Just so everyone knows, Fancy Feast is owned by Nestle, so if you want to avoid their products, eat a different brand of cat food.
there’s no way it has that much protein in it
Apparently that can has 91kcal/can, and 10% of it is “crude protein.” Protein provides about 4 calories per gram, so one can is 2g protein.
If we scale to 250 kcal, that’s 6g protein.
Not sure I want to know where OP got their numbers from…
Also, regular chicken breast has higher protein content than this cat food, and it’s probably cheaper per calorie.
Cat food isn’t even any more expensive than canned tuna and other similar canned meats. You’re not saving any money. You’re eating cat food for no reason!
Regular chicken breast has higher protein content than cat food too, as does everything else on this list. Don’t eat cat food, it’s more expensive, has less protein, and (probably) less tasty.
What if the reason is flavour?
Do you mean “cat food isn’t even less expensive…”?
That does appear to be how words be.
Please don’t eat this. My cat needs his gainz
My neighbor has an indoor cat that spends all day getting into the highest spots he can find. This is his hobby. I’ve watched him get down from on top of the high-hung cupboards and the way he did it… it was like the whole apartment was his planet fitness. They all called him fat, because at first glance, sure you could say that.
He got down to come see me when I first visited and I was 100% sure that I never wanted to mess with this cat. It was like patting a fuzzy wall. He is not fat. Bro is built like a tank. He’s literally V shaped. He’s survived years with three pitbull dogs that like to chase him and try to use him as a toy. Out of all the animals there, that is the scariest one. That’s what happens when your cat uses ALL the protein in that food for gainz.
I pointed this out to one of the neighbors and the look on their faces as they realized I was right.
And then there’s the other kind of cat (mine) that uses all the protein to become pear-shaped.
Ounce for ounce, this shit is wildly expensive. You could eat far cheaper and not be you know… eating fucking cat food.
And it has less protein than other options, so there’s literally no reason to eat cat food.
True but Royal Canin’s beef mix does smell tempting.
Royal Canine is a cat food horrible brand. https://catfooddb.com/brand/royal canin
Yeah… that doesn’t seem like a reliable site. According to the FAQ the owner just reads the labels and assigns a rating based on their own undocumented scoring system. They also have no particular qualifications for the work they’re doing and make several clerical errors due to their own bias. For example, they don’t count anything listed only as “protein” as protein because they don’t trust the manufacturer not to lie on the label. Given that this site gets literally all of their information from the manufacturer’s label, I’m sure you see why that’s a problem. Their information is also just plain wrong on some accounts, such as labeling Royal Canin as “significantly lower carbs than average” while most experts agree the opposite is true. The reason they get these wrong is due to a flawed methodology. They basically add up the percentages on the labels and classify whatever is left however they want.
For the record, I don’t feed my cat Royal Canin (due to the above reason), I was only commenting on the smell. Nevertheless, I would advise everyone to steer away from that site.
I didn’t want to get into the weeds so much deep in the comments on Lemmy, but here we are:
Responses
For example, they don’t count anything listed only as “protein” as protein because they don’t trust the manufacturer not to lie on the label.
I don’t think it’s fair to call this a bias. If it was real protein, they would proudly put what kind on the label so it’s likely something like textured soy protein.
Given that this site gets literally all of their information from the manufacturer’s label, I’m sure you see why that’s a problem.
As I understand it, she’s gotten a lot of her information from the data sheets sent to larger distributors like chewy.com as well, which are much more accurate and provide additional information not included on the packaging, such as the amount of ash and carbs.
Their information is also just plain wrong on some accounts, such as labeling Royal Canin as “significantly lower carbs than average” while most experts agree the opposite is true.
If you had actually read what was written, it says, “of 51 products, only 10 had fewer carbs than average”. Perhaps it is poorly worded, but the implication there is 80% of the products are actually higher carbs than average.
The reason they get these wrong is due to a flawed methodology.
Again, they got it right. You just didn’t read it correctly.
What to do next
With all of that being said, you should be using that side as a recommendation for where to start, and if you are taking your pet food choices seriously, you should do your own research by figuring out the most current dry matter basis values for the particular food you’re looking at.
Here is an article that explains how to do that: https://endocrinevet.blogspot.com/2014/01/how-to-calculate-carbohydrate-and.html
I personally use this handy online calculator to speed up the math a little bit: https://balance.it/convert
The catch is unless you know the exact ash content, which is almost never listed on the packaging sold to consumers, you have to guess, which greatly distorts the total carbohydrates. The best way I have found to get the exact ash content it to just go to chewy.com and look at the consumer questions because someone has likely already asked and use that value, or ask the question yourself and chewy will respond within a day or two.
Also, since at the end of the day these dry matter basis values are completely arbitrary unless you have something to compare them against, I recommend looking at data sheets put together by zoos where they have identified the dry matter basis of various prey species for use in feeding at zoos.
https://www.rodentpro.com/informationcenter/resources/nutrient-composition-of-whole-vertebrate-prey
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/NUTRIENT-COMPOSITION-OF-WHOLE-VERTEBRATE-PREY-FISH)-Dierenfeld-Alcorn/9119b1ba4e298635227d69da95636d920eb4b6e9
My take on the subject is you want (in dry matter basis) a breakdown of something like 66-75% protein 25-33% fat and as little ash and carbs as you can get. Wet foods typically don’t have much ash. Dry foods have a lot more. Cats are obligate carnivores so they should have zero carbohydrates.
What exactly is this website? I’d never heard of it. It seems legit, but I’m curious about their sourcing.
It’s legit. Her only fault is the data is always slightly out of date because pet food manufacturers are always changing their recipes, which change the dry matter basis values and warnings about ingredients.
It’s all explained on her about page, but basically she has painstakingly built up the database by sourcing everything herself and accepting some community input. I personally have emailed to have things updated.
Cool resource, thanks for sharing! I was surprised that the old brand I used, which I thought was pretty good, was just “below average”, though now the one I’m getting is “above average”.
Fun fact, because of the great depression, canned pet food has to be safe for human consumption.
Well, for now, at least
I couldn’t find anything on the great depression requiring pet food to be safe for human consumption. I would love for someone to prove me wrong through.
According to this PetMD article, prior to WW2 pet food was a luxury item. During WW2 pet food production completely stopped due to the war. (No cited sources on this article though, I am not sure how accurate it’s claims are?)
According to this Vice article, pet food is held to some standards but technically does not need to be safe for human consumption. (Again, I am not sure how trustworthy of a source Vice is)
This is the best source I have found, a peer reviewed and cited research article published on Jan 30th 2023: Insights-Driven Development of Humanized Foods for Pets. It clashes with the above article in that it talks about pet food production during WW2 and actually cites sources. In regards to pet food being required to be fit for human consumption, it doesn’t mention anything about the great depression. It actually mentions that this is a more recent development and that there still isn’t a “set standard”
A seemingly simple yet confusing claim that has appeared recently in the pet food space is “human-grade,” whereby additional regulations regarding manufacturing, packaging, and storing of the food ensure compliance with safety standards of human consumption guidelines (Oba et al., 2020). Although this claim has been used for pet foods for a few years, it has no definition in animal feed regulations. The term “edible,” however, is defined by the US Department of Agriculture as foodstuffs that have been processed, inspected, and passed manufacturing regulations that are designed to ensure safety for consumption by humans. Pet foods that truly meet this standard must include only ingredients that are human edible and must be manufactured, packed, and held in accordance with the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 21 (AAFCO, 2021; FDA, 2022). Currently, AAFCO is in the process of drafting guidance for “human-grade” claims in pet foods in an attempt to provide clarity to the claim (AAFCO, 2021). The proposed definition outlines that pet foods using the “human-grade” claim are first and foremost animal food products that are subjected to inspection under 21 CFR 507, manufacturing must be in accordance with 21 CFR 110, and the overall process is conducted according to standards ensuring human consumption safety (Carter et al., 2014; Oba et al., 2020; FDA, 2022). Furthermore, the pet food bearing a “human-grade” claim must be manufactured in accordance with the applicable human food regulations for ready-to-eat human food (AAFCO, 2021, 2022)
Fucking human food isn’t safe for human consumption any more.
With RFK in charge, I give it 3 months before all regulations on canned goods are rescinded, and one year before people start dying from botulism left right and center. And we’ll all put up with it, because it’s mainly the poors eating canned food anyway, and we don’t have the wherewithal to revolt
You complain about microplastics in our food.
I am happy about the extra synthetic fiber intake.
We are not the same.
Pate of cow and chicken buttholes? No thanks, I prefer Soylent Green, just add cheese in a can!
Lonely, social security, grandmas gettin in dat protein
Ordinary Sausage made a sausage out of cat food. Gave it 3.5/5; higher than quite a few made out of “regular” food. Make of that what you will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGCoOJSj7jk
Let’s sausage!
🎶 LeeEEeet’s SaaaAAAAUUUuusaAAgeeee 🎶
Ew thx
well he is clinically insane.
the one-two punch of the $40B lobster and the 300-step garbage can nachos cracked his mind.
What does $40B mean?
B for billion. i would use G but i think it could be mistaken for “grand”
I’m confused still I guess. He bought and ate a 40 billion dollar item?
he bought $30 worth of lobster tails and made a sausage, and he says multiple times in the video that he thinks it was too much money. but people kept requesting even stupider sausages so he just got more and more annoyed that he had spent the money, and over the years the running gag became that every time the lobster is mentioned the price goes up
Edit: also if you compare his tone in that video to one of his more recent ones you’ll understand what i meant about insanity (“three mark ruffalooooos!!!”)
Okay thanks for the explanation. 🤣
I can’t imagine it’s much worse than Vienna sausages in that form, and someone is eating enough of those to keep them on store shelves.
It was me when I was 6. I’m sorry everyone.
Anon will pee rocks soon.
That’s anons goal. Anon collects rocks.
Closest thing to a job they have too
I’m not fancy enough
Wet cat food is one of the worst things I’ve ever put in my mouth. Don’t do it. It isn’t worth it.
For one thing, cats can’t handle the level of salt in human diet. So to a human, cat food is very bland. This is also why one shouldn’t feed cat salty human food.
That’s just…wrong? Cats have incredible kidneys and they can drink salt water.
To save other readers a search
“Anything over one gram of salt per two pounds of body weight is cause for concern,” which means for a 5 lbs cat, it would take 2.5 grams of salt to cause concern. That is approximately 10 small orders of fries at McDonald’s, or two entire bags of salty ass chips
Of course they get sodium from their food so don’t feed them chips, but also yeah they can eat a ton of salt
Yeah, if I ate a gram of salt for every pound of my body weight, I’d be eating 1/3c of salt. That’s a lot of salt!
Dietary recommendation is 2.5-5g/day of table salt (I think that roughly correlates to sodium labels), and 1g/2lb would be about 20-40x that. Nuts!
Didja cook it?
No. That wouldn’t be repreaentative of what cats experience.
It’s already cooked in the can
Really? Figured it was raw.
…is the raw can cheaper?
It’s part of the process of canning. The cans must be heated to kill all bacteria inside, otherwise anaerobic bacteria can reproduce in the can and cause nasty diseases like botulism.
…
botulism has gotta drive the price down.
If you buy a dinged or damaged can, you can often get a discount on it if you ask. They may or may not be safe to eat, and it’s hard to tell until you open it.
Surely this is easily exploitable…
Eating rotten canned food is just the poor man’s Botox treatment
District 9
I once made chicken liver pate for my cats, as a treat. It was only chicken liver pan-fried in a bit of lard, with a bit of salt. My cats flat out refused, but it turned out delicious so I froze it into cubes for myself, and ate it across the span of two weeks.
I still prepare it often, albeit with a different recipe.
Hey my cat likes that one! Cheap, too
I bought one for my cats a while ago. I was opening a can of something else (I forget, spam maybe) with the same pull off lid and they full on sprint towards me meowing like I hadn’t just fed them an hour before.
Happens with cans of everything.
That’s cats for you.
No, it was definitely the spam.
They actually really don’t like spam lol.
More for me, then.
