We use Wellness and Natural Balance. Mostly canned. Our cat is 4 and thriving. Coat is silky and she has lots of energy. No by-products or corn.

I use Royal Canin Veterinary Hypoallergenic. My boy, Oliver, is 16 years old we've been using this brand since he was 3.

Both my little girl (who left us last June at 15-1/2 years) and Oliver did extremely well on this food. Sofie was diagnosed with FELV when she was 3 (she was born with it) and her last 12 years were extremely healthy ones, especially considering she had FELV. (Sofie was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last May...but even then she had a wonderful quality of life).

With that said, we are hoping for a new addition in June and she/he will be raised her first 12 weeks on a raw meat diet. I am going to try and keep him/her on this diet because after some research and some experience using it, I do think it's very healthy for our cats. Unfortunately, Oliver will not eat it! (...and he was raised on a raw meat diet the first 3 months of his life!)

Newman's Own canned food for the one that prefers commercial cat food. He likes homemade food as a treat, but not all of the time.

Homemade for the other one. She's 18. It took awhile to get her off the dry food that DH fed them before they all met me. The proteins are chicken, turkey, chicken livers, chicken hearts,and chicken eggs. There are supplements as well: calcium, taurine, etc. She has renal insufficiency so I add rice to reduce the total phosphorous content. Not as much as the dietician at the University says I should. I decided that enjoying her food was more important than adding unhappy months to her life. The kitty that died earlier this year also had renal insufficency for many years. She was over 20 when she passed.

They both get treats of fish and seafood from time to time. In fact, I'm cooking Tina's favorite - lobster - tonight in celebration of her birthday. Yes, I spoil my fur persons.

our current cat is somewhat finicky about what dry food she will eat--- what she seems to like best is purina one salmon and tuna! i do not feed our cat (or dogs!) canned food- the dry is supposed to be better for their teeth. i will give her chicken pieces, and fish when we eat either of those which is pretty frequently- she really loves people food!

We fed our female cat Newman's Own, like yogacat. She was 18 or so when she started having trouble keeping food down, and would throw everything up. We switched to Newman's and she lived to 23 years old. She kept it down easily.

When she died, I went down a notch in price from Newman's to Natural Balance for our male cat. He has trouble with the meat and vegetables so I buy either all meat or meat and rice.

I switched to canned after my previous beloved cat got diabetes. Some research atributes feline diabetes to the high carbohydrates and low moisture content in dry food.

Dee

Evanger's Holistic Pheasant, canned; Evo Ancestral Diet, dry. I am in the process of rethinking the former choice, as I've heard some somewhat disturbing things about the company. If I do switch to something else, however, the new brand(s), like the current ones, will have no corn/grains and no byproducts.

We make a frankenmouse raw mix from chicken thighs, hearts, livers, egg yolks, bone meal, taurine, and lots of other added nutrients. It's less expensive than pre-made raw food, includes *no* grain (cats are carnivores), and nutritionally duplicates what they'd eat if they caught food themselves. We didn't make up the recipe--we got it from a natural cat list. One of our cats, the gourmet guy, likes chlorella powder on it sometimes.

p.s. the person who formulated the recipe is a vet and it's also been 'vetted' by a registered dietician who turned his attention to cat diet after he lost a beloved cat too early.

We feed Blue indoor formula to our Siamese. Fortunately she's not a big eater, as the food is expensive. We made the switch to better pet food after our dog suffered and died from canine cushings several years ago. Our hope was that the additional investment in quality nutrition would result in overall better health for our other
pets as well as a decrease in the amount we would need to spend treating illness. (We have a similar hope about our own food choices.) Our last Siamese, who ate Blue since she came to us at age five, sadly developed a brain tumor and had to be put down last fall, a reminder that the best of care cannot stave off disease and death. However, she was never sick with even a cold until she got the tumor.

Since I mentioned eggs, I'd better remind everyone that egg whites must be cooked. Raw white have a chemical that binds with biotin and cause a biotin deficiency in cats. Raw yolks are fine.

When I had a cat come down with feline diabetes due to steroids, I changed to a high protein/low carb food. He was only on insulin a month before it went away (not uncommon for drug induced diabetes). Sad to say he died of pancreatic cancer not long after. But it made me look harder at what I was feeding my pets. I wasn't feeding them crap dog food, but it wasn't the best either and I asked myself why since we love them all (3 dogs/3 cats currently) and can afford to feed them better. :)

I then started buying Wellness CORE for both, after trying a few others first with the cats. Mix wet and dry twice a day for both. Feed them this for over 2 years, but I recently switched the cats to Orijen. They love love love it.

The dogs were all eating Wellness too (DH says we spend more on pet food than people food each month), but I recently switched them to Fromm's.

All have no grains, fillers, by-products, wheat, soy, corn, etc etc. I buy their food at a locally owned Hollywood Feed store. The lady told me Fromm had never had food recalled.

They are normally all healthy and happy.

note re dry food and teeth: actually, I heard directly from a big cat dentist that dry food is *worse* than wet food, because it doesn't chip off the plaque (which is the claim). Rather, when it dissolves into smaller bits, it collects at the collar of the tooth, or whatever the name is for where the gum hits the tooth, and sets in there in a pocket and rots the tooth out right at the gum.

I'm curious whether anyone has tried the powder below:

Here is a link that might be useful: we can't do dentals on our grand old lady cat...maybe this instead?

Blue Wilderness, high protein, grain free. Cats love it, are happy healthy, and a little bit loco :)

Great question,

My cat drinks water so I use the dry. I just switched to dry Kirkland/ Costco cat food. He went right to it with no problems. It is VERY affordable too! I have more than enough, so I just freezed the rest. I was feeding proplan select but it was so expensive for a 7lb bag that may have lasted a month.

hmmm, our vet(s) have told us the opposite re: dry vs.wet food.
our animals have very good teeth---this cat is only 6 though, so that would be expected!
unfortunately, the longevity of an animal usually has more to do with their genes rather than the brand of pet food you feed them. and, weight control is important!! there are LOTS of overweight animals out there!
interestingly, our vet somewhat recently told me that dogs could very happily live on cat food(as our puppy regularly tried to get the cat's food when he was little!), but cats couldn't survive on dog food because of the formulations- i had never heard that before.

The varied responses here are similar to what I've come across doing online research. Same with the info from vets. It's too bad there's not one standard consensus. The switching from one food to another also seems to be a common thread.

I've never switched food during the life of a cat. The last two lived to 18 & 19 and ate the same dry & canned their whole life. The nightly canned meal became a necessity when one developed chronic constipation and I needed a way to add Metamucil to the diet.

Busybee, my vet says the same about canned food. BUT, the last two ate both dry and canned. One had tartar the other didn't. Hanna & Charlie get the occasional treat of tuna or fresh cooked shrimp. Neither cares for canned.

Yes busybee, it's so confusing hearing different things from different professionals. I had heard the same, too. But this person is an internationally known professional expert on cats big and small, and he says that the goal is to duplicate what the cat would eat in the wild. Cats don't eat dry food in the wild--dry food was invented for the convenience of domestic owners and the 'better for teeth' line, he says, was invented by the cat food people to sell to vets. Did you know that Hills writes the book on feline nutrition that vet students read? At least, it was that way about 5 years ago when I was doing research, and a couple of vets on the list confirmed it.

Cats in the wild *do* eat bones, though, which clean their teeth -- I've tried to offer our guys bones but only the one who was out on his own for a while knew what to do with it. The difference between bones and dry food is that bones don't disintegrate into carbohydrate granules. (What is the name for that part of the tooth that is right at gum level? It's something like girdle or something metaphorical but I just can't recall it!)

Allison, one of the foods I'm considering is Wellness. Why did you switch from that to Fromm's?

Ah, I just remembered his name: Dr. Johan Joubert. He's a veterinary dentist by specialty, now working in big cat sanctuary health. An amazing man totally committed to the welfare of animals. He's all over the web so you can listen to him on webcasts, etc. Learning from him, including learning some hard lessons about my former choices, really opened my eyes.

I have found a wealth of information on the catinfo.org web site. I agree it's important to feed cats as the would eat in the wild, but that also has to be balanced by the time, money, and other resources at our disposal. I just try to do the best I can and hopefully that is good enough. My cats typically live until at least 18, so I like to think I'm doing a decent job with their food. I feed a combination of dry, canned and raw.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cat Info

Ha, Kimberly, Dr. Lisa is one of the vets who used to participate on the list! She's great. I'm a total fan, and I know many others who are too.

Re money: if we had to buy raw, we probably wouldn't, because it's just too expensive. It's also more expensive than high-quality canned, even with all our extra nutrients. We make it once a week, freeze it in old peanut butter jars, and take one out a day to thaw it and feed it to the dears.

And if you feed some raw, you know that the litter boxes seriously benefit from it : ) We haven't smelled cat poop for about 8 years now, since when we started feeding raw.

i understand that cats don't eat dry food in the wild, but the canned food is nothing like the raw meat/bones they would eat in the wild either!! we fed our cats growing up a mix of canned and dry food- i'm not a fan of canned pet food, so i've made the decision as an adult to fed our pets a dry diet.

my understanding about the dry food was that it helped in the prevention of tartar and plaque buildup--not in the removal of already built up plaque... but, maybe that's not really the case. it is alot more convenient for us-and our current cat doesn't overeat, so the dry food stays in the dish for her to eat as desired.
our somewhat finicky cat does like to drink her water---as long as it's the RO flitered water!! she much prefers that over our unfiltered well water! (it does taste good!) lol

happily, we have had the good fortune of having heathy animals---we once did have a male cat who struggled with cystitis and we needed to modify his diet for health reasons...

I was going to ask if there have been any studies done on the overall health and longevity of cats that are fed a raw diet. I can't seem to find anything.

Did read this from UC Davis: (linked below)

As with many frontiers of science, the public is often ahead of the game in their desire to provide more natural diets with less adverse food reactions. Many pedigreed cat breeders have long supplemented the diet of their cats with up to one-half horsemeat, noting benefits in growth, muscularity and coat quality over feeding commercial diets alone. Many pet cat (and dog) owners are now advocating feeding their animals a diet rich in "bones and raw food" (also known as "barf" diets).

"Biologically appropriate raw food" diet is a more scientific name; several other less commonly used acronyms exist. One only needs to search the web using the keywords "barf diets" to get an idea of the immense following these diets have generated. People who feed these diets report that their pets have better coats and are more active (signs of better general health), with far fewer intestinal problems. With the increasing popularity of barf diets, it is time for a word or two of caution. None of these diets have been scientifically studied in domestic cats, a species known to have rather exacting nutritional requirements.

And this review from The Canadian Veterinary Journal:

Raw food diets in companion animals: A critical review

Here is a link that might be useful: Role of diet in the feline intestinal tract and in inflammatory bowel disease ... UC Davis

Natal, there is one, it was a ten year study done on cats in the 30's and 40's by Dr. Francis Marion Pottenger.
Pottenger Cat Study

Most scientific studies on pet food are done/paid for by the companies that make the food. No pet food company is going to pay or conduct an independent raw study it's their raw brand of food, so properly balanced home made raw diets made with fresh foods won't be studied.

The Canadian study above seems to highlight the serious health risks with feeding raw diets that are improperly balanced, as a lot of the ones mentioned in their study and scary bacteria that you can also possibly come in contact with just by preparing dinner with raw meat for yourself, or touching any of the numerous areas in a person's home that is filled with bacteria, we don't live in a sterile environment.

I don't own cats (only dogs), but common sense tells me that a properly balanced fresh food diet (raw or cooked) compared to processed commercial pet foods would be healthier, as it would be for humans. Yes genetics are a factor in health, but so is diet, and diet is one factor that you can control and change for the better to improve your odds for good health and disease prevention.

Dry foods are made with a high amount of carbohydrates because they have to have a sticky binder to hold the shape of the dry food. Unfortunately it means the carbs can also stick to a pet's teeth and help create tartar over time.

http://accvet.net/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-pet-food

Roobear, that was quite awhile ago and apparently the study is not without controversy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lesson of the Pottenger's Cats experiment: cats are not humans

Yes, it does have controversy/flaws, which is why I tend not to rely on info from scientific studies on pet food/pet diets.