Fancy Feast food option?

[MBFayFoster]

I am 100% new to treating my diabetic cat and confused by the myriad of food options. My vet recommended Hill's W/D, but frankly, it's quite a bit more costly than the dry Purina One we've always used! I've read a lot about Fancy Feast Classics canned foods being a good economic option. Will they really work as well as the prescription food my vet is recommending?

 

[racn1320]

yes fancy feast classics and friskies pates,except watch for bones in friskies.

 

[Kris & Teasel]

Many of us feed the Fancy Feast and/or Friskies pate version canned foods. They're pretty much all under 10% carbs.

 

[Chris & China (GA)]

Will they really work as well as the prescription food my vet is recommending?

They'll actually work better! There's absolutely nothing in those "prescription" foods that's special (other than the price) and if you look at the ingredients, they're garbage. They're no better (and sometimes worse) than foods you can get at your local grocery store.

The Fancy Feast pates are under 10% carbs and as long as there's no kidney disease, perfect for a sugarcat.

W/D is 25% carbs....way too high for a diabetic cat

 

[JeffJ]

Fancy Feast Classics fill our cat food cupboard. The cats like the varieties. And the high protein, low carb combo is great for diabetic cats.

 

[JanetNJ]

W/d is way too high in carbs. Do you mean m/d? W/dose 25%, m/d is 14%. Either way both are too high. Your best route is wet food. Most of us feed fancy feast classic or Friskies pate foods. In addition I feed a dry food called Young Again Zero which is available on Youngagainpetfood.com

 

[DavesMom]

Agreed, everyone on here taught me that the wet food (Fancy Feast Classics and Friskies Pates) are better because they are even lower in carbs than the prescription food. Lots of vets prescribe the prescription food because they get a stipend for it. Check out this food chart for the best foods that are under 10% carbs http://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf

 

[Sieden]

Also 9-lives pate is an option, it's cheaper than friskies but honestly it doesn't look that much different when I open the can and the ingredients are almost the same.

 

[Badtux]

My cat is sort of meh on the Fancy Feast Classics, but I manage to get him to eat it by mixing it with the Iams Salmon Recipe Pate. Not all of the Fancy Feast Classics are good for our diabetic cats. The thing to do is look on the side to see what kind of binder / geller that the cat food uses. If it says "wheat gluten" or "corn starch" or something like that, avoid. If it says "guar gum", it's okay. The thing about the Fancy Feast is that it's higher in protein than the Iams (as well as being significantly cheaper!), thus why I'm trying to transition Tux to that. Do note that these cat foods do have liver, which has some carbohydrate, so they're not "carbohydrate free". They're still significantly lower in carbohydrates than all but one dry food.