Pet Food Rip-Off

For the cat lovers who read this column, have you ever calculated how much you are paying for prepared cat food? If you buy the new deluxe Fancy Feast in the three ounce cans, 'Wal-Mart' priced at $0.82/can, that comes to $4.37/lb. Regular Fancy Feast if bought at Wal-Mart will set you back a modest $2.87/lb. That is $0.54 for a 3 ounce can.

There are cheaper cat foods out there. Special Kitty is the house brand of cat food at Wal-Mart. Special Kitty Gourmet comes in 3-ounce cans that cost $0.42 per can. The cost for this cheaper cat food comes to $2.24 per pound. To put it in perspective, whole chickens cost me, if I buy them on sale, about $0.99 per pound. The Thanksgiving turkey that sat on our table for Thanksgiving cost $0.69 per pound. That turkey would have been $0.49 per pound if I had made it to the store a day earlier. If you buy the premium brands of turkeys, they do sell for more and cost upwards of $0.89 per pound or more.

Reading the ingredients list of pet food is like a who's who in the meat by products business. This list is from a Special Kitty Gourmet Select Ocean Whitefish and Tuna Entre. To their credit, Ocean Whitefish is the #1 ingredient, but it goes downhill from there. In order after the #1 ingredient is Liver (not specified from what), fish (again not specified), Meat by-Products (What's that anyway), fish broth (water?), tuna (finally), titanium dioxide (what is that for?), Guar Gum (for that full feeling), and vitamins. The rest of the stuff is just chemicals, and a lot of them. The point of course is to point out, that for what the cat food industry is charging for their products, they could just use the real thing. They do not need to use questionable meats and by-products. There is no telling where those meat by-products come from. It could be anything from the orts of meat packers to the remains of euthanized cats and dogs (somebody uses them). The vitamins I understand, but not all of the other chemicals. What is their purpose?

I did not write this to try and discourage your use of prepared cat food, but rather to get you to think about how much better and cheaper that your cat could be eating if you would just buy whole meats for food. Beef is a little more expensive, for instance at Sam's Wholesale, I buy boneless Chuck Roast for $1.99 per pound. It is cheaper than the Fancy Feast regular 3-ounce cans and a lot cheaper than their premium stuff. You can also be confident that your cat is not getting a lot of questionable chemicals and the dreaded meat by-products. Personally, I am still waiting for "Mouse" and "Bird" as a variety of cat food. That is what my outside cat eats a lot of, and really likes them. :-)One more thing, I am not advocating feeding raw meats to your cat. When choosing the better ingredients, you will still have to prepare the food before feeding it to your cat.

You can find websites that give instruction in the preparation of pet foods. My belly-ache with the prepared cat foods is the quality vs. price aspect. If you are happy paying a big price for less quality, then prepared cat food is the way to go.

No Dogs in this Report: Since I do not own a dog, I cannot vouch for either the price or contents of dog food. I rather suspect it is much the same though since it is all the same industry. Pet food in general is overpriced and they get away with it because they know how you feel about your pet. Most of the pet food that I have read the labels for is just crap or some version of crap for which you are paying a high price.

Cheers,

-Robert-