Opinion on this food

I've been feeding Nutro Natural Choice to my cats, but I've run into some financial problems as of late and I really can't afford to feed Nutro right now, what with 7 cats.

I found some food that looked decent and I want your opinions. The ingredients are (in order):

Chicken
Corn gluten meal
Chicken Meal
Brewers Rice
Animal fat preserved with mixed tocopherols
Wheat flour
Ground Yellow Corn
Phosphoric Acid
Potassium chloride
dicalcium phosphate
Salt
animal digest
brewers dried yeast
choline chloride
taurine
zinc sulfate
ferrous sulfate
vitamin e supplement
manganese sulfate
niacin
calcium carbonate
vitamin a supplement
calcium pantothenate
thiamine monoitrate
copper sulfate
riboflavin supplement
vitamin b-12 supplement
pyridoxine hydrochloride
folic acid
vitamin d-3 supplement
calcium iodate
biotin
menadione sodium busulfite complex
sodium selenite

[Meowmie]

No opinion on the food, only some information about some of the ingredients.

Corn gluten meal:
The residue from processed corn. Can cause malabsorption of food from the the intestinal tract (gluten enteropathy) and a variety of intestinal problems.

(Gluten meal is probably the worst, most potentially harmful ingredient a manufacturer can put into pet food.)

Brewers Rice:
A by-product of milling consisiting of the small milled fragments of rice kernels that have been separated from larger kernels of milled rice. Not as wholesome as ground brown or white rice. This is a by-product and is not as healthy as whole rice.

Wheat flour:
The finely ground meal obtained from milling wheat, containing mostly starch and protein with some fine particles of wheat bran. This is a by-product and is not as healthful as whole wheat.

Ground yellow corn:
The entire ground kernel of corn including carbohydrates, protein, and fat.
This is preferred to corn fractions (such as gluten meal), which are missing nutrients.

Chicken meal (and poultry meal in general) is a by-product, which is actually dry, rendered flesh and skin, with or without accompanying bone. It does not contain feathers, heads, feet and guts, except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. The quality is very inconsistent between batches. Because it is a byproduct, it is best avoided in dog and cat food.

[lilysong]

I might be making an unpopular statement here, but the best thing you can do for your babies is get yourself back on your feet. If they have to eat ordinary supermarket food for a while so that you can provide better for them (and yourself) in the future, so be it.

Have you considered the Chicken Soup line of foods? Around here it goes for about a dollar a pound, which still might be a little expensive with seven kitties, but I thought I'd throw that out there as a "more economical" solution.

Good luck to you!

Thank you for the information.

I've been struggling with this for about a month and had to break down and buy the less nutritional food yesterday. I'm having a hard time making ends meet and I know that at least I'm not letting my cats starve. I hate having to feed them a lesser quality food and I'm hoping to get things turned around soon and get them back on the good stuff.

I've considered chicken soup, but at the pet store in town it's actually more expensive than Nutro. The owner's mom is a nutro rep and they seem to mark up the other foods to entice you to purchase nutro.

I hope you guys don't think that I'm being an awful mom to my babies. I'm trying to do the best I can and before I ran into this big financial mess I was firmly on my feet and gave them the best of everything. I still give them the best that I can afford.

Does anyone have any other recommendations on quality foods that are relatively inexpensive?

[Meowmie]

I hope you guys don't think that I'm being an awful mom to my babies

Absolutely not. Actually I find it terribly disrtressing that when the price of food becomes important and one is forced to look for ess expensive food, one has no choice but to go with something that has one or more unhealthful or even potentially harmful ingredients.

Is there no other pet supply store or feed store in your area where you could find better prices? What those store owners are doing is really unforgivable and unconscionable. I feel very bad for you for having to rely on a store like that.

They are the only local store in town that sells good quality foods. I'd get it at Petsmart but the nearest petsmart is 40 minutes away, and with the cost of gas it's not economical to drive there to get food because of the cost of gas.

Arrgh!!!

[lilysong]

I don't think this food looks all that bad, honestly. Not the best, but FAR from the worst. I think your babies would be fine on it.

[RockysMom]

Your kitties will survive. Most important that you love them and its apparent that you do. Everyone goes thru rough times. The best of luck to you.

[horseplaypen]

Originally Posted by RockysMom

Your kitties will survive. Most important that you love them and its apparent that you do.

Love, I think, is just as important as high-quality food. I remember reading about a study where scientists had two groups of bunnies. Both groups were fed a high-fat, low-quality diet but one group was cuddled and petted several times a day, and the other group was ignored. The group that was ignored developed severe heart disease and obesity, whereas the loved bunnies did much better and were much healthier at the end of the study, even though they ate the same thing.

This is only a temporary set-back... I'm sure your cats will be just fine until they're back on their regular stuff!

[roseeden]

I can't really tell you how good (or bad) the food is without the nutritional profile.

What is the nutritional profile?