Carrageenan safe for cats?

Hi Guys, My name is Lee

I have been reading thecatsite posts for quite some time and recently chanced upon a post regarding carrageenan in cat canned food,and decided to create a account and discuss with everyone

I went to Google and read up on more reports/posts on carrageenan, I was quite shocked that it can may cause cancer and IBD,I have been feeding my 2 cats Wellness Core and EVO canned food for about 2 years(I am a relatively new cat owner,had my cats for about 2 years)

Wellness and EVO were very good brands that I have been using these 2 years But now I decided to change to other brands due to the carrageenan that is worrying me
I did some research and these are the brands that are carrageenan free
-Nature's Logic
-Nature's Variety Instinct
-Weruva
-Tiki Cat

But sadly,I am only able to get Nature's variety instinct from the place where I live, so i might still have to stick with wellness and EVO.

I am really stuck and confused now as there were reports that carrageenan won't affect the cats unless it's at a high level, and that it's not 100% guaranteed, But I wouldn't want to risk my cats

I would like to get everyone opinion on this,Should I really be so worried about the carageenan in cat canned food that I should change brands?

Now it's like 50/50 that carrageenan is harmless/harmful

Thanks guys for your opinions!(Pardon my English please!)

Welcome to TSC.  I am by no means an expert but I find it better to avoid questionable ingredients, both for my cats and myself.  If your cats eat the carrageenan-free food, I'd stick with that as much as possible.

Where do you live? You can buy most pet foods online! I rotate some foods with carrageenan with some that do not have it. I rotate Natures Variety instinct rabbit and pride by instinct rockstar rabbit. Neither have carageenan. I also rotate nutro natural choice chunky chicken or minced chicken loaf also no carageenan. I also rotate Merrick duck and chicken pate which has carageenan. I also rotate wellness Devine duos chicken/duck combo and Natural balance catatouille stew. Neither of those have carageenan. My boy cat loves all the weruva, soulistic, cats in the kitchen (all by weruva). But my girl is not a big fan of shredded meat. All weruva and their spin offs have no carageenan. Chewy.com has best prices. Petco sells soulistic which is a Weruva spin off. I try to get what she will eat, since she is the picky one.

Thanks Ondine for the welcome! I live in Singapore, I am only able to get Natural's variety instinct from the local pet stores

I agree that I should try to avoid the questionable ingredients, but I have read that undegraded carageenan(human food grade)is safe for human/cats

I sent an email to Wellness and received a reply, What do you guys think of it?

Hello Lee, thanks for your question. Here at Wellness, we are committed to the highest standards of food safety. Our priority is providing you and your pets with consistently safe, premium-quality natural food. There are two types of Carrageenan: Degraded and Un-Degraded. Un-Degraded (food grade) Carrageenan is what can be found in very small amounts of WellPet products. Un-degraded Carrageenan's safety has been assured by the FDA GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) as a non-toxic, non-teratogenic and non-carcinogenic sea vegetable. We are staying on top of the latest research regarding carrageenan and will continue to evaluate alternative ingredients. We'd be happy to talk with you more about how our ingredients are chosen and answer any additional questions.

Thanks and looking forward to your replies!

I generally try to avoid carrageenan -- I only feed one food with it, Wellness Core, to our cats. They get about one can a week.

As for the Wellness response, my quick reaction is that it sounds very typically corporate! 

I make it a habit to avoid questionable ingredients, too.  I've seen first-hand what IBD can do to a cat and I'm never going through that again   The big brand pet food companies' number one priority is making as much money as they can get their greedy mitts on, and I promise you'll never get a completely honest answer from them.  They cherry pick data that casts their products in a favorable light.  Of course they aren't going to mention recent research that suggests carrageenan mutates into cancerous poligeenan when it comes into contact with stomach acid, and they may genuinely be unaware of it (I can't help being skeptical, though!).  As we're all aware, companies continue to use controversial products or ingredients until there's definitive proof of harm, and there's always a long list of sick and dead pets/people leading up to that day, so...  

If you can get Instinct locally, I would stick with it.  You might also want to consider making your cat's food (there's a good resource on the web by Lisa Pierson), or going raw.   

My cat has likes the carragean free food so I just stick with it. Lotus, Weruvas, Holistic select, Some Wellness.

I figure the less stuff I cannot spell the better.

Thanks everyone for your opinion/advice, I decided to switch to carrageenan free food

I wouldn't want to risk my cats health over this and have a good day!