Purina article about cat food... good for a laugh!

[vanillasugar]

What's In My Pet's Food?

Most cat owners know the feeling: Lingering in the pet food aisle bewildered and befuddled. You want to feed your cat the kitty equivalent of your favorite foods (shrimp scampi, filet mignon, buttered Brussel sprouts and baked Alaska come to mind), but you don’t want to be responsible for the hardening of his arteries or the widening of his girth.

You want him to share in your love of food, but odds are not one of those complete diet in a bag appeals to you – which makes the choosing all the more difficult. If you own a cat who’s happy if he manages to swipe a tidbit from the trash and mud-puddle water, you don’t truly have to fear going wrong in the palatability department. But if your cat turns her nose up at economy-brand canned tuna or turkey from the wrong deli, then you’ve got the flavor issue to contend with as well. Most of all you want to ensure that your pet’s nutritional needs are being met – and unless a trusted veterinarian has given you explicit instructions about what to feed your cat, you’re not likely to have a whole lot of confidence in your ability to make the best possible decision. What’s really in those foods, anyway?

The Recipe
“The first and most important ingredient in pet food is an understanding of the nutritional needs of pets,” says Dottie LaFlamme, D.V.M., Ph.D., a veterinary nutritionist with Ralston Purina. “Knowing that, we start selecting the ingredients.”

The main components of your cat’s packaged food are not unlike those of human diets: carbohydrates, including corn, rice and wheat; proteins (from poultry, meat and bone meal) and fats (soybean oil, canola oil, and fats from meat and poultry) comprise the rest in close to equal proportions. The basic formula for cat foods is something like 30 percent protein, 15 percent fat, and 55 percent carbs. In order to round it out, as with a healthy diet for a human, a variety of essential vitamins and minerals including zinc, iron, and potassium, compliment the main ingredients. At Purina, the premium Cat Chow® brand cat food also includes added Omega 6 fatty acids which contribute to your cat’s healthy immune system and promote a thick, shiny coat.

Variations
Every good recipe has its variations, and pet foods are no different. Premium brands typically contain more fat and more protein per serving than economy brands, dictating that owners don’t have to feed as much to offer the same level of nutrition. Weight loss and senior diets tend to have high protein content, but less fat.

One of the biggest differences between pet foods and people foods is in the complete nature of prepared pet diets. “We’re looking for a variety of foods for pet diets,” says LaFlamme, who nevertheless cautions against frequently changing pet food products or brands, as it can upset a pet’s digestive system. “Just as people need a variety of ingredients for complete nutrition, animals need variety as well. The difference is, they get it put together for them in a complete product.” The rest of us have to do it ourselves.

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do I need to point out all the false statements in this or would someone else like to start? It's like a game!! "Read through Purina's lies and see who can spot more of them!"

[spittles]

Purina is SO stupid

[vanillasugar]

see the thing is, anyone who knows ANYTHING about feline nutrition sees right through this, but the average person only knows what they're told by things like this, and buy right into it

[NewRagdoll]

While I don't share their view, I also don't agree with many views on human foods. I guess they wouldn't approve of low carb diets for humans.....

The problem is that just as we are still learning a lot about human diets and what is best and as there is still a lot of controversy, I don't find it surprising to find the same on cat diets.

Now....I feel protein is the essential food element and our bodies and our cats bodies do need certain fats and acids and some bulk which may be in the form of certain carbohydrates. Obviously, Purina doesn't share my opinions. However, there have been a lot of cats to live long healthy lives on Purina products.....its just I feel there are better answers and I search for them and pay the price for them.

[Gudewife]

Hmm...they rather sank themselves, didn't they?

The basic formula for cat foods is something like 30 percent protein, 15 percent fat, and 55 percent carbs.

Followed by:

Premium brands typically contain more fat and more protein per serving than economy brands, dictating that owners don’t have to feed as much to offer the same level of nutrition.

Okaayyyy...so if by adding fat and protein, you increase nutritional content, and since you can't possibly add fat and protein without removing a like amount of carbs...how in the dickens can you say that 55% carbohydrate content is optimum (or even normal) for a cat?

I might be leading a discussion at my natural food cooperative sometime soon about choosing a commercial cat food (lots of interest so far, though scheduling has been a problem)...I'm going to have to print this out to use as an example...is there an original source URL that I can cite?

[vanillasugar]

yup! here's the link:

http://pets.yahoo.com/pets/cats/hn/what ... pet's_food

It says at the bottom that it's an excerpt from a 1998 issue of Pets Life Magazine

[Gudewife]

Originally Posted by vanillasugar

yup! here's the link:

http://pets.yahoo.com/pets/cats/hn/what ... pet's_food

It says at the bottom that it's an excerpt from a 1998 issue of Pets Life Magazine

Thanks, Julia! I'll put it to good use...

[icklemiss21]

You are as bad as me... I went to petsmart the other day only to be hounded by reps from Iams, Hills Science Diet and Purina telling me there food was the one for my cats (all this while I am buying litter not food).

So, I tried explaining politely that I didn't feed and wasn't planning to feed any of my cats any of their foods and they are still following me around the store...

So slightly less politely I tell them why I don't plan on feeding their products to my cats and get the usual yapping on about why their food is the best (i swear they are robots in human skin only trained to say certain stuff).

So i much less politely tell them what i think of their foods (all this while people are putting the bags of Iams back on the shelves) and the Iams guy starts on me saying he is going to sue me for slander... so I ask each of them what the best ingredients are for cats and they all come up with a difference answer... one of them saying the first ingreient in their food is chicken and me pointing on that it is chicken by-products on the bag she is holding in her hand and very sweetly tell them when they know what they are talking about come back and see me.

So the manager of petsmart came over to see what the commotion is about... and the iams guy is still going on that the company will sue me for slander while I am holding a bag of his food telling him the ingredients are the total opposite of the nutritional info he had JUST told me was optimum and the manager just laughs at him and says... 'do you feed your cat Iams? and he says he doesn't own any animals - hes just a sales rep' and we are supposed to believe someone who has not vetinary/nutritional training or any animals?

[Ashdyre]

1998? Hmmm... maybe they can be forgiven then... that's like 7 years ago, a lot of reasearch has been done since then on healthy diets, for humans and animals alike, and sooooo many more brands have come out, as well as old brands adding a new line or increasing the quality of their food...

but yeah, i laughed... 55% carbs? I think not...

[Annissa]

Well, that was infuriating.

Sure, some cats live long, healthy lives eating nothing but Cat Chow, but many develop serious food-related diseases. Why take the chance with a low-quality food when you can eliminate the chance of your cat developing type 2 diabetes by feeding a high-quality diet?