Novice to good nutrition!

Hello! I'm Jas, and I recently adopted a wonderful kitty from the humane society. Her name is Caffee, she's 7.5 years old, and she weighs 10.8 pounds as of her last vetting on December 27th. She's a dilute calico.
I'm wondering what her diet should look like. For five years I had a beloved cat with FLV, and that really made me aware of how nutrition needs are a big deal. This is my first kitty since her death 3 years ago and they're different in age, size, and health.
So, what should I look for to keep Caffee in good form? Right now she's eating Meow Mix. The biggest struggle I have is my location. I live a super rural area (I went over sixty miles just to the shelter) and pretty much Walmart is the only store in a reasonable distance. I can also order online if there are any promising brands. I've got a broken leg and can't drive, so going too far out of the way is a huge production.

Thanks in advance!

Chewy.com is great for online ordering of pet food.

As to what, you are going to get a ton of opinions. Personally, Meow Mix is junk food. It has a ton of fillers and by products. I think it is worth it to pay for better because they tend to eat less because they are getting better nutrition per bite. If money is an issue than even just Purina One at a smidgen more is better.

I do Natures Variety Instinct which is about $40 a month for 3 cats (they split a can of wet each day too). In general you want something that has meat in the top five ingredients. Avoid corn, wheat or other grains. I personally dislike potatos too from my personal research into food. It seems to be another binder that can contribute to weight gain. A lot of people avoid fish too because if they aren't using high quality fish there is a mercury risk and since you can't ensure quality of the fish it's better to avoid.

Remember to switch slowly to avoid tummy problems.

I alternate canned food for my kitten. Right now, Koha and Ziwipeaks. He was eating Nature's Variety Instinct too but then got sick and threw up the peas and carrots, so I don't think I'll be giving that food a second go.

Feline Naturals is probably one of the best canned on the market right now.

They are pricey foods. If you are looking for something a little more economical, some on here have recommended the Fancy Feast Classic / Pates.

I agree that Meow Mix is a really lousy food. Lots of filler and byproducts, low qualify ingredients that do nothing for the health and wellbeing of kitty.

Wallet-friendly Brands; no corn, no wheat, no soy

Purina Beyond

Sheba

Natural Value

Purina True Nature (some MBP content; see the Classic Pate recipes)

Meow Mix, Alley Cat, and Kit 'n' Kaboodle are the lowest quality brand-name cat foods available . Avoid those. Purina Cat Chow is the lowest quality food I would ever call OK, but it's not great.

www.chewy.com is a great resource for these of us who live in rural areas. If you need to stick with Walmart, Purina One Beyond, Evolve, and Pure Balance are some of the higher-quality kibbles.

Recent research suggests that canned food is better for cats, because many cats don't drink enough to keep properly hydrated when they eat dry food, and canned food usually has more meat protein too. Friskies Classic Pate foods aren't too bad. No grains except for rice, no soy protein or glutens.

TheGreyStalker said:

 
Wallet-friendly Brands; no corn, no wheat, no soy

Purina Beyond

Click to expand...

Funny, my mom's vet told her to never feed Purina Beyond because (according to the vet) the listed ingredients don't match the real ingredients and what you get in each bag is a craps shoot.

Purina has quite an international reputation to uphold. I doubt they would tarnish that with having unlisted ingredients. That could make an allergic person have a fatal reaction, and then they'd get sued. I don't think all Purina foods are high quality, even if they market them as such, but I do think they value their reputation too much to deliberately engage in malfeasance.

Willowy said:

Purina has quite an international reputation to uphold. I doubt they would tarnish that with having unlisted ingredients. That could make an allergic person have a fatal reaction, and then they'd get sued. I don't think all Purina foods are high quality, even if they market them as such, but I do think they value their reputation too much to deliberately engage in malfeasance.

Click to expand...

Isn't that what Blue Buffalo did? And then got sued?

Blue Buffalo strikes me as a "make a quick buck" company.  They and other pet food makers said that the contamination problem of several years ago was entirely the fault of source ingredients from overseas suppliers.  That may be true but I simply do not get the feeling that Blue Buffalo is a special company when it comes to commitment to its customers.  And weren't they forced to settle with (pay) Nestle Purina for making disparaging claims that ultimately they could not prove?

I love ordering from Chewy.com. They are fantastic in terms of customer service and ship out goods right away. It has all of the different brands of food you could hope for including the high end. The only issue is that they sell their cans in single types, so you end up with say 24 cans of one flavor of one brand of food.  That works if you already know what your cat likes. Sometimes they will offer a variety in one pack.

I think you can get boxes of Friskies Fancy Feast in boxes which come with a variety of choices. They are anywhere from .55 to .59 cents a can. If you stick to the classic pates it doesn't have any gluten, soy or corn in it or any other grains.  That changes with any of the kinds that say "minced" or "grilled" or anything but pate. The chicken/turkey/beef pack is usually a fairly good  bet for most cats. But you should be able to get Fancy Feast at Wal Mart too. Sheba is good for the inexpensive stuff, but they stopped selling it in cans and now have this goofy split pack in plastic that divides a 3 oz portion into  two 1.5 oz portions. Once they did that, my cats weren't interested. My guess is that the plastic tub imparts a taste.

Some kitties will always want a little kibble with their canned food. I feed my cats canned food for their meals, but have some kibble on hand if they are extra hungry for a little treat. 

Many people have very specific reasons why they like to offer their cats certain kinds of foods and not others. The best ones are very clear about what is in the food.  A recognizable single source meat as the first ingredient is best.   My cats also like Wellness pates which are good for kitties. As for the dry bits, they have had dry wellness on hand. 

I think that it's good to try different wet foods with your kitty to see what appeals and how she responds to it. Cats are picky but having her get used to a lot of different brands insures that she gets good nutrition, doesn't get completely attached to just one kind. If there is a recall, or it becomes unavailable, you want her to be ready to eat another kind. 

Other canned foods that you can get on Chewy are variety cases of Weruva . These do have salmon in some of them, and others are just chicken or beef.  This is made in Thailand which I have some concerns about, but it's soupy food that my one cat that had a terrible bout of constipation seems to enjoy. 

yogakitty said:

Isn't that what Blue Buffalo did? And then got sued?

Click to expand...

Blue Buffalo is a fairly new, fairly small company, and doesn't have an international presence (as far as I know). Purina is HUGE. They produce more stuff than most of us even know about. They have a lot to lose if they were found to be lax in their quality control or if it was proven that they deliberately mislabeled products. So, like I said, they may not produce top-quality foods but they most likely aren't going to risk a mislabling issue.

Please look at Chewy.com.  They have a wide variety of pet supplies, and their customer service simply can't be beat.  Their prices compare favorably with any store I have visited, including Walmart.  Delivery is free on orders over $49.99.  That may sound like a lot, but if you are getting litter there, as well, it's not a bad deal.  They also have auto-ship, and you get 20% off your first order when you sign up.  The order can be changed  or cancelled at any time.  I use them for almost all of my pet food, and we have several stores within a 15-minute drive.  

On to the food itself.  Most of the stuff you see in the grocery store is horrible, and Meow Mix, with its fake bright colors, is among the worst.  This is not an accusation, by any means:  you are not responsible for what Caffee was fed before.  We just adopted a dog who had been bounced from one home to another, and he came with a partial bag of Pedigree.  He threw up in his kennel on the ride home, and it was a slimy Technicolor mess.  

I don't really like kibble for any animal, and especially not a cat.  I have been using it, in spite of my feelings about it, for several reasons, but those days are over.  I'm in the process of switching my pets to the best canned food I can afford.  The thing with cats is that they can become almost addicted to kibble, and the worse it is, the more they seem to like it.  You may have to go slowly, so Caffee keeps eating.  It is not safe to "wait it out" with a cat, in hopes that it will get hungry enough to eat anything you offer.  A cat who stops eating can get very sick very quickly.  For that reason, I would keep the Meow Mix around until you have seen that Caffee is willing to accept a new food.  You might have to mix them together and kind of wean her off of it.  Don't let her fill up on it, but keep it around just in case. 

Here are a couple of sites you may find helpful:

http://www.reviews.com/cat-food/

This site includes all forms of cat food, so people who don't like dry will want to ignore those selections.  Even if you never use any of these brands, the information about what should and should not be in cat food is pretty useful.  There are other decent brands out there.  They may not be perfect, but sometimes you have to pick your battles.  

Also check out catinfo.org.  

Please let us know how it goes, and thank you for adopting this sweet baby.  I used to have a dilute calico, a little cat who was born to a stray mama in the crawlspace under our house, and she was a very pretty cat.

 Thank you for all of the replies so far; I'm learning a lot!

 Chewy is great so far! I really love the pricing, obviously, as well as the variety.

 I do have one question regarding wet foods - I read a long (long) time ago not to feed your cat exclusively wet food because of liver or kidney damage. Now I'm realizing the writer of that article was probably trying to give the best information to those of us with a limited budget, because cheaper wet foods tend to have higher mercury content. Am I way off base? I only fed my Willow wet food when she was going through a bad spell and losing weight. She'd gobble it up. Caffee so far hasn't been introduced to any (by me, anyway) because of that reason.

fulltexxas said:

 
 Thank you for all of the replies so far; I'm learning a lot!

 Chewy is great so far! I really love the pricing, obviously, as well as the variety.

 I do have one question regarding wet foods - I read a long (long) time ago not to feed your cat exclusively wet food because of liver or kidney damage. Now I'm realizing the writer of that article was probably trying to give the best information to those of us with a limited budget, because cheaper wet foods tend to have higher mercury content. Am I way off base? I only fed my Willow wet food when she was going through a bad spell and losing weight. She'd gobble it up. Caffee so far hasn't been introduced to any (by me, anyway) because of that reason.

Click to expand...

It's the fish.  Some kinds of fish, particularly larger ocean fish, have high mercury content, and that can be a problem with some of the cheaper foods.  I can't give my cats fish, anyway, because a couple of them are prone to urinary tract issues.  

One of the brands I just switched to is Triumph.  It's not absolutely top of the line, but it's a lot better than anything at the grocery store, and for someone like me, with six cats, it's a bargain.

Triumph appears to be a very choice and alternative to higher priced brands.  But...

Be cautious if  your cats have problems with fish because fish is an ingredient in nearly every Triumph formula, I believe.

Depends on which kind.  I don't see any fish listed on the turkey formula in the larger can, or the  grain-free turkey and giblets in the small can.  Nice example of how unwanted ingredients can be lurking in a brand you like, otherwise.  A couple of the forumulas were suggested to me as safe, so I foolishly assumed they all were unless they *said* they were fish.

Unfortunately, I ordered a case of the beef formula, which does have it, when my first and foremost goal was to get the cats on wet food, any kind of wet food, as opposed to kibble.  I guess I will use the beef formula a tiny bit at a time as a topper on my dogs' food, and revise my Chewy order again.

Thanks for the heads-up, and please excuse me while I go hit myself over the head.  -_-