I ran across a survey by hillsvet of 825 cat owners. Two thirds of them fed their cats a combination of wet and dry food, and one third fed dry only. Only 1% of owners fed wet only. Given that the consensus among cat enthusiasts and vet experts is that a wet diet is superior to dry, I assume this is due to a combination of poverty, ignorance, laziness, and indifference. In my case poverty and laziness would apply, as I am close to broke and find dry food less of a hassle to dispense. It also smells less. However, I am aware of the superiority of wet food and do care deeply about my cat's well-being.
When I first got a cat I was ignorant so I just bought Meow Mix, which is by far the most popular and cheapest cat food. They have good propaganda too (Meow meow meow meow....). After I learned it was total crap, I switched to Iams. This is the most expensive/top of the line food available in my rural area in the Walmart and grocery store. Since that was the best I never gave a second thought about this for a few years, until I was browsing this forum and happened to learn that Iams, while not total crap, is basically 60% crap. I also learned that dry food is inferior to wet food by a wide margin. None of this surprises me. Cats can't talk, so people just abuse them to maximize the profit by putting in bad ingredients like roadkill or euthanized animals. On the other hand, it does seem a little overboard to go on the Internet and order rare specialty brands of food not available in normal stores - that seems like a rich man's game.
So then I switched to Iams dry food always available, and once-per-day in the morning a 3 ounce can of Newman's Organics Grain-Free Beef and Liver as a topper. I thought this was a pretty awesome wet supplement for a cat, as it has no grains, and all of the top ingredients are organic meats. The ingredient list is ideal except some people complained about a bad additive, I think carrageenan. I tried to buy their chicken formula because it was more cost effective, but my cat would not eat it and I had to give the entire case to the animal shelter. He is a very picky eater. He will eat all of the organic wet food in about five minutes and then go hungry all day and just eat tiny mouthfuls of the Iams - it takes about a week to empty a full bowl.
I do not want to give just Newman's Organics alone, because my cat is so picky I don't want him to become even pickier. Since I am poor a major catastrophic event could force me to feed cheap dry food alone so if he doesn't eat it he will starve. I'm thinking about switching the dry food from Iams to EVO. I think having EVO available all day with 3 ounces of organic wet food as a topper is a luxury level of food that few cats in the world would have. I have a few questions:
1) Are all wet foods superior to all dry foods? I gave my cat a free sample of Fancy Feast gravy lovers, and he absolutely loved the gravy but left the meat chunks to dry in the bowl. In other words, would Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers be superior to EVO? That doesn't make sense to me, but if it's true, then given he loves the gravy so much and EVO is so expensive, I could just give him Fancy Feast wet and Newman's Organics wet everyday and be better off.
2) Don't you feel nervous buying a less widely distributed specialty food like EVO or Orijen? Iams is distributed all over the nation in enormous quantities and is available in many stores. I would think it would be less likely for something to go wrong, because they have higher recall costs given the quantity. I figure, if something is wrong with the food, it's going to impact a lot of animals and therefore it is much more likely to be detected and lead to massive complaints, thus making the food safer. Safety in numbers is what I'm thinking. But something like EVO, which most people have never heard of and a lot of people can only order off the Internet as a comparatively rare food, wouldn't that be less safe? Plus they might put total crap in the food and I would never know. They could just pocket the premium cost, in the same way mechanics and computer repair people rip people off all the time because they don't know any better. Iams, on the other hand, has to keep costs reasonable because they don't want to impact the quantity sold. People who buy EVO might just pay anything/be less price sensitive. Plus if it's such a premium food how did this happen: http://itchmoforums.com/news-recall-related/problems-w-innova-and-test-results-t1028.0.html
3) I have seen some people say that EVO is too rich for about half of cats. Wait, hold up, take a step back? I thought the higher meat content was key, now you are complaining that it is too rich for your cats? If it is so healthy to have no grains, very low carbs, and a lot of meat, 50% of cats should not become sick eating it. So maybe a less rich food like Iams would be better? Or by "rich" are they just referring to the fat content?
4) I heard that liver is not a good thing to feed a cat every day, but the Newman's Organics Beef and Liver formula has liver as a major ingredient and it is approved to feed every day. But does it really mean that it is safe? I mean, even Meow Mix is approved by the government for every day use so approval means that it won't obviously poison and kill my cat in a way that can be proven adequately to file a lawsuit, but in the same way it is not a good idea for a human to eat a Snickers every day. Should I be concerned about liver as a daily ingredient? The thing is, I'm pretty sure my cat really likes the taste of liver and he would find a liver-free food less palatable. I think even the EVO food has liver in it. I e-mailed Iams about my concern regarding the liver and whether "healthy naturals" (the brand of Iams I bought) is really all that healthy and natural, and they did not bother to respond. They totally ignored my questions.
5) Does Iams Healthy Naturals taste worse than their normal food? If their other formulas taste better I could try switching to them. The descriptions they give for the various versions of their products are pretty generic (few specifics to differentiate them).
6) What do you think about using a higher carb content to save the lives of other animals? If cats can utilize carbs for energy fairly well, wouldn't it be kinder to spare the lives of other animals rather than processing them to make more meat for cats to eat? One of the downsides to being kind to a cat is that I am slaughtering the equivalent of two cows to sustain its life, not to mention any innocent birds/squirrels/mice it catches and tortures to death. If Iams uses half the meat, and a lot of that meat is roadkill or euthanized animals, that saves a lot of animal suffering compared to EVO.
When I first got a cat I was ignorant so I just bought Meow Mix, which is by far the most popular and cheapest cat food. They have good propaganda too (Meow meow meow meow....). After I learned it was total crap, I switched to Iams. This is the most expensive/top of the line food available in my rural area in the Walmart and grocery store. Since that was the best I never gave a second thought about this for a few years, until I was browsing this forum and happened to learn that Iams, while not total crap, is basically 60% crap. I also learned that dry food is inferior to wet food by a wide margin. None of this surprises me. Cats can't talk, so people just abuse them to maximize the profit by putting in bad ingredients like roadkill or euthanized animals. On the other hand, it does seem a little overboard to go on the Internet and order rare specialty brands of food not available in normal stores - that seems like a rich man's game.
So then I switched to Iams dry food always available, and once-per-day in the morning a 3 ounce can of Newman's Organics Grain-Free Beef and Liver as a topper. I thought this was a pretty awesome wet supplement for a cat, as it has no grains, and all of the top ingredients are organic meats. The ingredient list is ideal except some people complained about a bad additive, I think carrageenan. I tried to buy their chicken formula because it was more cost effective, but my cat would not eat it and I had to give the entire case to the animal shelter. He is a very picky eater. He will eat all of the organic wet food in about five minutes and then go hungry all day and just eat tiny mouthfuls of the Iams - it takes about a week to empty a full bowl.
I do not want to give just Newman's Organics alone, because my cat is so picky I don't want him to become even pickier. Since I am poor a major catastrophic event could force me to feed cheap dry food alone so if he doesn't eat it he will starve. I'm thinking about switching the dry food from Iams to EVO. I think having EVO available all day with 3 ounces of organic wet food as a topper is a luxury level of food that few cats in the world would have. I have a few questions:
1) Are all wet foods superior to all dry foods? I gave my cat a free sample of Fancy Feast gravy lovers, and he absolutely loved the gravy but left the meat chunks to dry in the bowl. In other words, would Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers be superior to EVO? That doesn't make sense to me, but if it's true, then given he loves the gravy so much and EVO is so expensive, I could just give him Fancy Feast wet and Newman's Organics wet everyday and be better off.
2) Don't you feel nervous buying a less widely distributed specialty food like EVO or Orijen? Iams is distributed all over the nation in enormous quantities and is available in many stores. I would think it would be less likely for something to go wrong, because they have higher recall costs given the quantity. I figure, if something is wrong with the food, it's going to impact a lot of animals and therefore it is much more likely to be detected and lead to massive complaints, thus making the food safer. Safety in numbers is what I'm thinking. But something like EVO, which most people have never heard of and a lot of people can only order off the Internet as a comparatively rare food, wouldn't that be less safe? Plus they might put total crap in the food and I would never know. They could just pocket the premium cost, in the same way mechanics and computer repair people rip people off all the time because they don't know any better. Iams, on the other hand, has to keep costs reasonable because they don't want to impact the quantity sold. People who buy EVO might just pay anything/be less price sensitive. Plus if it's such a premium food how did this happen: http://itchmoforums.com/news-recall-related/problems-w-innova-and-test-results-t1028.0.html
3) I have seen some people say that EVO is too rich for about half of cats. Wait, hold up, take a step back? I thought the higher meat content was key, now you are complaining that it is too rich for your cats? If it is so healthy to have no grains, very low carbs, and a lot of meat, 50% of cats should not become sick eating it. So maybe a less rich food like Iams would be better? Or by "rich" are they just referring to the fat content?
4) I heard that liver is not a good thing to feed a cat every day, but the Newman's Organics Beef and Liver formula has liver as a major ingredient and it is approved to feed every day. But does it really mean that it is safe? I mean, even Meow Mix is approved by the government for every day use so approval means that it won't obviously poison and kill my cat in a way that can be proven adequately to file a lawsuit, but in the same way it is not a good idea for a human to eat a Snickers every day. Should I be concerned about liver as a daily ingredient? The thing is, I'm pretty sure my cat really likes the taste of liver and he would find a liver-free food less palatable. I think even the EVO food has liver in it. I e-mailed Iams about my concern regarding the liver and whether "healthy naturals" (the brand of Iams I bought) is really all that healthy and natural, and they did not bother to respond. They totally ignored my questions.
5) Does Iams Healthy Naturals taste worse than their normal food? If their other formulas taste better I could try switching to them. The descriptions they give for the various versions of their products are pretty generic (few specifics to differentiate them).
6) What do you think about using a higher carb content to save the lives of other animals? If cats can utilize carbs for energy fairly well, wouldn't it be kinder to spare the lives of other animals rather than processing them to make more meat for cats to eat? One of the downsides to being kind to a cat is that I am slaughtering the equivalent of two cows to sustain its life, not to mention any innocent birds/squirrels/mice it catches and tortures to death. If Iams uses half the meat, and a lot of that meat is roadkill or euthanized animals, that saves a lot of animal suffering compared to EVO.
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