Eeeew, we can't eat that!

July 15, 2008 9:58 AM

Catfilter: What is the texture of your cat's wet food?

So my vet is concerned that the current wet food I've been feeding my cats has too much sodium and is urging me to get better food for them. They also have weight issues (overweight) and I just got the labs on one of the cats and she is a little dehydrated, so I really need to get them to eat more wet food, less dry.

So here's the thing: my cats (obligatory picture) are finicky, particularly with respect to the *texture* of their wet food. As in, they just won't eat food that has identifiable chunks of real meat. It has to be minced/pate/whatever you want to call it, or they just stare at me and yowl. I read through this thread and am interested in Evo or Wellness, but I can't tell from the websites what the food actually looks like in the can.

So those of you who use these brands--tell me about the texture. Are specific flavors of either brand chunky/minced? Somewhere in-between? I really don't want to buy more food (I've already been burned this week!) that I know they won't even look at.

posted by DiscourseMarker to pets & animals (11 answers total)

My cats eat (and love) Wellness canned food. It's pâté-style--totally uniform mush. I haven't tried the Sardine, Shrimp, and Crab or the Salmon and Trout, but I believe I've bought all the others.
posted by magicbus at 10:12 AM on July 15, 2008

We feed our cats Innova canned food. We were feeding them Innova Evo but it seems that the manufacturer reformulated it recently and it's not as good at preventing urinary tract issues as it once was. Evo has a number of different flavors including beef, chicken, duck, and venison. These are all paste-like, but each flavor has a slightly different level of grain.

The regular Innova has a perfectly smooth consistency but clearly doesn't taste as good as the Evo, so now we split between the two and they get one meal of the regular stuff in the morning and a half meal of the Evo at night.

We have four cats with different degrees of finickiness and they all are willing to eat it.
posted by quin at 10:25 AM on July 15, 2008

Wellness Chicken & Herring, Beef & Salmon, and Sardine, Shrimp & Crab are all completely mushy. No chunks. (Although the Beef & Salmon is oilier than the others - my cat doesn't like it as much.)
posted by candyland at 10:32 AM on July 15, 2008

All Wellness in cans is pate style. The pouches are chunky. In the cans the chicken, turkey, beef and chicken, chicken and herring, and turkey and salmon are all grain free and appropriate for overweight cats.

Evo has a number of different flavors including beef, chicken, duck, and venison. These are all paste-like, but each flavor has a slightly different level of grain. Actually all EVO varieties are grain free.

Other pate styles you might look at:
Castor and Pollux
Nature's Variety Prairie
Nature's Variety Instinct (grain free)
Eagle Holistic

To be avoided (these are good foods but chunky with meat)
Tiki Cat
Merricks
Nature's Variety Homestyle
Weruva
posted by vito90 at 11:18 AM on July 15, 2008

Actually all EVO varieties are grain free.

Heh, that was an incredibly poor word choice on my part, and I should have known better. What I meant was that the different flavors of Evo all have slightly different granularity. (e.g. the venison is a lot clumpier than the beef or chicken). It's still paste like, but there are definite differences in the consistency between the meat types.
posted by quin at 11:27 AM on July 15, 2008

Thanks everyone! This was super-helpful. Now I just have to figure out what flavors they will eat (sigh).
posted by DiscourseMarker at 11:50 AM on July 15, 2008

also, if they're a bit dehydrated, consider getting a cat fountain. they like the running water, and it's supposed to be healthier for them.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:02 PM on July 15, 2008

This is a bit of a divergent answer, but if your cats are just overweight, not ill (like kidney failure) then if you wait a couple of days, they will probably eat just about anything that isn't nailed down.
posted by Listener at 1:00 PM on July 15, 2008

Don't listen to Listener. Domestic cats need to be fed at regular intervals to maintain health or they can develop hepatic lipidosis.

The modern housecat has every opportunity to become overweight and while this may not be of disastrous consequence on a day to day basis, should the cat get sick or lost and stop eating, a very big problem erupts. The fat stores mobilize. Normally, in starvation, fat is moved from the body's storage depots to the liver for processing into lipoproteins but the feline liver was never intended to handle huge amounts of mobilized fat. The liver becomes infiltrated with fat and fails. Complicating matters are the high dietary protein requirement that is unique to cats; protein malnutrition develops very fast when cats do not eat. (emphasis mine)

posted by desjardins at 2:10 PM on July 15, 2008

I want to add that if your cat is dehydrated, you can mix a bit of water in with the wet food. My cat gets half a can of Wellness canned food in the morning and another half in the evening, and at each feeding I mix in about a tablespoon of water. This will definitely help with the dehydration issue, and it may make the food an even more appealing texture for the cats.

Good luck!
posted by kitty teeth at 3:10 PM on July 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

misanthropicsarah:I do have a pet fountain, and that has helped. When it's hot they don't always eat as much wet food, so I think that was part of the problem.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 3:30 PM on July 15, 2008