You are what you eat

I fretted a lot about cat food at first so I thought it might be useful to show what's in my food cupboard currently. With Mali I always just bought what she liked, as with senior cats the main thing is ensuring that they DO eat. With Opal and Mica though, I wanted to avoid the usual supermarket brands. Knowing that the majority is owed by confectionery corporations is generally enough to know it's not the best cat food available.

A common misconception with cat food is when the label says it contains 4% meat. What this means is that it it contains at least 4% of the meat advertised, so it's 4% chicken, beef or lamb for example. The rest will be made up of other meats, but it may also contain unnecessary fillers like grains. I'm no expert, so when I'm choosing a new cat food, I check the ingredients and avoid any that have sugar listed. There is no reason whatsoever for cat food to include sugar. It's just going to wreck their teeth and lead to weight gain.

When Opal and Mica first arrived I had no clue what food to buy. Normally you'd be advised to buy the same food they were eating previously and then slowly wean them on to your preferred food if you wanted to make a change. Given I couldn't get the same food they have in Romania, I bought a selection of different brands to ensure they'd eat including Felix, one of the cheapest brands you can buy.

Oh my, that Felix was a mistake. We used to give Mali some as a treat, as it was the only brand that did ham flavour and my dear old girl was obsessed with ham. Sadly for the kittens, whilst they enjoyed it at the time, they got very upset tummies and cleaning their litter trays was very unpleasant for some time afterwards. So, we quickly moved on to the better quality cat foods, the majority of which you can buy from Zooplus. Being food obsessed they took to them straight away without a transition period.

Here's the current selection we have which includes all the foods I'd consider to be firm favourites. I'll start with the brands you can easily get in the UK first! 

Blink

Blink is available in Sainsburys, Waitrose and Pets at Home. We have a monthly subscription which comes via Evri in a super cute box. I always keep the boxes as they are rather amazing in that they are the only boxes that survive being ripped apart by the cats. Currently, I keep our automatic food dispenser in the empty box to try and stop Mica forcing it open and it does a pretty good job. But I'm getting distracted! It's a shredded sort of meat and the majority of flavours are chicken based in jelly but you can get some gravy flavours now. I find this is the food my cat sitters usually go for, as a pouch is a lot easier and quicker to use although sadly not great for the environment. 

Nood

This is the latest brand I've discovered, which you can get from Tesco. They do both a poultry flavoured box and a fish flavoured box which consists of very tiny chunks in jelly. This stuff gets hoovered up by my cats and they've not yet turned their noses up at it. I'm not sure they really need the fruit and veggie ingredients in it, but it's clearly very tasty and probably adds some fibre content.

Grau

Grau is one of those brands I regularly see recommended. It's a German brand and the most expensive one I buy. I split a 200g tin between the cats so a 6 tin case does 12 meals. I recently got sent tons of Grau when I only ordered the one case and Zooplus kindly let me keep the extras, so if you've struggled to buy Grau recently that's probably because it was all sent to me! Like all the tinned food I buy, it's a pate style cat food but Grau is particularly dense with a fair amount of jelly. I don't use Grau in a rush as it takes ages to mush up and I always think the fork is going to break. I've taken a particularly poor photo of the inside of a can as Mica is always after me like a shark at meal times. I just wish they did more flavours as I like to give them as much variety as possible.

Feringa

A bit cheaper than Grau, I always think Feringa sounds quite nice with fancy flavours such as Rabbit with Parsnips & Catnip and Lamb with Potatoes & Cat Thyme. It's another German brand, but not quite the same quality as Grau and the cheaper price reflects that. I occasionally find a hard black substance in the tin. I've not been able to identify what this is yet so I always remove it, although I'm sure it's probably just an odd looking bit of offal. Otherwise it's easy to dish up and the cats like all the flavours in a mixed pack.

Smilla

I always buy Smilla as it's the best value good quality food you can buy. There is always a few fatty bits in it but the cats are more than happy to eat it. It's another food from (you guessed it) Germany. Compared to the other brands, it has more offal in it than muscle meat, but it's a great option if you're on a budget.

Bozita

This is a Swedish brand that comes in a Tetrapack. I buy the 190g packs and split it between them like I do with the cans. Due to the packaging, these are more environmentally friendly than a pouch provided you have recycling options nearby. I don't sadly! I usually buy the packs for healthy hair and skin and the sensitive stomach one. I made the mistake of buying the indoor one recently and Opal hates it. Normally it's one of their favourites to the point where if Mica is going to be sick from scoffing his dinner too fast, it's because it's his beloved Bozzy-Moz as J calls it. I prefer to sing about Casa Bozita like Cartman from South Park sings about Casa Bonita.

Catessty

This is probably the all round favourite. There are three of each flavour in a box which is a bit of a pain with two cats as I have to mush two flavours together in my pathetic attempts to be fair. This is big ol' chunks of meat in jelly and the cats go mad for it the moment I pull it out of the cupboard. It's yet another German brand that is often hard to get so clearly well loved by other cats too. As well as equal flavours, I would find it easier if the flavours were listed on the pouches as I don't often look at the box, and some of the colours are very similar to each other so I can't always identify them that way.

Animonda Rafiné

Animonda is yet another German brand (what can I say, they do good cat food) that does a wide range of cat food. This is the one the cats always enjoy and it's usually in stock too. It comes in rather tasty sounding jellies like tomato, carrot and egg. Tomato is considered the best one in this house. They also do a gravy version but mine are jelly fiends so I've never bought it. I'd also recommend Animonda Carny, which is a pate in a tin (just be aware that you do often find tubey bits of offal inside)! They even do exotic meat pouches like ostrich and kangaroo but bizarrely Mica couldn't stand the stuff. Opal, who is normally the fussy one, had to valiantly finish them off.

Acana

I've not taken a photo as there was no room for it after Mica plonked himself down, but I buy Acana brand biscuits, normally the indoor one as the cheapest on offer (and, I hope, the one most likely to help the cats maintain their weight). It's one of the best dry food brands you can buy along with Orijen and given so many people disapprove of dry food, I think a good compromise is buying the best you can afford. I mainly feed wet food, but I like the cats to have a bit of dry to graze on between meals. I buy a 1.8kg bag a month and give the cats a quarter of a cup each a day. That's just £10 each a month which isn't too bad. You can buy it from Jurassic Bark:

https://www.jurassicbark-online.co.uk/collections/acana-cat-food-dry

I'd always recommend getting your cats used to as many different foods as possible as it's not fun having to force a new food on them when you can't get their regular food. Other wet foods I recommend if your budget allows are Wild Freedom, MAC'S and Catz Fine Foods.