If anyone knows the story about garlic, then please post. I just started feeding my kittens wellness canned along with nutro max cat can canned. I now understand that max cat has a bad preservative in it and that garlic is in wellness. I don't want to spend over $1 for a 3 oz. can but I do want to feed my kittens a good quality food. Currently, they are eating Felidae dry and they really seem to like it. But I am trying desperately to find a good quality canned cat food as I plan on feeding them more wet than dry. I recently purchased Trader Joe's canned and they seem to like it. Has anyone tried it before. It is only 49 cents for a 5.5 oz. can and the first 5 ingredients seem to be good. Turkey broth, turkey, poultry giblets, ocean fish, and chicken. What do you think?
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wellness dry kitten and merrick kitten food
- Thread starter jaclyn4238
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MAX cat contains only natural preservatives ... The dry once upon a time over 10 yrs ago had ethoxiquin.... Felidea is good as is Nutro and I would love to have trader joes ///
I will not ever under any circumstances feed my cats anything with even a trace amount of garlic.
I have tried them on many different brands that don't contain garlic, and have had them eat it just fine. Some of them smelled quite strong, and others I barely noticed.
If it weren't for the garlic issue, I would probably be buying Wellness probably, since I like the look of it otherwise.
The manufacturers of Wellness and other pet foods that contain garlic need to know that it really is a serious issue with many cat owners. More of us are becoming educated enough to read the inigredient lists, and, with so many choices available, refuse to settle for something that might be harmful to our pets.
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Garlic can be used in medicinal amounts( my holostic vets differ , one says yes in ver very very low amounts ie homeopathy and the other says NO NO NO to any)... I have learned BUT it is like garlic oil so it is a very very minute amount ( like homeopathy)... If you use garlic USE IT ONLY under the SUPERVISION of a VET
Back to the original question, I love Merrick foods (and so do our babies). It looks good enough for me to eat. The bad part is I find it very expensive here in Canada. The good part is I can afford to buy it and do. There was a back order on the Thanksgiving Day Dinner last week so I had to go to a different store to get the smaller cans. Because of this, I bought a couple of different flavours to try once again and see if they will eat them. They did!
For a representative of this company, your language is extremely vague. That is a bit of a turn off to say the least. Can you be more specific and not use words like "trace amount" and "extremely low" and "massive amount"? Those words are absolutely meaningless. Even with trace amounts, that can build up over years. I'm sure a cat that eats "trace amounts" of garlic every day will have a "massive amount" more in their system than a cat that consumed an "extremely low" amount of garlic over their lifetimes.
Yes, I'm being a little snyde here. But I take my cats health VERY seriously and I would appreciate a little genuine (that means unbiased towards your product) feedback from you. Thank you.
For anyone who's interested, I put together a chart of ingredients. I researched the ingredients independantly (from several sources) and recorded them, but the pro's and con's are way to big to fit here. But to make it easier, I highlighted the questionable ingredients. Not all that are highlighted are bad, but they should be looked into (I also didn't repeat highlighting much, so if its highligted once, its the same for other columns). I highly recommend that everyone take a look at these ingredients and do some research. I've decided to go with Innova Evo (I also give raw food 'treats' like gizzards, liver and chicken hearts).
This table is for dry food only. I'm still working on a table for canned foods:
Can you please tell me why ground brown rice and whole oats are questionable? I've always been told that those ingredients were fine for a cat, in fact that they were much better than corn, white rice, rice bran, wheat, etc...
What grains would you recommend (in a pet food that contains grains...)?
What grains would you recommend (in a pet food that contains grains...)?
Just questionable, not necessarily bad. Cats are naturally carnivores, so anything thats not meat related I questioned. BUT, cats also naturally chew on certain grasses and grains, so I'm not saying that they're all bad. I just wanted an explanation for why the different companies felt that they would be beneficial and why they added them to their products. It seemed to me that more often than not those grains were being added as a filler, and the nutritional value was added as an afterthought or as a marketing tool to appeal more to human diets than cat diets.
That said, I'm no expert and I've only just switched my cat from Purina Naturals to Innova Evo. Only time will tell if it was truely a good choice or if it made no significant difference. So I wouldn't recommend anything other than researching for yourself and tailoring your cats diet to their specific needs.
For example, I have a siamese and a bengal on the way. Both breeds are known to have sensitive tummies. For that reason alone, I avoid anything with corn or a bunch of fillers. I would like to put them on a raw diet, but I'm still not sure thats totally necessary. I'm still learning and I was taught to question everything.
For the record, I'm a bit obsessive about some things and this happened to be one of them.
Tiffanyjbt,
I am sorry if the language was vague. I will try to clarify further by paraphrasing an article from Petfood Industry magazine (Nov 2006). The name of the article is Onions and garlic offer flavor in the right amounts and it is written by Greg Aldrich, PhD. He is the president of Pet Food & Ingredient Technology Inc., which facilitates innovations in foods and ingredients for companion animals.
The article says
“Fewer reports exist on the ill effects of garlic or its “toxic” dose. But of the few, one noted that garlic (boiled, dehydrated) at a dose equivalent to 5 g/kg body weight led to the appearance of damaged red blood cells, but did not develop into hemolytic anemia (Lee et al, 2000). Unlike onions, form may significantly affect these results as aged garlic extract supposedly acts more like an antioxidant in opposition to raw or boiled garlic, which may stimulate oxidation.(Amagasse et al., 2001). Aged garlic extract was also reported to be milder to (the) canine stomach mucosa than boiled dehydrated or raw garlic (Hoshino, et al.,2001), which has been noted to lead to ulcers.”
The article goes on to say that there is not enough evidence to support the idea that garlic is toxic. It does state that onions are a problem for cats, but data about garlic is missing.
I tried locating the article online, but was unable to find it.
At Wellness out canned foods have a garlic inclusion rate of .01%-.05% in the canned foods. This is much lower than the value that Dr. Aldrich states as harmful. 5 g/kg of body weight translates to 23 grams of garlic for a 10 lb. cat (100 grams of garlic needed to harm a 45 lb. dog). An average serving of our cat food provides approximately 0.078g of garlic (the amount in a 5.5 oz. can). I hope this helps you. If you’d like more specifics or would like me to try and obtain that article from the author, just let me know.
Nicole
Consumer Affairs Wellness/Old Mother Hubbard
I am sorry if the language was vague. I will try to clarify further by paraphrasing an article from Petfood Industry magazine (Nov 2006). The name of the article is Onions and garlic offer flavor in the right amounts and it is written by Greg Aldrich, PhD. He is the president of Pet Food & Ingredient Technology Inc., which facilitates innovations in foods and ingredients for companion animals.
The article says
“Fewer reports exist on the ill effects of garlic or its “toxic” dose. But of the few, one noted that garlic (boiled, dehydrated) at a dose equivalent to 5 g/kg body weight led to the appearance of damaged red blood cells, but did not develop into hemolytic anemia (Lee et al, 2000). Unlike onions, form may significantly affect these results as aged garlic extract supposedly acts more like an antioxidant in opposition to raw or boiled garlic, which may stimulate oxidation.(Amagasse et al., 2001). Aged garlic extract was also reported to be milder to (the) canine stomach mucosa than boiled dehydrated or raw garlic (Hoshino, et al.,2001), which has been noted to lead to ulcers.”
The article goes on to say that there is not enough evidence to support the idea that garlic is toxic. It does state that onions are a problem for cats, but data about garlic is missing.
I tried locating the article online, but was unable to find it.
At Wellness out canned foods have a garlic inclusion rate of .01%-.05% in the canned foods. This is much lower than the value that Dr. Aldrich states as harmful. 5 g/kg of body weight translates to 23 grams of garlic for a 10 lb. cat (100 grams of garlic needed to harm a 45 lb. dog). An average serving of our cat food provides approximately 0.078g of garlic (the amount in a 5.5 oz. can). I hope this helps you. If you’d like more specifics or would like me to try and obtain that article from the author, just let me know.
Nicole
Consumer Affairs Wellness/Old Mother Hubbard
Thank you for your response Nicole. It seems like there is a scare about garlic due to its association with onions that may be totally unwarranted. I'll keep an eye out more more data regarding the pro's and con's of garlic in relation to feline diet/health. Right now, it seems like the jury is still out. Any other information you can add would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I used to feed my cats Nutro Natural Choice. I think it is a good brand, but decided to try Innova. I recently moved my cats from dry food only to moist and dry. I feed them Merrick. Wellness and Nutro moist food and Innova and Wellness dry food. I have noticed that my cats eat much less of premium food than other brands containing no meat and lots of grains. I can't comment on litterbox odors. The recent switch to moist food has definately increased litterbox odor, but they are not producing huge amounts of feces. My cats really love the moist food (except one) and seem to prefer Wellness or Nutro. Merrick has a very soupy texture that they are not used to.
When I read the ingredient lists on some brands and saw garlic, I thought about whether it would be harmful. I concluded that it most likely was not. In life most things can be beneficial or harmless when used in moderation. Since I could not find enough research indicating garlic was harmful, I concluded that the warnings were regarding large amounts of it. As more research is done I think we will find that there is an intricate balance involved in providing the best nutrition for our cats.
I can't remember the names of the products, but there are a few raw food diets that can be purchased. If you look on Pet Food Direct web site there are some listed. I was thinking of trying one of those brands as a holiday or birthday treat to see how my cats react. So far the are happy with their moist breakfast and come running every day.
When I read the ingredient lists on some brands and saw garlic, I thought about whether it would be harmful. I concluded that it most likely was not. In life most things can be beneficial or harmless when used in moderation. Since I could not find enough research indicating garlic was harmful, I concluded that the warnings were regarding large amounts of it. As more research is done I think we will find that there is an intricate balance involved in providing the best nutrition for our cats.
I can't remember the names of the products, but there are a few raw food diets that can be purchased. If you look on Pet Food Direct web site there are some listed. I was thinking of trying one of those brands as a holiday or birthday treat to see how my cats react. So far the are happy with their moist breakfast and come running every day.
