Fancy Feast?

Dusty got spoiled eating Fancy Feast. A friend who lost her cat brought over her remaining cans, and ever since she won't eat any other brand of canned food. I usually give her one can a day - half in the morning and the rest in the evening. She also has dry food available all the time.

I've heard Fancy Feast described as the "McDonalds" of cat food. Cats love it, but nutritionally it isn't the greatest. I can't tell you how many other brands I have tried to feed her with no luck. Even with Fancy Feast, she only likes the fish flavors, chicken gormet and tender beef gormet. She won't touch turkey or any of the flaked, grilled, chunked, sliced or those in gravy.

Should I try some other brand, or would I just be wasting my money?

Can you gradually wean her from the Fancy Feast? Mix in just a bit of a high-quality food into her Fancy Feast. Every few days, use a bit more of the high-quality food and less Fancy Feast. If she stops eating it, back off just a bit and hold steady for a while, then try again to reduce the Fancy Feast.

Which other foods have you tried?

I had my cat baby on fancy feast for about a year, because she was finicky about her wet food. Unfortunately she lost a massive amount of weight and got an inflamed bowel from eating it (premium wet foods don't do this to her) and cost me a massive amount in vet bills getting her back to health. I wouldn't recommend fancy feast to anyone, although 'some' of the varieties have ok ingredients.

mix the FF with a premium of your choicing ...

She could be a gravy kitty, a kitty who needs the extra gravy on her food, you might try switching her to Meowmix wet pouches, they are super wet and yummy, she may like them.

You could also try mixing foods... however I did that when my cat was refusing to eat Nature's Variety RAW food... and he just licked the food he wanted off.

Quite frankly, it sounds like you have a picky cat, and unliked dogs or people not feeding your cat isn't going to entice her more to changing her ways... so if you absolutely can't get her to eat anything else I really wouldn't worry about it.

What dry are you feeding? You could buy her a better dry food [Felidae, Innova, etc.] the fancy feast in the amount you're feeding really isn't harmful in my oppinion... since it's just one can. So if you could give her a better dry food to eat she'll be fine, and maybe the better dry food will fill her up and she won't be so interesting in wet food.

Thanks, I am going to try the Meow Mix pouches.

And yes, I do have a picky cat. Amazing, when we first started feeding her as a stray she would eat ANYTHING, but now she's a diva cat.

all my kitten will eat is fancy feast too. I have tried every single brand out there and she just went about a week without eating any wet food because of it. The only flavor she likes is fancy feasts grilled turkey and grilled salmon. I switch back and forth between purina pro plan sensivite skin and stomach (lamb flavor) dry food, and purina pro plan kittens. I don't know how "high quality" purina is, but it's the most i can afford, so its better than something else.

I don't think Meow Mix is any better than Fancy Feast. They both compare to a human living solely on McDonald's burgers. I found a site that rates different foods. Hope this helps! http://www.rateitall.com/t-354-cat-food-brands.aspx.

Originally Posted by sharky

mix the FF with a premium of your choicing ...

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Excellent advice!!!

I always keep a dozen of the cod, sole, and shrimp flavor......It is the only thing my cats would eat if they get sick. It is also excellent for mixing in medications and supplements.

Actually FF is not so bad as a "supplement carrier". If you mix in supplements (say half a pill per can) FF can actually be quite acceptable.

I don't think Meow Mix is any better than Fancy Feast. They both compare to a human living solely on McDonald's burgers. I found a site that rates different foods. Hope this helps! http://www.rateitall.com/t-354-cat-food-brands.aspx.

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Why because Tuna is the first ingredient?

Meow Mix What's the Catch
Tuna, fish broth, ocean fish, shrimp, vegetable oil, tricalcium phosphate, guar gum, carrageenan, vitamins [vitamin E supplement, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin A supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), folic acid, vitamin D3 supplement], minerals [zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate], sodium nitrite (to promote color retention).

Meow Mix Hook, Line and Sinker
Tuna, fish broth, sardine, tuna liver, red snapper, ocean fish, guar gum, vegetable oil, carrageenan, tricalcium phosphate, vitamins [vitamin E supplement, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin A supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), folic acid, vitamin D3 supplement], minerals [zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate], sodium nitrite (to promote color retention).


Meow Mix Upstream Dream
Tuna, fish broth, sardine, tuna liver, salmon, crab, guar gum, vegetable oil, carrageenan, tricalcium phosphate, vitamins [vitamin E supplement, thiamine mononitrate, vitamin A supplement, vitamin D3 supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), riboflavin supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), folic acid], minerals [zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate], annatto color, canthaxanthin color, sodium nitrite (to promote color retention).


Meow Mix Fillet Meow
Tuna, fish broth, tuna liver, beef, guar gum, vegetable oil, carrageenan, tricalcium phosphate, vitamins [vitamin E supplement, thiamine mononitrate, vitamin A supplement, vitamin D3 supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), riboflavin supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), folic acid], minerals [zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate], sodium nitrite (to promote color retention).

Meow Mix Cluck-a-Doodle Doo
Tuna, fish broth, chicken, chicken liver, giblets (poultry liver and heart), wheat gluten, dried egg, food starch modified, natural flavor, cane sugar, titanium dioxide, sodium carboxymethycellulose, calcium sulfate dihydrate, carrageenan, potassium chloride, choline chloride, vitamins [vitamin E supplement, thiamine mononitrate, niacin, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, vitamin A supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), folic acid, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), biotin, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin B12 supplement], minerals [zinc oxide, ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, calcium iodide, sodium selenite], sodium nitrite (to promote color retention).

We are talking about the wet food Moew mix makes and it is as Plebayo shows most are free of all by products most are low grain to no grain and the only thing not perfect is the sodium nitrite and that is very low and that they have lots of fish ..

Moew mix dry is not high end but the wet is

Yeah the dry is DISGUSTING! It's so odd that the wet is better quality.

I agree about the fish... but it's been a godsend for my allergic cat.

Fancy Feast is really almost addictive for cats. I swear they must put MSG in the stuff or something! It is amazing how quickly they will refuse to eat anything else once they get hooked on FF!

Weaning cats to another food from FF is definitely very possible. Just begin by mixing in a small amount of the new food. Gradually increase the new food and decrease the FF until your cat is eating the new food by itself.

Personally, I keep a few cans of FF around just in case I decide to try a new food on them and they end up hating it. They'll eat just about anything if there's Fancy Feast mixed in.

I bought a couple cans of Fancy Feast a while back, just to try them out as occasional treats and surprisingly my cat Rosie wasn't too crazy about Fancy Feast. Spotty likes it though but it hasn't stopped him from eating anything else probably because I haven't fed it very often. Rosie loves the canned Purina Pro-Plan Chicken and Liver formula though. I guess you could call the canned Purina Pro-Plan a more upscale Fancy Feast. But I'm thinking about maybe not buying anymore of those because it seems the Purina Pro-Plan must have some additives since the color of the food is a little red. I'm debating though because she loves it so much. I don't see artificial coloring listed on the can. I just see that there is a combination of natural and artificial flavoring.

There is one thing I really do have to give Fancy Feast credit for. Tempting sick cats to eat. It is often reccommended that if your cat is sick or has a reduced appetite, try Fancy Feast. This is why some shelters request donations of Fancy Feast for their sick kitties, to entice them to eat while they're nursing them back to health. I think a can of tuna fish for human consumption is more like McDonalds than Fancy Feast. Fancy Feast at least has the necessary vitamins and minerals to nourish a cat with a reduced appetite or a sick cat. A can of tuna fish does not. But a tuna flavored Fancy Feast, sometimes that's just the junk food a cat needs.

I think if your cat will eat it and she has no health problems, then why switch? I know there are several "premium" foods out there and I've tried them and only messed up my kitty because of it.

Do what you can afford and what your cat will eat. It's no use buying a "better" food when your cat will starve before they eat it.

Well, I haven't fed Purina Pro-plan in the past. I started rotating that into my kitties diet only recently. Now is the time to take it away before she get addicted to it. You see, Purina uses artificial flavors which are what can hook the cat into eating it and nothing else. Additives are the addictive ingredients. If the food doesn't have these additives then the company is playing fair. Rosie will not starve. She eats her dry food and she still eats her Iams, although recently she's been eating less of that since the addition of wet Purina Pro-plan. But I have just ordered a 6 pack sampler of Foster and Smith wet food and am going to try to get Rosie to eat wet Natural Balance, Spotty eats it. Plus I'm going to occasionally buy Nutro gourmet selects and mash the meat chunks to make a pate-like food in gravy. The point is she will no longer have any food with artificial additives but she will have access to a lot of variety. And if she would eat nothing else, then she can have her junk food Purina Pro-plan but only then.