choose a few good wet food brands(it took several  evenings on the internet) . By then I knew that Friskies wet food was an awful thing to feed a cat and switched my cat from Friskies to a few high end brands! Wellness is one that I fed. After all my "research" I came to the conclusion that there is not a perfect wet food, just some good ones; as there will be some sort of trade off of ingredients to make each one just a bit less than perfect. (meat by products can be anything,

I  say "fed" because I recently switched to raw only. So glad I did. If you are interested: http://www.thecatsite.com/f/65/raw-home-cooked-cat-food

Donotsurrender
 

fifthranger

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Boy, never having a pet before has opened my eyes to the expense and vast amount of goods available on the market. Amazing the research that needs to be done in finding quality food!
 

bonepicker

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My cats are doing very well on both of these foods. Stool size and odor definitely decreased after switching from Wellness grain-free canned to Instinct. As mentioned above, the clay is an anti-caking ingredient and some people believe it also removes toxins. The health of my cats greatly improved on this food- soft, shiny coats; smaller, less frequent, and less smelly stools; no need for flea treatment; reduction in digestive issues. It's also a calorie-dense food and low residue, so I don't have to feed as much.
How are fleas affected by the food? I am curious what you meant?
 
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abbyntim

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How are fleas affected by the food? I am curious what you meant?
I have no idea! I wish I knew. But it was such a noticeable improvement that I felt I had to mention it. No evidence of fleas on either cat, and we've not used any kind of flea treatment in about a year. And I live in a warm climate with a year-round flea problem.
 

bonepicker

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I have no idea! I wish I knew. But it was such a noticeable improvement that I felt I had to mention it. No evidence of fleas on either cat, and we've not used any kind of flea treatment in about a year. And I live in a warm climate with a year-round flea problem.
How strange is that all they eat natures variety? I wonder if that clay is like diamatacious earth
 

momof3b1g

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Its more of  flavor thing for my cats. They eat some of the flavors of one brand but not another. They dont care for the NV chicken but like the turkey.
 

chrissywil

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AAFCO Also approved boots and motor oil to go into dog food - 60 minutes did a show on it - I only buy food for my pets that's certified human grade! It's a tough industry because the standards are so low.
 

lvmygrdn

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AAFCO Also approved boots and motor oil to go into dog food - 60 minutes did a show on it - I only buy food for my pets that's certified human grade! It's a tough industry because the standards are so low.
Good grief!
 

momto3cats

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AAFCO Also approved boots and motor oil to go into dog food - 60 minutes did a show on it - I only buy food for my pets that's certified human grade! It's a tough industry because the standards are so low.
No they didn't. Boots and motor oil are definitely not AAFCO approved ingredients. The things they do allow are bad enough, though.

You might be thinking of this story: 

"(Dr. Mark Morris, who also founded Hill’s Pet of feed formulation designed a “food” that met all the AAFCO nutrient profile requirements – even though the food was primarily formulated from old shoe leather, sawdust and motor oil with a multi-vitamin-mineral supplement. Obviously, there would be no guarantee that any animal would eat such a food, or could digest it, even though it contained all the vitamins, minerals, protein, fat, etc. that the nutrient profiles required."

from here, about halfway down the page: http://www.littlebigcat.com/nutrition/pet-food-regulation/
 
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