Fancy Feasting

I'm a guilty everything. I'm a guilty meat eater, for example. I feel bad about the space I require on the planet, my footprint, my greedy consumption of air. So it doesn't take much for me to feel even worse about something. Just look at me askance, and I'll head down the shame spiral with no further urging.

I feed my cats Fancy Feast. It's a long story, and basically has to do with keeping Louise (the diabetic cat) happy and eating, so I can give her insulin. And how the others want what she gets, and anyway, it's a slippery slope to the place where everyone has a sub-par diet.

There are more of them than I planned on. That's fine, but it reduces the total amount of money I can pour on the being-a-good cat-mom problem. Louise's latest lymphoma diagnosis cost $1800 and no doubt I'm exacerbating the condition with the Fancy Feast. Yesterday I was purchasing 48 of the annoyingly small cans when the manager of the pet-food store looked at me askance.

"How many cats do you have?"

"Well, four. This isn't my first choice, I certainly wouldn't have chosen anything that came in these little tiny cans...but..."

I trailed off, mumbling about diabetes and how there are more cats than I'd planned on. She pointedly told me that her cat was borderline-diabetic and was simply thriving on the Weruva brand, and how she'd go get me a couple of cans to transition with. And she did. Her disdain for my caregiving was palpable. So I paid for my stash (which won't last a single week) and her recommended cans and left.

Now I'm staring at these two cans and I'm feeling resentful. I didn't realize it at the time but I've looked at this food before for the cats, and it's substantially more expensive than the FF, despite their teensy vessels. Which is saying something. Yes, it's ALL NATURAL, and boasts the warning on the label that your cat's lives may very well be increased to TEN. Ha ha. But a quick google (I'm just kidding - there's no such thing) will reveal that every cat food is sub-par, unless you want to feed them a raw diet of mice and birds, or put your own raw diet together at home. Almost every food on the market is actively detrimental to the health of the cat, and any points I gain for AT LEAST feeding wet instead of dry (aka, the devil incarnate), are lost since I also provide a dry kibble, to help stretch the billion cans I have to buy each week. Which, though I recycle, makes me feel bad for the earth.

I feel like I should say this: I HAVE tried the other foods. Wellness, Evo, Before Grains, none of them passed Louise's sniff test.

Here's what this morning's research has brought me"

• Fishy foods are worse for them than muscle meats.
• Muscle meats should be higher in proportion to organ meats.
• By-products are bad.
• Canned is always preferable to dry, because of the relative water consumption.
• Grain free is best, since cats are obligate carnivores.
• All the fruits and veggies they show you on the label are healthy for people, not cats. Cats don't give a crap about the anti-oxidants blueberries provide to their owners.
• The nutritional information is wholly inadequate - you need to call the company and ask for the numbers "as fed." They are completely different, and only with them can you do the proper math to see how much you suck.
  
• The forums discuss "Biologically Appropriate Raw-Food" Diet, which is shortened (and I'm not making this up) to BARF. You really need to be feeding your cat a BARF diet.

Jenny (and Louise, Ozzie, Mr. Rochester and Yard Kitty.)