Curiosity Killed the…

You may have seen Fancy Feast’s new line of “gourmet” cat food: Elegant Medleys.

I nearly cried when I saw these. It’s bad enough Fancy Feast pretends to be nutritious and wholesome, but “tempting” and “elegant?” Gag me!

I’m not a fan of what I’m reading here. Poultry broth is no good because it’s vague, vague is never good. Wheat gluten is worse. Meat by-products are bad for2 reason (it doesn’t list what animal it comes from and by-products are beaks, eyeballs, and feet). Salt shouldn’t be added. Color shouldn’t be added either - I have yet to meet a cat who cared what color his food was. Soy protein concentrate is bad too.

So Fancy Feast added spinach to their line of foods and they think they’re doing the world a favor. I can’t stand Purina!

They have the power to feed so many animals yet they feed animals literal garbage. I can’t believe it’s legal.

All these horrible recalls. I’m so glad my 4 are safe from this. I’m so glad everyone I know with pets is safe from this. The latest reports are saying that over 2,000 cats and dogs have died from the poison found in the tainted pet foods.

When news first broke that the contaminant was aminopterin, a rat poison, Mike said, “Well, obviously it was rats in the food.” (Seriously, read Foods Pets Die For.) I agreed with him. Now, the contaminant is thought to be melamine which is used to made plastics, foam, and fertilizers.

Either way, wheat gluten was to blame. How come no one is asking what wheat gluten was doing in these foods to begin with? The high quality foods I’ve mentioned don’t contain wheat gluten. The foods I praise are all privately-owned as well. The idea of one lousy company, Menu Foods, making products for so many labels seems off-putting to me.

Personally I love that Wellness is made in Canada, Merrick in Texas, Addiction and Ziwi Peak in New Zealand, Evanger’s in Illinois, and Halo in Florida.

Speaking of Halo I received an email from them:

“Our Spot’s Stew for Dogs and Cats are made in a USDA Kitchen - every batch! Our commitment has always been to use the highest quality, human-grade ingredients in all of our products. WE NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL USE WHEAT GLUTEN IN OUR FOOD.

” To help you achieve optimum health for your pets, please accept our offer of 20% OFF with a minimum order of $39.99.

“You may order through our website Halo Pets and use the coupon code of 03MF07.”

I love Halo. I love all companies that clearly have a cats’ health and well being in mind.

I remember thinking back when it was only wet food affected that people were surely never going to feed their animals wet food ever again and cats and dogs would be doomed to eat meat crackers until the end of their days.

Then dry food was added to the list. Then treats.

My heart breaks for people who have lost animal members of their family. I know I’d be beside myself with grief and rage, cherry bombing Eukanuba’s corporate office and filling the gas tank of every car I saw in the Nutro parking lot with sugar.

What really upsets me though is the phrasing, Voluntary Recall. It makes it seem that companies are pulling their poisoned products off of shelves out of the kindness of their heart.

I can only hope that people will open their eyes and read labels. I hope independent pet stores that only carry by-product free food get more business than ever thought possible. I hope Menu Foods goes under and is never heard from again.

I hope Purina, Fancy Feast, and other other disgusting companies learn from this and start producing only human grade meals for pets.

Let’s all cross our fingers.

Cat food discussions can be so heated, I know. I most likely won’t mention it again for awhile so let me say this: quality of food does make a difference.

A defensive person might say, “My cat has been eating Friskies his whole life and there is nothing wrong with him.”

Let me say that my own cats started on Nutro, then switched to Felidae, then to Trader Joe’s, then onto Wellness, Merrick, Addiction, ZiwiPeak, and back again to Wellness (with Addiction’s Brushtail to keep them super happy) and it has made a huge difference in their coats and poop.

Garbage in, garbage out. Honestly.

When Stella came into our lives the other 3 kitties were on Merrick and she joined them. At her foster home she was free feeding on Nutro dry and getting some Iams Catfish as well. Her fur was stiff and coarse to the touch. She wasn’t soft or silky, it was sad. After about 3 months her coat turned gorgeous. Everyone comments on how soft she is. The same for Penny. My vet says she has bunny fur.

Annie was the same way. She came from a small shelter and was free-feeding on supermarket food. Her poops could stink up our entire apartment. Garbage in, garbage out.

Read your labels, check for quality, and avoid sugars, by-products, brewers dried yeast, and grains. It’s the least you could do.

You can’t beat the awesome foods. If I wasn’t a vegetarian I’d smear some of my cats food on a Carr’s Table Water cracker and eat it to prove a point. Alas, my 4 cats eat chicken and I do not.

The big difference between Good and Awesome are the extra ingredients. Awesome foods contain - get this - fruits and vegetables. That might sound strange considering cats are obligate carnivores but think of it like this: wild cats eat birds, mice and rabbits. In an ideal world these cute little creatures would eat only the best fruits and vegetables. Therefore, the cats that eat the mice would eat those too.

My favorites in the Awesome world are Merrick, Wellness, Halo, Evanger’s, Addiction, and ZiwiPeak.

Technically, ZiwiPeak doesn’t have the fruits and veggies that the other foods have but the quality is superb.

My cats - Oliver, Annie, Penny, and Stella - have enjoyed all of these brands. Currently they’re all on Wellness.

Their favorite, I believe, is Addiction’s Brushtail & Vegetables. A brushtail is a squirrelly little thing and my kitties love to watch squirrels eat peanuts on the patio. My husband, Mike, thinks the cats know they’re eating something squirrelly. Oliver even shakes (or kills) each piece as he takes it from his dish.

It’s too bad Newman’s Organic is Good and not Awesome. They’re a great company and I love what they do for animal charities but they put too much grain in their foods.

If you’re a stickler like me it’s good to read the ingredient list of even the Awesome foods. Wellness has 8 varieties of canned food and 5 of them are grain-free.They also use ocean life in some foods: Turkey & Salmon, Chicken & Herring, Chicken & Lobster, Sardine Shrimp & Crab, and Salmon & Trout.

I’ve given my cats the Chicken & Lobster but I simply don’t feel comfortable with the other fishy flavors.

Merrick is the same. They make 9 varieties, 5 of them with seafood and only 2 contain brown rice. I’m glad the 4 non-fish flavors are grain-free.

And of course, these Awesome foods don’t contain a lick of articial ingredients, by-products, sugars, or anything not fit for a cat.

Good foods are a serious improvement.

The one thing that separates Good foods from Decent and Junk is this: human grade meats.
Think about that for a moment. Human grade.
Not euthanized pets or roadkill - human grade.

(You think I made that last bit up, don’t you? Pick up a copy of Foods Pets Die For: Shocking facts About Pet Food by Ann N. Martin or check it out at your local library.)

If it’s good enough for people, it’s good enough for cats.

The list of Good cat foods is well-sized, thankfully:

California Natural, Innova (both made by NaturaPet), Wysong, Newman’s Own Organics,
Next to Nature PetGuard, Nature’s Variety Prairie, Wellness, Merrick, Halo, Evanger’s, ZiwiPeak, and Addiction.

Notice that these foods aren’t what you can typically find at Petco or PetSmart. Big chain stores can provide good foods but choose to stick with Junk.

To be fair, Petco has started to carry some of the healthier lines, but who wants to pay over a dollar for a can of Good or Great food when Fancy Feast costs $0.49? Especially when the average consumer (or underpaid employee) doesn’t know the difference.

When I’m at the market or Target and I see someone select a big bag of Iams, I want to scream.

They could have it so much better.

Good foods can be found at independent or small chain pet stores. On each website there is a store locater to help you do right.

Oh, and I wasn’t born a know-it-all. I became one. Back when my husband was my boyfriend he had an old cat named Pixel. Pixel ate Whiskas because Mike liked the purple bag. Neither of us learned how crappy it was until after she had passed away.

Decent foods are a little better. But only a little.
They won’t have any by-products but that alone doesn’t make it acceptable. Decent foods will still most likely have mystery meats and it absolutely won’t be human grade.

These foods have sugar (beet pulp anyone?), carbs (cats can’t break those down, but they’re cheap so they’re common), and corn (grr, more carbs!). I strongly believe that cat foods should contain more than just meat. Cats can really benefit from fruits and veggies.
Another thing: Decent foods usually manage to sneak fish in there.

I am very suspicious of fish. Cats do not fish. Cats with a history of Urinary Tract Infections should stay away from fish. I stand behind the theory that cats should not eat fish. And if a cat food company has a flavor called Chicken & Gravy but fish is one of the ingredients, I head the other way.

Decent foods are Nutro, Pet Promise, and Trader Joe’s store brand. Both are full of fish, so read those labels.

The lowest of the low on the Cat Food totempole is called Junk because that’s exactly what it is.

Junk foods are filled with mystery meats and by-products. What’s a by-product you ask?
The sleazy AAFCO defines by-products as:

“An ingredient produced in the course of making a primary food ingredient; a secondary or incidental product. Feathers are a by-product of poultry meat processing. Feathers which are removed from a carcass during production of poultry meat are then hydrolyzed (pressure cooked with steam until they are an edible gel) which makes them an acceptable feed grade ingredient. Hydrolyzed feathers have been assigned the (IFN) International Feed Number 5-03-795 and can appear on a label as “Poultry By-products.” On page 158 in the AAFCO book, Official Publication, 1994, Association of American Feed Control Officials Incorporated, they show: Hydrolyzed Poultry By-Products Aggregate is the product resulting from heat treatment, or a combination thereof, of all by-products of slaughter poultry, clean and undecomposed, including such parts as heads, feet, underdeveloped eggs, intestines, feathers and blood.” The IFN assigned to this mix is 5-14-508. Today’s regulations allow the entire mix or any part of it to appear on a label as “Poultry By-products.” A “Fish By-product” can contain heads, tails, intestines and blood. This fish process residue has been assigned the IFN 5-07-977.”

Grossed out? You should be. Don’t give this to your cat. Don’t give this to your dog or ferret either. Don’t let anyone tell you that by-products are acceptable.

Just because your vet recommends Science Diet doesn’t mean you should use it.

Mystery meats are bad too.

When collective feed names are used, individual ingredients within a group aren’t listed on the label. Collective feed names are used on feed labels when diets are developed based on least-cost formulation. Least-cost diet formulation will select the most inexpensive ingredients to provide the guaranteed analysis.

Don’t trust anything that reads ‘poultry giblets’ or ‘meat broth.’ Demand specifics!

Carbohydrates, sugars, preservatives, and food colorings also made junky food junky. If you’ve ever noticed a cat vomit stain that won’t come out of a carpet, it’s most likely because of the food colorings cheap foods add. Kitty cats don’t care what color their food is, you shouldn’t either.

Discount, drug stores, large pet chains, and supermarkets carry junk foods. It’s a sad, sad shame. Remember: Don’t buy pet food at a human store, go to a pet store.
Avoid Hill’s Science Diet, Friskies, Purina, 9 Lives, Meow Mix, Alley Cat, Sheba, Whiskas, and Fancy Feast at all costs.

Read labels. If it’s too vile to feed to humans, do not even contemplate feeding it to cats!