Pet Food

Are you ever astounded at what kind of garbage they throw in a bag and call premium pet food? And charge premium price for? For some reason I just can't get over it. I think all of my friends and family have heard this gripe before so I thought I would share it with you.

I recently started taking in foster cats from the shelter and they send home Science Diet to get you started. If you're familiar with pet foods, Science Diet has long been touted as veterinarian recommended and all that jazz. Well if you check the ingredients, the first two are by products (chicken beaks, feet, etc. that can't be fed to humans) and corn. Last I heard cats were carnivores and they didn't eat junk like that. Now for pricing.

Science Diet - 4 lbs for $12.49

A cheaper alternative?

Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul - 6 lbs for $10.95!

Now, Chicken Soup isn't the cream of the crop. You may be able to find a higher quality food depending who you ask. It IS free of by-products and corn and the first two ingredients are chicken and chicken meal. How cool is that? To re-cap -

Science Diet - $3.12/lb mostly by-products and corn
Chicken Soup - $1.83/lb no by-products or corn

To throw another brand into the mix, we can look at Nutro Natural Choice. This is what my cat currently eats. However, they recently "improved" the formula and now the first two ingredients are chicken meal and corn. I honestly can't remember the old formula but I doubt I would have bought it in the first place if corn was the second ingredient. And pricing? 7 lbs for $21.99!!

Nutro Natural - $3.14/lb with lots of corn, but no by-products

These are pet store prices on Science Diet and Nutro and I know you could find them cheaper if you buy them at a feed store, as I did with the Chicken Soup. But Chicken Soup will still be cheapear (and still be a higher quality food for your beloved cat). Needless to say, I'm switching my cat to Chicken Soup as we speak.

I've yet to do a compare on dog food regarding pricing. I know which brand I'll be getting for her next, though. And again I suspect it will be cheaper than what I'm currently buying.

One of the interesting theories I've read is that quality pet food companies get bought out and the new owners tend to switch to crappy ingredients and raise the prices. This is a double whammy and I believe this was the case with both Science Diet and Nutro. Hopefully it doesn't happen to Chicken Soup.

If you can't find Chicken Soup in your area (tends not to be sold by the big box stores), use their store locator or check out another option like Blue Buffalo. Blue Buffalo is still cheaper than Nutro Natural and is also free of by products and corn.

No affiliation with either of the brands I recommended. I just hate to buy expensive crap if I can spend the same amount of money for a higher quality item, you know?