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Opinion on whiskas food
- Thread starter jacobmcdowell
- Start Date
Cute kitten!
I prefer not to feed it, generally speaking. Even within the same price bracket, my opinion is that there are better foods available.
I wouldn't feed the dry at all. Even the advertised "Meaty Selections" is sorely lacking in protein for cats at 35.5% whereas better foods will aim for 40%+ and those proteins will be meat-based. If you look at their ingredients, they include corn, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, wheat, wheat flour, and rice.
It would be one thing if ONE of those things appeared on an ingredient list, but to see more than one - and in fact six of them - is a deal breaker for me. These things are added to try and boost protein percentage (cats are obligate carnivores, so they need animal-based protein and can't digest or utilize energy from plant-based proteins well, so it comes out as waste instead) and they boost the carbohydrates. Cats do better on low carb, high protein foods. My boyfriend used to feed his cat (our older cat) Whiskas because it was easy to get. We're never going back to that.
Their wet food is less bad, but they still include wheat flour and wheat protein in some of them. I tried to feed one of their canned pates to our cats and it was a real fight. They didn't like it at all. They do have some wet foods that don't contain grain and are only meat and supplements, but I don't have any experience with these. They look alright to feed, but learning to read ingredient and guaranteed analysis labels will help a lot to judge any brand, and you'll learn to set out your own criteria for good vs bad food. And then your cat will be the final judge of taste!
Choosing The Right Food for Your Cat and you
How to Compare Cat Foods & Calculate Carbs: Dry Matter Basis
Grain-Free Cat Food – What Does It Mean?
What Makes the Best Canned Cat Food?
Choosing the Right Dry Cat Food
I prefer not to feed it, generally speaking. Even within the same price bracket, my opinion is that there are better foods available.
I wouldn't feed the dry at all. Even the advertised "Meaty Selections" is sorely lacking in protein for cats at 35.5% whereas better foods will aim for 40%+ and those proteins will be meat-based. If you look at their ingredients, they include corn, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, wheat, wheat flour, and rice.
It would be one thing if ONE of those things appeared on an ingredient list, but to see more than one - and in fact six of them - is a deal breaker for me. These things are added to try and boost protein percentage (cats are obligate carnivores, so they need animal-based protein and can't digest or utilize energy from plant-based proteins well, so it comes out as waste instead) and they boost the carbohydrates. Cats do better on low carb, high protein foods. My boyfriend used to feed his cat (our older cat) Whiskas because it was easy to get. We're never going back to that.
Their wet food is less bad, but they still include wheat flour and wheat protein in some of them. I tried to feed one of their canned pates to our cats and it was a real fight. They didn't like it at all. They do have some wet foods that don't contain grain and are only meat and supplements, but I don't have any experience with these. They look alright to feed, but learning to read ingredient and guaranteed analysis labels will help a lot to judge any brand, and you'll learn to set out your own criteria for good vs bad food. And then your cat will be the final judge of taste!
Choosing The Right Food for Your Cat and you
How to Compare Cat Foods & Calculate Carbs: Dry Matter Basis
Grain-Free Cat Food – What Does It Mean?
What Makes the Best Canned Cat Food?
Choosing the Right Dry Cat Food
I use Whiskas if I need to tempt a non-eater. Usually, it will get them eating. Gwendolyn was one such cat, from animal control. She wouldn't eat anything but the Whiskas, so I catered to her for about a week while she settled in, then I began adding Royal Canin and weaned her off the junk food. When she was adopted, she went home on Royal Canin Indoor Mature. I'd had her over a month and the change in her overall condition was noticeable. I wouldn't feed Whiskas as a permanent food. I've seen the results of that too many times. Overweight cats, dull coat, urinary tract problems, bad breath, body odour. If you need a low-budget option for dry food, there are better choices - Lifetime and Summit are quite inexpensive, and though they aren't top of the line chow, they're infinitely better than Whiskas, Iams, Cat Chow, etc...For a bit more, there's Nutram, Nutro, and Science Diet, for example. Nutro uses only North American ingredients and performs more safety checks than anyone else in the industry, and the food is reasonably priced. My favourite is Royal Canin. Its expensive, but you get what you pay for.
