Following are selected posts to the Holisticat (TM) Mailing List on the subject of commercial cat foods. There's a lot of information here, and the posts are arranged in ascending chronological order. If there is a particular word you're looking for, it's probably best to utilize the "Find in Page" function in your edit menu!
Happy hunting :)
<31 Jul 98 From: Peggy N Re: Wysong, Innova, PHD>
<< He only wants kibble or plain cooked chicken >>
Will he eat canned food? Both Innova and Wysong have canned formulas as well. Otherwise, I think all three are good commercial foods. Innova is my favorite because the ingredients look so yummy. However, I wouldn't use just one, either. Buy two foods and switch between them (one one day, one the next) for variety and also so he doesn't get too hooked on one. That new Balance Diet looks good too, but I don't know if he'll eat it.
Peggy, Hester and Elleander
Hi Tami,
On Friday, July 31, 1998 1:59 PM, Tamara wrote:
<<I know raw food is the best but my 14 year old cat refuses
to eat a home cooked diet and raw upsets his stomach. He only
wants kibble or plain cooked chicken (by only eating these things
he can make sure Mom's not trying to sneak any pills or supplements
in on him). If anyone else is feeding Wysong, Innova, Phd would
you please let me know your thoughts on it and how your cats like
it. My cat doesn't have any teeth so the size of kibble is
important also. Right now he's eating Pro Plan and cooked
chicken. Thanks for the help. Tami>>
I fed my cats PHD dry a couple of times last year when away for long
business trips. (I could only have someone come by once a day
and didn't want to risk the raw meat sitting out - or boarding them.
The cats hide when anyone but me is here.) They absolutely
LOVE PHD. They even stole and shredded a sample box Bonnie
gave me. LOL And when I came home they looked quite satisfied,
although they had started drinking water, which I didn't like and they
don't do on the raw diet. So, I'd say it's a great dry food if you
MUST feed dry food. I'd use it again if I needed to. The ingredients
are great.
Be well,
Nancy and the furkids
We've fed Wysong for two or three years now and they all do well with it. Do add it gradually though because I have noticed it tends to cause a lot of throwing up if you switch cold turkey (with cats we've brought into the house who were on heaven only knows what)
Generally I feed kibbled Wysong at night and canned in the morning.
Their health has been great. I started with just the cats we were showing and then added expecting queens and now everyone is on it. (Some won't eat the canned, but love the kibbles)
Suzi
Ann
here is link for Fint River. http://www.cyberark.com/animal/flintriv.htm Wysong has a kibble that you add meat to(developed for finding out allergies
Phyllida
Hey ya'll-
In the interest of conserving space, I've decided to consolidate posts again. Hope no-one minds!
[SNIP UNRELATED]
To Cathy and the new kitties-
I am still feeding kibble and canned out of laziness. I feed Wysong or Precise dry, and Wysong, Precise, Nutro and Nature's Recipe canned. My cats LOVE Eukanuba, but I HATE the ingredients, as well as SD and Iams. Our pet food expert is in Canada right now, but when you see Ann Martin post and say she's back, write her and ask her for the rundown on pet foods! (She wrote the book "Food Pets Die For", a nice little expose on pet foods that the big companies are none too happy with) In the meanwhile check out:
I attended a very interesting lecture last night - specialist with the company who makes Vet Select/IVD prescription diets discussed FUS/FLUTD and dietary management of these problems. The company has designed their 'control' diet around what they call the 'feral cat diet'. "Control" was compared directly with a rat carcass and was very similar. This diet is moderate - not an extreme like C/D, etc.
You may have heard that the 'paleolithic diet' is being investigated by veterinary researchers for other conditions. Colorado State is using it in cancer treatment (and Hills has produced something based on it, called N/D, for people who don't want to cook). Now, the Iams Symposium held last year had a talk about diabetes. The author suggested that high carbohydrate (mostly dry) diets are responsible for diabetes in cats as a lifestyle disease.
I asked the speaker this question. With diabetes, cancer and lower urinary tract disease all being examined as lifestyle diseases associated with our cat diets, or at least diseases that make us go back to the paleolothic diet for treatment, why aren't we producing a *maintenance* diet that is based on the paleolithic diet?
His answer was quite interesting. These diets (as well as a rat carcass) are very, very calorie dense - they are high protein, high fat and low carbohydrate. His comment was this - the diet is great, but do you think we can get cat owners to feed *even less food than they do now* to keep the cats' weight normal? You see, cat owners seem to want to feed the bowl and not the cat.
Is this the fault of food companies who perpetuate the idea that you can feed a cat a bowlfull of cereal? Or is the fault of cat owners who think that a 3-5 ounce helping of (mouse, or rat, or decent food, homecooked or not) just isn't enough volume? Can veterinarians help by teaching owners that cats are essentially desert animals, with very low water and food needs? How can we teach cat owners to feed properly, so that we can provide good diets commercially?
Susan, DVM
Welcome to the list Melanie. It's really neat how your love for cats, and eagerness at getting your 2 Abys comes through in your post:)
[snip unrelated]
<<ourselves and want the best for our cats. We plan to feed them "premium" cat food. >>
There are many good brands out there like Innova, Wysong, PHD, Back
To Basics, Felidae, Nature's Recipe, and others i've left out
inadvertently. Bottom line - look for products w/o BHA, BHT,
ethoxyquin, by-products, and dyes, colors, preservatives etc. Also
check w/ the co. who their meat supplier is. Ann martin who is
currently n*mail has written a book, and done a lot of research on
this. She found that pet food companies often will make it seem
like their food does not have ethoxyquin etc. but really it was added when
they got the meat so the food does indeed contain it w/o having to say
so on the label. The Back To Basics webite has a good explanation
of this stuff: http://www.backtobasics.com
I switched my cats from grocery store (dry) food at the breeder's to
first premium dry, and then premium wet foods. Then I fed 'em cooked
meat, and finally made the switch to raw meat. Raw meat seems to
be working best for us, but I understand it is not for everybody.
Whatever we feed 'em, if it is w/ love, that's something right there I
feel..these cats are so precious and give so much of themselves, they deserve
the best each of us can do/give.
[snip unrelated]
Sandy, owned and operated by the mountain cats who got a grinder for Xmas and can't wait to try it tonite!
There is an interesting pet food comparison chart at the following address
for anyone interested:
http://www.thearray.com/kirbyskorner/compare.htm
It includes Nutro. I couldn't find a homepage for them.
Martha
On Fri, 1 Jan 1999, noreen wrote:
<<Susan -- Thank you so much for adding your insight......I have
your book on Alternative and Complementary Vet Med and I really love
it.....my vet also has it and we talk about the different areas especially
pertaining to my crf kitty......>>
Thanks!
<<<Basic diet? really a knotty subject, but suffice it to say that real food feeders have discovered something that the expert board certified nutritionists already know, but don't want to talk about for many reasons.>>>
<< What do you mean here? What do they already know and not talk about? Is there really some scientific proof out there that raw food is better? Have there been lab tests on feeding raw? Feeding grains? etc.........>>
This is a tough one. The nutritionists who work with pet food companies honestly believe that they are supplying the most complete nutrition in the most convenient way, and here is the kicker - because most pet owners won't do it properly on their own. They have seen (and so have I) that the large majority of normal pet owners do better when given a ready made mix, either because they won't cook, or when they do, they do it badly.
My experience has been that maybe 50% of the people I see will cook for their animals - and remember - people come to me *wanting* alternative care. The number for most veterinarians will probably be significantly lower. Of those, a certain percentage stop following the recommendations and feed a terribly balanced diet. I had one lady, anxious to cook, start out on 75% meat and the rest split between grains and veggies. She ended up feeding 100% meat because that was what the cats would eat -*regardless* of my strict instructions that she not do that.
So back to what nutritionists know or don't know. I have talked with one DVM,PhD who works for a major premium food company - this scientist was actually involved in trials comparing cooked meat to raw meat in cats. The results were that some did better on cooked and some did better on raw. You see - they aren't assuming that real food is bad! When asked if anyone has compared feeding real food to commercial, the response is that it hasn't been done. These results that we do know of are not published in easily accessible journals, either- they may even be just company data.
And look at the new book by Strombeck on Home Prepared Diets for Dogs and Cats - this book lambasts the pet food industry for training pet owners to rely on commercial food only. But he is only one voice, and again, the great majority of pet owners don't want to cook.
This may sound like a stream of consciousness type response, but I already said it is a knotty issue.
hey all-
<<What didn't you like? I kind of feel that way about ProPlan now that I've read the ingredients, which I've posted separately.>>
judi, i started looking at ingredients critically, and was a bit peeved! like take dry wysong, for example. a good food, but the first ingredient is chicken, which means they're counting the water weight. next ingredient is poultry fat, and then the next 7 ingredients are grains -- this means that the likely winner, weight-wise, is grains.
dry innova looks better, since the first three ingredients are meat: turkey, chicken meal and chicken. even after the water weight is gone from the turkey and chicken, meat is likely the weightiest ingredient. whole potatoes and whole eggs are next, and then barley, making grains the 6th ingredient listed.
but dry felidae looks like it has even more meat: Chicken Meal, Turkey Meal, Brown Rice, Lamb Meal, Chicken Fat, ( preserved with mixed tocopherols and ascorbic acid ), Menhaden Fish Meal, Eggs.... all those meals early on mean lotsa meat. my only gripe there is the wide variety of protein sources -- becuz there ain't no way a wild feline is eating chicken, turkey, lamb and fish in one meal :)
another 'trick' to watch for is when food makers break down an ingredient into it's components. the "lesser" companies really do it, but even wysong does: Chicken, Poultry Fat, Ground Wheat, Ground Corn, Ground Brown Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Ground Extruded Whole Soybeans, Oat Groats, Wheat Gluten -- there are 2 wheats and 2 corns, meaning their combined weights are even heavier. a quick glance at a few purina cat foods show corn as the FIRST 2 ingredients, meaning your cat is getting a LOT of corn. actually, the purina website for cats ( http://www.purina.com/cats/index.html ) does have a decent explanation of labeling requirements if ya click on 'nutrition'.
where the heck is ann martin when we need her?!?!?
Vick and company: Skippy, Sam, Max and Jezebel
<<like take dry wysong, for example. a good food, but the first ingredient is chicken, whichmeans they're counting the water weight.>>
How do you determine that because the first ingredient is chicken they're counting the water weight?
<< next ingredient is poultry fat, and then the next 7 ingredients are grains -- this means that the likely winner, weight-wise, is grains.>>
Their dry cat foods do contain a large proportion of grains. Giddy and Simon were eating Flint River Ranch before I switched to raw food for them. For a naturally preserved food that addresses urinary tract problems, though, I'd probably still recommend their Uretic as opposed to some others.
It's odd because Wysong has come out with a dry food for d**s that only contains ground brown rice and flax seeds; Maggie is experimenting with that one, since I have opposition in the household to her becoming a raw food d**. Their canned Anergen for cats is not very heavy on the grains, but their other canned formulas seem to be. I recently received some information from them concerning their use of some of these grains, particularly the soybeans which so many find of concern.
<<dry innova looks better, >>
My friends fed this to Giddy while I was away over Christmas. He ate it, but didn't seem too overly interested in it. He seemed glad to see his raw food back in his dish again when I got home!
<<another 'trick' to watch for is when food makers break down an ingredient into it's components. the "lesser" companies really do it, but even wysong does
actually, the purina website for cats does have a decent explanation of labeling requirements if ya click on 'nutrition'.>>
Is that where you obtained the info. concerning breaking down the ingredients and the amount of water in a product? If not, where did you find/do the research? Gosh, I bet you're surprised I want to know! ;>)
Leah
hey all-
Leah wrote:
<< How do you determine that because the first ingredient is
chicken they're counting the water weight?>>
okay, that was poorly worded. by listing chicken as an ingredient, the company is able to weigh it as is, which includes water weight. when it is reduced to chicken meal, it is dry weight.
and you WOULD go ahead and ask for sources... this is all stuff i've seen and heard and committed to memory, so i've gotta look for sources -- and i can't find one good one that tells it all :(<<snip>>
<< Is that where you obtained the info. concerning breaking down the ingredients and the amount of water in a product? If not, where did you find/do the research? Gosh, I bet you're surprised I want to know! ;>)>>
nah, the purina site wouldn't tell you all that since they're
one of the worst offenders :) they do explain labeling a bit, tho, like
how much meat needs to be in a product called "chicken dinner" versus one
called "chicken flavored dinner". for the water weight in meat vs.
meal:
http://www.nutracell.com/petnews_foodlabels.html
http://www.cyburban.com/~siriusroduner/howto.htm
here's a quote from the api site about the breaking down of products: "This industry practice is known as splitting. When components of the same whole ingredients are listed separately -- such as Ground Yellow Corn and Corn Gluten Meal -- it appears there is less corn than chicken, even though the combined weight of the corn ingredients outweigh the chicken." the site that comes from is http://www.api4animals.org/petfood.htm
and here's a quote from the site where all the dog foods are compared: "Ingredients are listed in descending order, by weight. However, the listings may be misleading. Suppose beef is listed as the first ingredient, causing you to think it is the primary ingredient. Look again. If it's followed by wheat flour, wheat germ, wheat middlings and so on, the combined wheat products may very well total much more than the beef." http://www.aloha.com/~wolfepack/foodcht1.html
that's all i can dig up for tonite. i'll see what else i can find for those of you who need to see it to believe it :)
Vick and company: Skippy, Sam, Max and Jezebel
Okay, Vick, maybe I should know this, but what exactly does "denature" mean? I've often wondered about this, and if it's already been discussed on this list, please forgive my asking.
Also, to pass some info along to all of you: I spoke w/ one of Felidae's distributors in Orlando, FL, and he gave me some interesting info. I've not researched it yet, but I'm certainly curious enough to do so. He asked how I liked The Missing Link...apparently, cats don't have the enzyme necessary to process the gamma-lin--- acid (sp?) in flax, etc., and TML doesn't add fish oil or something equivalent to help w/ that process. Is this true? Anyone know?
Plus, he talked about "chicken" as an ingredient vs. "chicken meal". He felt chicken was better than chicken meal, since alot of the nutrients were "cooked out" in the meal, even tho' the end result is more of the chicken. Of course, there was a lot more said than just this, but my brain only took so much in. I wish I had a recorder, cuz I'd love to hear everyone's comments on everything he said.
Also, we discussed corn vs. rice. Now this gets interesting. He said that corn had more protein than rice, and that rice was too high in carbs for kitties. He suggested I ask any of my vets if they've seen a rise in pancreatic diseases during the past decade. Apparently, there has been and he feels it's b/c of the rise in the use of rice in cat's food - too much sugar. Since corn is an allergen, food manufacturers have switched over to rice, which is not as good as they'd like us to believe. Is this for real? More comments... Our allo vet told us to stop giving Pounce cat treats to Pretty Boy when he developed diabetes cuz they contained too much sugar. He never shed any light on that, but insisted we stop immediately, which of course, we did.
This distributor is currently working toward having his own formula of cat & dog food (dry only) produced. He said he's using most of what felidae uses, except he'll use oat & barley for the grains. He feels oat bran is the most nutritious. He said he's also trying to provide what a mousie would give a cat. Funny, but again, we're back to the meeces. :D
Kinda' makes me wonder if I should start an "organic" mice business. Hey, why don't they just use mouse meat rather than chicken, if that's what's natural for our kits? hmmmm.... (Sorry, but the brain's on a roll, now.)
Sorry to be so long-winded, but there was alot said and I'd like to hear everyone's comments on this stuff.
One last thing - a question for me - I planted some wheat grass seed, which is now about 2" high and doing well. However, the soil has patches of white "fur" on it. I guess it's molding, unless someone knows what this really is. I kept it damp for the first couple of days till it sprouted, and after that we had some pretty cool, damp weather. The soil's damp, but not soggy. It seems to be drying out now, but is it a loss? Or will the grass be safe for kits to eat? ...help...
Judi & the MacFolds (who are getting impatient watching the grass grow)
They cannot tell me the exact formulation, because they said if anyone
who knows how to make a pet food sees it, they can copy their
formulation. But they did tell me the main ingredient is the meat.
Dr. Wysong believes that animals doesn't eat too much grains in wild. He
believe animals should get mostly meat, organ, meaty bones.
-- Yumi
Sandy A wrote:
<< By law, do they have to state what % of their food is comprised
of ingredient #1?>>
No, by law, all pet food should have the nutritional analysis, which tells you how much protein, fat & fiber. They are not required to tell you the ratio of each ingredients.
<< Also it's curious that if he doesn't think cats need grains, then why is it just about all grain w/ the except of the first 2 ingredients?>>
Like you said, they have to list the ingredients in decreasing order, and they have to list everything that they put in according to the definition made by AAFCO. Just because they are many listing for grains, or even the grain being no 2 ingredient, it doesn't have to be the major part of the formula.
<< Don't they all use the same manufacturing process, and pretty much similar ingredients so>>
Manufacturing process maybe same for some companies, but they are some differences. And ingredients will be different. It maybe refined, or whole, pesticides sprayed or not. Just because the name of the ingredients is the same, it doesn't really mean that they are same. I don't want to go into the detail of Wysong product here, sounding like I'm doing a free commercial on the list.
<< After all Wysong even tells us their suppliers are Amish chicken farmers, right?>>
Whenever they can. My belief in choosing any pet products is to know
the company and people who are making the products. You might feel better
if you only see Chicken, brown rice as the major ingredient in cat food
bag. But how do you know how much percent is the rice? It could be 50/50
which I feel too much grain for cat. It apply to any products that you
used for your cat. Bonemeal, how do you know the original bone is from
a healthy animal? Herbal tinctures, how do you know if they don't use pesticide
sprayed herbs? Any
vitamins, how do you know they are from natural sources , not synthetically
manufactured? Ever since we learned about 4-D, and all those chemical preservatives
that pet food companies use, I know pet food companies is easy to attach.
If you use pet food, find a company that you can agree with their philosophy.
Same for any products that you use for your pets. And if you don't feel
comfortable, nobody is forcing you to use any products.
-- Yumi
Sandy asked about percentages in ingredient lists. I got a long
and very detailed paper from the FDA regarding pet food ingredients.
Any pet food that has meat as the title, as in Chicken Cat Food,
has to have ~75% of that meat by weight. The thing is, so far I have not
found a food that is called any such a thing. Most pet foods use
words like "dinner," "formula," "platter," "entree," "menu," etc., in the
name, and these need only have ***25%*** composed of the main ingredients
listed. Thus, Eukenuba's Lamb & Rice "Formula"
(another one of those words), which I thought was pretty good, considering
the ingredients, actually is composed of 25% of lamb and rice *together*,
with the rest composed of the other ingredients on the label. Pretty
nifty for them, huh? If gravy is added to the name, I believe the
percentage of main ingredients goes down to 17%. I haven't got my
article handy. I did post all the stuff I'd found
out about pet food ingredient labeling from the FDA soon after I received
it, about a month ago, on one of the cat newsgroups, so it should be in
dejanews. If anyone is interested, I will dig it up and repost it
here. It was very enlightening. In fact, it was what made me
decide to make the cats' food again. Actually, I really liked the
Wysong site because they freely admitted that serving raw
foods was far better than serving their own kibble. I thought
that was refreshingly honest and made me respect them quite a bit, as not
one other company that I researched dared say such a thing.
Karen
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