I notice you do not include Kasco in your list and am concerned as your site seems to carry some weight. I certainly don't want to risk my cats' health on another contamination event. I am prepared to switch to a premium brand, but before I take on the additional costs, I would appreciate your comment on Kasco.
I'll try to answer your questions honestly with my own personal opinions, but with the caveat that no individual, government agency, or pet food company can ever guarantee there won't be another recall, nor that any give food is or is not appropriate for any given cat.
After reading the list of ingredients in Kasco cat food, I couldn't recommend it in good conscience. The first ingredients are:
Poultry by-product meal, ground yellow corn, poultry fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), brewers rice, corn gluten meal, beet pulp, poultry digest, fish meal. . .
- Protein Source
First, I like to see the protein source named. "Poultry" can encompass a wide variety of fowl. Second, "by-product meal" is one of the cheapest sources of animal protein found. Here is the AAFCO definition of "poultry by-product meal":"Consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices."
In nature, poultry such as chickens, would probably be a secondary source of food for cats (unless they lived on a farm). Their natural food would consist of mice and other rodents, ground squirrels, and birds. While they would eat a certain amount of "by-products" (such as the head [exclusive of the beak]), the stomach, and intestines, they would eat more of the actual muscle meat of their prey. This would also be true of the occasional chicken they might be able to catch and kill.
While a certain amount of named, e.g. "chicken" byproducts might be desirable in a cat food, I do not like to see them listed as the first ingredient on the label. (I suspect there is very little nutritional value in chicken feet, for example.) The first ingredient should always be a named muscle meat source, such as "chicken," or in the case of some dry food, "chicken meal" (although in the better foods the latter would be lower down on the list, if at all.)
- Ground Yellow Corn
The next ingredient listed is "corn." It is frequently used in the manufacture of "grocery store cat foods" because it is a cheap source of plant protein. However, cats are obligate carnivores, which means they need a named meat protein as their primary source of food, i.e., named as the first ingredient on cat food labels. As I've written on my site several times, it's the rare cat that will hunt down an ear of corn for dinner. Perhaps a starving one might. Cats' digestive tracts are simply not created to digest corn properly, and it often leads to digestive upset, vomiting and diarrhea. The same cautions apply also to ingredients such as wheat (often an allergen to cats) and brewers rice and corn gluten meal, the latter two of which are also listed for this food. - Poultry Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols)
Mixed tocopherols are now regularly used by both premium food manufacturers and those who produce grocery store brands. Usually consisting of vitamins A and E, they are a replacement for the old chemical preservatives, including BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin, and propyl gallate, which were found to create cancer in laboratory animals. However, there's that word "poultry" again. I'd much rather see "chicken fat" here. - Beet Pulp
The AAFCO Definition:"The dried residue from sugar beets." Many premium brands of cat food use beet pulp in small amounts for the benefits of its fiber, and I have no personal objections to that, in general. More about beet pulp.
- Poultry Digest
I don't even want to contemplate "poultry digest." The AAFCO definition is "Material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed poultry tissue," which doesn't begin to define the meaning of "poultry tissue." - Fish Meal
AAFCO definition: "The clean, dried, ground tissue of undecomposed whole fish or fish cuttings, either or both, with or without the extraction of part of the oil." Fish meal is a good source of protein, and is also used in some premium cat foods. However, many of them routinely name the source of the fish, e.g. "cod," "tuna," "flounder."
If you haven't read it elsewhere on my site, I'll remind you this: Feeding lower quality, cheaper foods is not always economical. There are two reasons:
- Unlike dogs, cats only eat until they've had their nutritional needs fulfilled. I think you'll discover that they will eat a LOT less of a higher quality food than they would on the Kasco brand, and that your food costs won't be that much higher.
- Cats fed a superior diet will incur fewer veterinary expenses. Food allergies can contribute not only to conditions such as IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) but also to such things as hair loss and skin irritation due to scratching.
I am not a veterinarian nor a pet food nutritionist. My opinions are the result of several years of extensive research and are solely mine. I encourage my readers to use my articles as the starting point to their own research, and in the event of a conflict, to heed their own veterinarians' advice.
