What’s for dinner?
What do they eat you ask?
My cats like a variety of different foods. Contrary to what many vets will say, I think it is good to mix and match at least flavors, if not brands. It makes it less likely that your pet will develop allergies and gives them something to look forward to. Some animals do need to be on one constant diet and animals who have been on one food for a long time have a harder time with a sudden change.
Here are some brands of cat and dog food I really like
Felidae/Canidae, Wellness, Evo/Innova, Merrick, Evangers, Weruva, California Natural, Honest Kitchen
There are many other good food choices. If you are in the Seattle area, we have wonderful natural pet food stores with great food to choice from. Always read the label before buying anything and make sure meat is the first ingredient for cats and dogs. Home cooked meals and raw diets are also great options for most animals. Darwin’s is a local raw food company with delivery in the Seattle area.
Things to avoid
1. Science Diet. This is not a high quality diet but many vets still recommend it because it is all we were taught in nutrition during veterinary school.
2. Iams/Eukanuba was bought out by Proctor/Gamble many years ago. The quality of this food has gone straight down hill since plus P/G is the worst company when it comes to animal testing.
3. By-products aka beaks, blood, infection, sawdust, fur, etc By-product can be any part of an animal or anything that animal fluids have touched.
4. Animal or Meat by product This is any animal that ends up at rendering including euthanized pets. It doesn’t get any worse than this, not only are you making your animal a cannibal but you are also feeding them small amounts of euthanasia solution. Yuck!
5. BHT/BHA These are nasty preservatives linked to liver problems and cancer. These can also be in human food.
6. ethoxyquin- bad, bad, bad They used this stuff to preserve telephone poles. It is also a rubber stabilizer and a pesticide. Monsanto conducted research years ago, but the results were so inconclusive due to unprofessional conduct and documentation that the FDA demanded another study which was never done. This stuff has been linked to just about every disease you can think of.
7. corn-this is a filler and not a very good one. It also is a common allergen
8. Most foods you buy in a normal grocery store. Almost all of these are poor quality.
Also remember: No onions or chocolate for cats or dogs. No grapes or raisins for dogs.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
That is great information.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Yes, thanks for the great info. We’re looking into different foods for our kitties, and it’s good to know what to avoid.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:18 am
P.S. Love the “waiting for dinner” photo! LOL
March 6th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
In my opinion Kirkland cat food you get at Costco is the best food out there for the quaility of ingredients you get. There is NO corn in it. Which is useless for cats. It is JUST filler. The first 7 ingredients are as follows chicken, chicken meal whole grain white rice, chicken fat and chicken flavor and flaxseed. There is NO corn in this food. It is more filling and they eat less of it.\
I have colony caretakers that use this and see less food being eaten. So the food goes farther.