Fancy Feast makes me feel ill
October 30, 2011 10:00 PM   Subscribe

What is the real deal with cat food? Do my cats need canned food?

So I've had cats all my life and my family never fed them anything but dry cat food. Now my husband's telling me we've got to get our new balls of fur onto a special diet. He wanted me to do online research about cat food, fine, I've started looking around and it seems to be relatively well accepted amongst vets that cats probably need more moisture content than what dry food provides, and that cats probably should be on a low carb or grain free diet. Fine. But I absolutely hate the idea of wet cat food. The stuff repulses me/literally makes me nauseated when I smell it.

I thought it made sense just to add a little water to their food but switch them onto something grain free or low carb. I found the catnutrition.org website linked to in a prior post here that claims "adding water to dry food creates a bacterial soup, because dry food has a high bacterial content", and when I try to cross-verify that information, I just get other people who sound like they're either parroting that site or don't really know. Does anyone here have a reference on this?

We feed them once a day and they generally polish the food right off, not within 30 mins but within a few hours... it wouldn't be sitting there like a soggy bowl of cereal all day.
posted by treehorn+bunny to Pets & Animals (39 answers total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
I've not heard that rumor, myself, but I wanted to suggest that if wet food is disgusting to you, you can feed your cats a raw diet.
posted by zug at 10:02 PM on October 30, 2011 [3 favorites]


I went through this same dilemma a year ago. Our vet said that it didn't really matter what brand of food we fed the cat, nor did it matter whether it was wet or dry. They did give us the ol' "dry food is good for his teeth" spiel, which I have seen refuted online. I don't discount what the vet said, but going above and beyond probably doesn't hurt, so I read through all of the information at Consumer Search's cat food section. Today I feed my little guy dry food (Fromm's Grain-free Surf & Turf) in the morning and wet food (Wellness Turkey Formula) in the evening. I noticed that he doesn't drink much water on his own, so I stir in a bit of water with his wet food, which has the added benefit of making him a bit more regular. I should note that when I put water in his wet food, sometimes a few pieces of dry food remain in the bowl, and I don't bother picking them out. So far, no harm has come of it, but I'll have to look into this bacterial issue.

So I think the bottom line is, your cats will be fine with whatever you feed them--and if they're not, they'll let you know. I chose to go beyond the minimum just because it makes me feel like my little buddy is getting "the good stuff," though that might just be a mental thing on my part. In any case, he seems to enjoy eating it. Your own best judgment, as well as your wallet and your tolerance for the smell of Fancy Feast, will determine how you feed your cats. Good luck!
posted by roomwithaview at 10:18 PM on October 30, 2011


Oh, how I wish your husband was all wrong.

My weirdo cat that is super healthy by design ate dry for years without trouble, but she also hunted. And I fed her a raw food diet from time-to-time. All good there.

Our other cat was much more genetically domesticated, and dry food caused her painful weight-gain. I mean that she is now 3.5 years old and so fat it hurts her.

Our new awesome vet recommended and all wet diet. The weirdo cat now requires copious feedings per day, but the domesticated fatty has lost weight and is much more active and happy.

This new feeding regime and schedule is driving us and our weirdo cat NUTZ, but it is totally worth the change we see in the other cat.

I really think this comes down to genetics and metabolism. If your cat has a wonky metabolism (and I've had two like this, including the current) then wet food is the right choice.

Fat domesticated cat was eating little dry but drinking a ton of water. This is no longer true since switching to a all wet diet. She's not diabetic, but damn close, I figure.


If you have more than one cat, get the big can of wet food. It's a better value. Chose something high-end, these are much less revolting and the value is there.
posted by jbenben at 10:24 PM on October 30, 2011


This thread, in particular the linked comment by idb, is what convinced me to switch my cat (and my parents' cat) to wet food.
posted by katemonster at 10:29 PM on October 30, 2011 [1 favorite]


I have 8 cats. Some are very old cats; one is going on 20, one is 21, and one is 12. They eat mostly dry food with an occasional can of wet. The old ladies do not hunt. I give them Costco premium dry cat food. I used to worry, but seeing how hold my kitties are, I must be doing something right.
posted by wandering_not_lost at 10:30 PM on October 30, 2011 [1 favorite]




According to every vet I've ever met (and I've met a few thanks to being a life-long owner of cats up until last May), it really depends on the cat. Wet food destroyed the fur and stomachs of my cats, dry food set them okay again. I'd say talk to your vet for more input, and then just do your best. You can switch 'em to wet or dry if they won't eat one or the other.
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 10:38 PM on October 30, 2011


Response by poster: whoa. 2 links to the same answer, favorited 309 (!) times - I don't think I've *ever* seen that many favorites on an AskMe answer before. This is a catlovin' kinda forum.

thanks for the help so far.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 10:43 PM on October 30, 2011


I can't afford all wet food, so I feed my cats 1/2 wet food, 1/2 dry food, with the dry food being Innova EVO food. It might be an alternative. It's grain-free, 50% protein, and if you get the kitten formula (the cheapest anyway) it's only 7% carbs. Blows any other formulation out of the water, including the Hills m/d diet, is cheaper than Hills, and your cats will each much less of it. For what it's worth, all the cats I've had have seen significant improvement even with this dry food--going grain free results in weight loss with fat cats, coats softer than you could possibly imagine, higher energy, brighter eyes, etc.

Dry doesn't include the moisture benefits and whatnot of wet, though.

(As for bacterial growth, theoretically you should only be leaving your cat food down for 15 minutes at a time anyway. If you cat is eating it that should not be enough time for enough bacteria to grow to create some horrid infection)
posted by Anonymous at 10:45 PM on October 30, 2011


A warning though--there are grain-free dry foods out there that are no better than Science Diet or some crap in terms of their protein/carb/fat content. You can be grain-free and still too high in carbs and low in protein. 50%+ protein in dry is best.
posted by Anonymous at 10:46 PM on October 30, 2011


Ugh, sorry for triple post, but I used to feed them Orijen until I read the ingredients more carefully and realized it totally wasn't 70-80% protein.
posted by Anonymous at 10:49 PM on October 30, 2011


But I absolutely hate the idea of wet cat food. The stuff repulses me/literally makes me nauseated when I smell it.

You might check out the Tiki Cat brand, specifically the chicken formulas. When you open up the can it's full of shreds of chicken which wouldn't be too out of place in a taco -- much less stinky and disgusting than the usual foodmash. Some of the other flavors can be smelly (my cats' favorite: sardine cutlet!) but they all look and smell like what they say they are on the label, which is pretty unusual for wet catfood.
posted by vorfeed at 10:58 PM on October 30, 2011 [2 favorites]


Personally, I have read enough stuff on the internet that I am convinced canned food is better. I've also read plenty of crazy extremist stuff, and I am personally convinced that feeding a high quality, low or no-grain wet food is the sensible choice in the middle of all the extremists. I do not believe that dry food cleans cat's teeth, but I do believe that it makes cats fat. My fat cat has eaten raw, and wet canned, and she is happiest on wet canned. Also she has lost weight, her fur is beautifully soft, and she seems generally in better health.

Fancy Feast does smell like crap, it also looks like bits of rubber in gravy, and based on the ingredients list is pretty low quality. If you can manage the expense, check out some high quality canned foods (there are tons) like Innova Evo, Nature's Variety, Before Grain and so on. The no-grain ones tend to be really expensive (because there's no cheap filler!), but I figure even switching to a low-grain, high-quality ingredient food has got to be better. So I do a bit of both to keep the cost down.

Also, figure out a few flavours that your cats enjoy, and rotate through them. I fed the same flavour of Innova Evo for a couple of years, and eventually my cat just refused to eat it. In restrospect, I can see why! So now I rotate through 4 different flavours of wet foods. This provides some variety for her, and the theory goes that if have variety, your cat is less likely to develop a food intolerance. I'm not sure about the food intolerance bit, but I feel like I'm treating my cat better by giving her a variety of flavours to enjoy.
posted by Joh at 11:10 PM on October 30, 2011 [1 favorite]


My boys (8 and 5) are exceptionally healthy and just the right weight. I feed the boys dry food in the morning and wet food in the evening. I have tried a crap ton of different high quality wet foods and the Wellness brand smells the least worse of any of them to me (and I am a vegetarian).

Feeding dry in the am makes my boys less likely to do the dawn parade for feeding. They eat their dry food with plenty of gusto (and a sprinkling of nutritional yeast) and much on the kibble throughout the day.

Then when I come home in the evening it's can excitement time! I serve up one 5.5 oz can for the two of them and swish a little water in the can to get out the residue and pour it over their food for a little extra water. Despite one of them being FIV positive, they are in robust health, have thick shiny fur, and plenty of energy.

And man are they enthusiastic about teh stinky fud.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:11 PM on October 30, 2011 [1 favorite]


Maybe we're weird, but my cat's free-fed Wellness dry and while she'll occasionally nibble here and there, she has her own schedule and has a good munch-session once a day. At night, she gets a bit of Wellness wet food. If you're sensitive to the smell of wet food, do NOT introduce your kitty to Wellness sardine, shrimp and crab can formula as it will be their favorite and your most nauseating.

My furbaby is 9 years old and has pretty much been on this diet all her life (minus the 9 months she went missing). She's healthy, active, fluffy, incredibly soft and shiny.

All cats and their humans are different, though, so consult with your vet and find something that works for all of you.
posted by MuChao at 11:45 PM on October 30, 2011


I've tried a bunch of different wet foods with my cat, and while some really are gross in look and smell, some look fine, and even kind of tasty. Chicken-based foods at a mid-to-high price point seem the least gross to me. They have what looks like real chunks of chicken, little smell, and none of that disgusting "jelly". If I was starving, I'd probably eat it myself and not mind too much, and I was a kid who refused to even touch the cat food can in case there was a smear of jellymeat on it.

Also, as others have said, bones are good for their teeth, have wet food content, and keep them entertained for a while. We feed a chicken neck or chicken wing every couple of days as a treat, and the vet said we could do it even more frequently if we wanted. Hearts, livers, etc are also occasional treats, but I find them grosser than tinned food, to be honest.
posted by lollusc at 12:43 AM on October 31, 2011


My cats get a combination of wet food and grain-free dry food. Although I have smelled icky wet food, I believe it is because most wet foods still contain a large amount of grain. The wet foods that aren't grain-based always smell fine/not too bad to me. What we use:
Before Grain dry food (chicken flavor)
Evo cat and kitten formula for the younger cat. He has vomiting problems and this is the one food that he's usually been fine on.
Performatrin Beef and Liver or Performatrin senior kitties food for our older cat.

The only time any of these foods smell really gross to me are when I'm sick or when the food gets left out of the fridge for too long.
posted by DoubleLune at 3:34 AM on October 31, 2011 [1 favorite]


Our cat really doesn't care for wet food. He'll sniff at it and, maybe, take a nibble, but then leave it alone. Put a bowl of his dry food next to wet and he'll chow-down on the dry. He also hates the über-expensive, boutique natural dry foods.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:58 AM on October 31, 2011


Wet cat food makes me want to retch, but I feed it to my cat because when she only had dry cat food, she was really prone to urinary tract infections.

My vet said that as long as cats drink enough water that they shouldn't necessarily need wet food, and he only fed his cats dry food. Mine apparently isn't one of those cats because she's fine with wet food, not so much without it. I'd only feed her a can/pouch once every day or two. It's never pleasant but in light of kitty health, it's really not such a big deal.
posted by Polychrome at 4:06 AM on October 31, 2011


I think this is one is like Chicago weather; If you wait a while, the whole thing changes.

We have six cats, four of whom eat Orijen dry (an 80/20 protein/fruits veg food, with no grain), and two eat Royal Canin Urinary SO 33. Ages from 3 to 14.

All have enough energy to power the neighborhood in the next power outage.

All have luxurious coats, bright eyes and a penchant for getting into stuff they have no business in.

For what it's worth our vet recommends dry with wet food as an occasional treat.

For some cats it is better to have wet food.

For many others a good dry food is better.

Given my past experience with wet food-how much you have to feed vs. dry, and how disgusting their poop is (not to mention how quickly it bottoms the litter box out-not a thing one needs help with six cats) I am extremely happy that our cats are doing very well with their dry diet.

Something tells me your cats will be able to leap tall furniture in a single bound and have a luxurious coat to boot-just by being fed a good dry food.
posted by chosemerveilleux at 4:28 AM on October 31, 2011


Are your cats males? That's something to consider. One $900 vet bill to clear a urinary tract blockage was enough to convince me to go wet! I don't know if wet food is nutritionally better, but in terms of preventative care I think you can't go wrong.
posted by Mrs. Rattery at 4:28 AM on October 31, 2011


It sounds like your husband is the one who is most concerned about this, so why can't he do the wet food feeding? Is wet food so gross to you that you can't even have it in the house? Can you stand it if your husband does the feedings?

We feed Dick Van Patten's wet and dry, which sounds slightly ridiculous but our cats looooove it and they are healthy and at a good weight. Our vet approves.
posted by ohio at 5:38 AM on October 31, 2011 [3 favorites]


My family cat has always eaten only dry food and is in terrific health at 16 years (we do not mix in water). I think our vet recommended this diet, so I've always understood the wet food to be an owner's way of giving his or her cat a treat.

It's more than likely that there is no definitive answer on this. Or if there is, we don't know it. How many times have the experts gone back and forth on whether eggs are good or bad for people to eat?
posted by J. Wilson at 5:42 AM on October 31, 2011 [1 favorite]


I came in to recommend Tiki Cat's chicken flavors as well - there's just shredded chicken and chicken broth in there.
posted by nicwolff at 6:03 AM on October 31, 2011


I have a 15-year old cat who ate only dry food (with the occasional can as a treat) for the first 12 years of her life. She's been fine. We had to switch to wet food about 3 years ago because she had to have several teeth pulled and it was more difficult for her to crunch it up. Now she only eats Fancy Feast .... the flaked bits in gravy and not the pate-style, thankyouverymuch.

When my cat was eating dry food, we'd supplement with bits of turkey, cheese, etc. as treats.
posted by Ostara at 8:01 AM on October 31, 2011 [1 favorite]


Minor tip - finding truly grain-free cat food of any kind is very difficult unless you are willing to go with the raw route, or preparing it yourself. Commercial foods nearly always include at least some grain of some kind. Some of my cans say "Grain free" on the front. Yep, no grains--instead there are potatoes.
posted by massysett at 8:08 AM on October 31, 2011


I feed dry and recommend Wellness CORE - the first 5 ingredients are all meat and it uses potato rather than grain.
posted by maryr at 8:20 AM on October 31, 2011


We feed our cats Wellness Indoor forumla dry food during the day and Wellness wet food night (although this is more of an occasional treat).

One of them is a bit obese (but honestly, fairly active when the mood strikes) and the other is really skinny (and the most playful creature I've ever encountered).

So yes, I think it varies from cat to cat. As others have mentioned, cats are prone to dehydration, and wet food can help make sure they get enough water intake, so that's a bonus.
posted by Fister Roboto at 8:46 AM on October 31, 2011


We only do wet food to watch the kitties do the "wet food dance," which is almost as entertaining as watching them chasing the flashlight.

Oh, and we have a male who is prone to crystals and blockages so we do it for that reason, too.
posted by kinetic at 9:31 AM on October 31, 2011


I come down on team wet food, after a $500 vet bill for a cat with stones caused by dry food and paying for a broken tooth on a cat eating dry food, I now avoid it like the plague. If you don't like the wet food and your husband is so invested in the cats eating it get him to do the feeding. A lot of the meat based as opposed to fish based ones have a much better smell and if you try different ones you can find ones that don't smell so much, just remember what smells bad to you smells like heaven to your cat.
posted by wwax at 9:51 AM on October 31, 2011


Response by poster: Thank you for the further feedback, it looks like no one has further information on just adding a little water to dry food?

My husband cannot do all the cat feeding - I'm an emergency dept doctor and he also works 50-60 hours a week, including overnight sometimes, so whoever is home needs to be able to feed them.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 10:01 AM on October 31, 2011


(Standard IANAV disclaimer applies, of course)

Regarding adding water to dry food -- as long as your cat

(a) finds it palatable, and

(b) eats it right away (rather than letting soggy kibble sit around for hours, which sounds like a non-issue in your case)

…if that's the only logistically feasible way to get more water into their diet, then I'd say go for it.

Bacteria take time to grow, and you're not going to instantaneously end up with salmonella soup if you mix dry food with water.

In short, if you're committed to continuing to feed dry food, no, mixing it with water is not likely going to make you cat ill. Just make sure to WASH the food dish every day with soap and hot water (not just rinse, but really wash -- use the dishwasher if you have one, and have multiple bowls you can rotate in and out).

As a side note, 3 of my 4 cats are currently mostly raw-fed, though I don't know if I'd have ever gotten to that point if one of them hadn't turned out to have severe food intolerances (primarily to corn in his case). The fourth cat, however, won't touch raw (she was raised on Purina kibble for the eight years prior to my adopting her; she just turned 10) and currently eats a combination of (certain specific flavors of) Fancy Feast and some Purina One Beyond crunchies. Personally I've long been convinced by the pro-wet/pro-raw arguments but I also recognize that such things aren't feasible for everyone, due to logistics or finances or whatever other reason. And given the number of cats in need of homes, if some of those homes have to be kibble-feeding households, so be it.
posted by aecorwin at 11:32 AM on October 31, 2011


First off, Fancy Feast (I dunno if that was a joke or what in your header) is basically crap. There's a lot of wheat gluten and fillers in it.

Just because it is "wet food" does not in any way shape or form indicate that it is "good food" for your cat. Most cheap / mass market wet cat foods are as bad or worse than feeding kibble. The tricky part about the so-called "new school" of feeding domestic indoor cats (who aren't actively supplementing their diet with live prey, that is) canned food instead of kibble, is that this knowledge isn't yet common knowledge, there's a lot of hype and misinformation still out there on both schools, many vets still stand firmly in the old-school "bad for their teeth" hard line about wet food (note: there is often a stronger bias here when they're selling Science Diet or similar bagged kibble in their practice, but I don't want to derail too far off into tinfoil hat territory here.)

so here's the good news: The better quality the food, the less evil it will smell, and you can trust me on that. But the truly good quality stuff sadly isn't cheap or easy to find (yet). If you can get a couple of supplements (taurine, ash) and a recipe from the internet, you'd honestly do better and be cheaper in the long run to use a combo of innards and cheap cuts of beef/chicken from the local store and make your own.

Anecdata: My paternal grandma made her own cat food for her indoor cat Ajax back in the 60s and 70s (it was actually common practice in the old days to do this for indoor city cats who didn't hunt, but butcher shops were also lots more common back then too). Ajax lived well into his mid twenties and was as slim, playful and energetic at twenty as he was at two.

We had major feeding issues with our cat Marlowe when we first got him back in February. He was a "kibble addict" (carb addicted) and at just 18 months and over 15lbs, was already rapidly becoming a listless catloaf. I initially chalked this up to him being a Ragdoll (very laid-back breed) but I've since been proven wrong - kibble is essentially the same thing as eating an all-pasta-and-taco-chips, all-the-time diet for humans. Weight gain, lethargy, urinary tract and renal problems, and feline diabetes are all-too-common manifestations of the (feline) SAD syndrome.

My husband (a vegetarian) was initially the same or even worse off than you about feeding wet food. He absolutely couldn't handle the stench. But after we both did the research and our awesome new cat vet insisted that yes, cats are obligate carnivores, and dry kibble is really not the way to go, we did a little shopping around and sample testing with our extremely ornery picky cat. And oh boy did he yowl and complain about the lack of kibble at first o_O

After much experimentation and a couple digestive rebellions (wheat gluten is REALLY BAD mmkay?) we ultimately settled on this fairly expensive frozen raw diet that we get out of the freezer at the local hardware / general / feed store here in Boulder. On balance we've discovered that it's actually less expensive than "premium" kibble or even canned wet food, because we don't have to feed him as much to keep his weight down, his coat shiny, and his energy levels high, plus there's no waste because he scarfs it right up. A side benefit is that now he rarely-to-never gets hairballs, barfs, or gets the runs (which is awesome, because he has a super-duper fluffy butt).

And not only that but he is a completely different cat now; his energy / play level is off the charts. YMMV but we've discovered that at least in his case Ragdoll != catloaf. We taught him how to walk on a leash and just this morning he went for a jog (!) around the block with my husband, then came back and engaged in a 20-minute cat riot with his favorite little fluffy yellow toy whatzit.
posted by lonefrontranger at 11:54 AM on October 31, 2011 [2 favorites]


I feed our cats Purina Indoor Formula. It isn't the best possible food for cats or even the best dry food. It is an accessible, inexpensive food on the somewhat higher end of consumer dry cat foods. They aren't fat because I don't overfeed them. The cats I've owned have been healthy and led long lives. Just to be clear about lengths I'm willing to go with pets, I managed a diabetic cat well into his twenties, over five years of treatment with insulin, brought his weight into an acceptable level (my wife had got him obese from someone who's relative had gone into a nursing home) purely on a dry diet (albeit a vet-prescribed one, I believe it was Hills R/D) to the point where in the last years of his life he did not require insulin.

You don't have to feed your cat a wet or raw diet because it is the best possible diet. You can in fact (if you can get your husband to agree) research high protein dry foods and pick the one that is in the price range that seems sane to you.
posted by nanojath at 12:28 PM on October 31, 2011


My male cat ate dry food for 3 years before I tried giving him wet food. The result: He didn't shit for 4 days, got very lethargic, and I had to take him to the vet for an enema and a series of medications.

Now my cats all eat Iams dry food (with the occasional tuna treat) and always will.
posted by coolguymichael at 12:42 PM on October 31, 2011


Adding water to dry food won't really give you the main benefits of wet food. Even crappy wet foods tend to be higher in protein and lower in carbs than most dry foods. EVO is the highest protein and lowest carb dry available, but good quality canned is still better. While the water content is very important, it is not the only or most important difference between wet and dry food. Grazing (as often happens with cats fed dry food) is not really ideal for cats either, meals are generally considered preferable (not least because it lets you know right away if there are any changes in your cat's appetite).

The reason many vets still haven't bought into the canned food idea, is likely (IMO) because not all vets can keep up with all the new information available (especially since many states do not have CE requirements...but that's another discussion). The vast majority of feline specialist vets, and vets who stay current with the latest recommendations in feline medicine, feel that cats are healthiest when they eat 95% of their intake as canned food. Not water added to dry food, but canned food.
posted by biscotti at 4:50 PM on October 31, 2011


IANAV (and most vets are not trained in any way regarding nutrition, btw) but I have worked in the pet industry and have a lot of first hand experience with cat nutrition. Adding water to dry food doesn't give all the benefits of wet food, although it will add moisture. If you are a free feeder (leaving the food out all day for the cat to snack on), the food may at the very least be unpalatable to your cats. If you are concerned about how much moisture they are getting, other ways to supplement that do exist.

I am of the opinion that every cat's needs are different. I free feed my cat dry food and supplement with canned, as well as natural treats, because I have found that this combination works best for his health, satisfaction, and my schedule, budget. There are good, moderately priced canned foods out there which are not the old pate style with the weird smell and texture (TikiCat was mentioned, and there are others). A mid-level dry food also works wonders.

Your cats may not like wet food at first. They may grow to like it, they may not. Same with adding water to the dry food. Or changing the food. I am lucky that my cat will eat whatever I put down in front of him but I guess that I am warning you that some cats are picky and you may be doing a lot of trial and error trying to figure out what works best for your family. When there's something wrong, your cats will definitely let you know.
posted by sm1tten at 7:34 PM on October 31, 2011


I honestly find that the better wet foods (EVO and Merrick Before Grains) don't smell all that bad when compared to supermarket brands. I've been very tempted to try the EVO Duck...smells really good to me.
posted by screamingnotlaughing at 10:50 AM on November 2, 2011


Sensitive nose here. I, too, don't notice nearly as much smell from the nicer canned foods (we're currently using Natural Balance limited ingredients) as I do from cheap brands like Fancy Feast. I notice even less smell when it comes out of the fridge. If your kitties don't mind, maybe consider chilling their cans before you open them?
posted by moira at 12:25 AM on November 3, 2011


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