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I don't think Fancy Feast really is cheaper than the premium brands. At our local pet supply store, a can of FF Elegant Entrees is about the same price as the same size can or pouch of Wellness, Innova or California Naturals. And two of the 3 ounce cans of FF regular cost about the same as one of the large cans of those other three.
It's hard to be sure about by-products. Some by-products are considered to be fit, and widely used for, human consumption. Gelatin is a meat by-product. So is rennet, which is used to make cheese. Many medicines, vitamins and supplements contain meat by-products. Theoretically, these should be fine. But I agree, the AAFCO definition is too vague and could allow for things to be added to pet food that really shouldn't be there.
um............ I dont think this is good for our kitties
By products=By-Products may include but are not limited to: spines, hair, hooves, feet, heads, euthanized dogs and cats from veterinarian offices and animal shelters, roadkill, zoo animals, dead animals and those declared unfit for human consumption due to disease and illness are also placed in the mix, pentobarbital, rancid restaurant grease, toxic chemicals and additives
One suggestion to save money is to buy bigger cans and see if your pet store offers any case discount. The 13 oz Wellness cans are a lot cheaper per oz than the small 3 or 5.5 oz cans. Mom got those snap on lids and she splits 1/2 can between us 3 cats in the morning and gives us the rest at night. I agree that you pretty much get what you pay for, but you have to do what you can afford and feel good about. We have been on Wellness, EVO and Merricks for a few months now and we are all doing great on them; shinier coat, better weight and lots of energy. A better diet leads to a healthier kitty! Just like people! Good luck!
By-products as part of canned food are not per se bad things. However, in addition to by-products and organ meat (liver, kidneys), a quality canned catfood--regardless of price--will include muscle meats, and should have "chicken" or "turkey" or "lamb" on the label FOLLOWED BY "chicken by-product" or "turkey liver" or whatever the case may be. Ideally, the label will list muscle meats, followed by organ meats, by-products and non-meat products. It's great to consider what our cats would eat in the wild, but think about what a wild animal prioritizes. It eats muscles and major organs first. If it gets full off of that, or if it wasn't very hungry to begin with, it does not consume the same volume of its prey's "natural by-products." So if we strive to include these natural food sources in the manufactured foods we feed our pets, we should consider the proportions of each type of protein source as well.
Natural Life ingredients are typically listed this way, and that food is less than $1.00 for a 5 oz. can. This is what I feed, and my cats seem to love it.
If it IS just things like liver and kidneys why wouldn't they just list them as so on the ingredients? Most reputable food companies say "NO by-products" they must know something that we don't by stating that, right??? And also they name liver as "chicken liver" instead of mushing it all together with one word. By putting one word on there, they are most likely going to shove anything in there to fit under that category.... things as stated above like rendered animals. It's still meat products and by products but not named meat and definitely not necessarily healthy meat.
I'm not saying that cats shouldn't eat what's considered as "by products" because I think liver and everything is a good source of vitamins. It's just how things are labeled and worded on the ingredients labels.... and if it really is what they say it is.
It's the same with human foods. I heard somewhere that the words "All Natural" have NO guidelines. Any company can use the words all natural with no intentions of following them. And also No trans fats.... if you read the ingredients of a bag of chips (or whatever product) that has a Zero grams trans fat label on it.... there's still some in it. So, even human food companies are loose on their descriptions.
Really good point Margaux Hemingway. To me the quality of a food is not determined by it's cost but by the bioavailability of the ingredients. Yes, a cat eats byproducts when it kills prey. But it gets more nutritional content from the muscle meat than it does from the rest of the carcass. If a food is all byproduct (even named byproducts), it is not providing equivalent nutrition value than if it contained more muscle meat. So some poultry byproducts in a food are fine but I wouldn't feed it to my cat if the food was mostly byproducts.
And just because a label states a specific nutritional content, it doesn't mean a cat is able to make use of all of it. A lot of foods boost protein levels by using ingredients like corn gluten but a cat's body is not able to make use of that source of protein very efficiently - basically, most of it gets pooped out. Ultimately you cat will need to eat more of a lower quality food to meet basic nutritional needs than it will a higher quality food. So balance cost of an indvidual can with how many cans you actually will need to feed to get the same benefit.
im not trying to debate that friskies is "the best" or what not. just trying to lend a hand to those of us who find our wallets quite empty due to jobs, or vet bills, gas, ect.
if i have the money i certinly will get the more expensive brands. but it was when i didnt have the money i felt so guilty about getting cheeper...but i felt a little better knowing what to look for.
mine love canned evo..i feed that when possible. i will spend my last 5 bucks on some cans. but a few months ago i took in a prego stray who gave me 5 kittens...so i had to get friskies just so i would have enough to let mamma and kittens pack away all they needed to grow. i was going threw several cans a day PLUS dry whenever she needed. Now that momma can has been spayed and re-homed, and i only have 2 kittens left, i get the better food.
my point is, some people have no choice about getting cheeper food. i just want them to know which ones to look for and get the best for there money.
I understand your point, Tiny. All of us have gone thru times when we had to make some sacrifices here and there due to financial constraints, and it is comforting to know that during those times we don't have to deny our kitties canned food.
I know some people will argue as far as saying, "If you can't afford Evo or Wellness grain free, then you shouldn't even have a cat!" Well, not everyone can do that, and if you think there is a problem with homeless cats at the moment . . . just think how bad it would be if only people that bought premium food or raw had cats.
We have been buying the premium foods, but if we were to have a significant drop in income for some reason, we'd definitely have to change foods. We'd change our human foods too - so it's not just the cats that would be affected. I sure as heck don't want to have to eat Ramen noodles everyday, but if my husband or I lost our jobs we'd definitely have to!
Miss Tiny, I really do understand your point. Even though we eat the best food mommy can afford, there may come a time when she can't afford it either and I'd never put down anyone for not doing the same. Many cats have lived long lives eating Fancy Feast and Friskies. Mommy's Jennifer and Pete lived to be 18 and 16 eating Friskies and FF. Would I recommend FF? Not really. But feeding it certainly beats living on the streets and starving or being dumped in a shelter because I'm too expensive to take care of.
Fancy Feast does have a gourmet line of grain-free food. There's about 8 or so recipes in the grain-free line and you have to read every label because they look just like the cans with the grains. Some pet food stores and supermarkets don't even carry the gourmet grain-free cans. There are 2 that I'd really hesitate to feed. One is the salmon -- it contains red dye very high in the list of ingredients and there's another one with dye in it but I can't remember the name.
Where I live, the Fancy Feast grain-free cans cost more than the other FF cans and usually cost about $.60 -$.69 a can, unless they're on sale. That's still cheaper than paying $.89 - $.1.09 for a 3 oz. can of Wellness, Merrick, Pet Guard, Natural Balance or Weruva. But you also have to ask yourself if feeding cheaper food might not be more expensive long-term because of health problems caused by eating poor quality food.
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