Evo vs Instinct

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Covert Ops

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I am currently feeding my civie's the Evo low carb/High protein hard food atm because I cannot afford to feed them wet right now. I no it's not good for them but it's a lesser of evils (evo, lol) so bare with me.

The only issue i have with the Evo right now is it is over 600 calories per cup. They do offer a "low calorie" version which has around 500 calories per cup but the carbs will obviously be increased. One alternative I found was the Natures Variety "Instinct" which is also low carb/high protein and again around 500 calories per cup. Another bonus is it is $0.50/pnd cheaper.

Should I make the switch to Instinct or stick with evo because they are used to it? My only concern with Nature's variety is I heard the kibble size is larger, not sure if that will pose a problem but I think I read they bind with tapioca instead of potatoes which is a plus in my book. Also the "bio coating" concept sounds good in theory.

Here are the binky numbers for all three:

Protein /Fat /Carbs /Fiber (g) /Phosph (mg) /Calories per cup

Innova EVO Cat & Kitten Diet: 49 /38 /13 /? /? /481
Innova EVO Cat & Kitten: 44 /47 /8 /0.2 /396 /612
Nature's Variety Raw Instinct: 45 /49 /7 /0.7 /418 /491
 
Sorry, but I wanted to bump this because I need to place an order tonight. Do I go with the Evo Light food or try Instinct? Please, any input would be appreciated (I understand hard food is not optimal)
 
Have you tried the Instinct yet?

I've tried all of the grain free foods and my cats really prefer the Evo. I keep going back to it because it is their favorite.

That said, we don't have any real weight problems to deal with here and they don't eat that much of it so I'm not concerned with the calorie count.
 
You are right. The Instinct kibble is bigger chunks than the EVO. Do you have Wellness CORE available to you? If I remember correctly it is lower cal than EVO is. It is also a small kibble, like the EVO so if that is your big consideration you might want to check it out.

Around here (Chicago) CORE is also easier to find than Instinct is.
 
Susie and Moochie said:
You are right. The Instinct kibble is bigger chunks than the EVO. Do you have Wellness CORE available to you? If I remember correctly it is lower cal than EVO is. It is also a small kibble, like the EVO so if that is your big consideration you might want to check it out.

Around here (Chicago) CORE is also easier to find than Instinct is.
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I have never tried Instinct, so I don't know if the kibble size is an issue or not. How much bigger is it? Sometimes I think my cats don't even chew evo so maybe a bigger kibble could be good.

My main concern is calories and according to binky's chart wellness is higher in carbs but for some reason there is no listing for calories. Any know an actual calories/per cup for core? I also don't like that core has potatoes in it.
 
I'd double check the ingredients list on anything you are considering. Look for actual meat rather than meal as the primary ingredients. From my quick check EVO had
Turkey, Chicken Meal, Chicken, Herring Meal, Chicken Fat, Egg, Turkey Meal,
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 and Instinct has
Peas, Chicken Meal, Chicken, Pea Protein, Chicken Fat
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That said it pretty much depends on what your kitties will eat. Can you get some samples?
 
I haven't bought it in a while but the pieces used to be quite a bit bigger - maybe 3-4 time but they are flat so it's not horrible. Moochie didn't like the Instinct much so I didn't use it for long.

Regarding the Wellness, I honestly thought that it was slightly lower carb and calorie than the EVO but again, it's been a while since Moochie ate it. She can't have the grain free foods because of her pancreatitis. They are all pretty high fat so she doesn't eat them anymore.

Now for the potato issue I'm not knowledgeable enough on the the different sources of carbohydrates to know how potato stacks up next to the veggies used by Innova.
 
Evo has peas as well, but from what I read chicken meal is better than chicken.

http://searchwarp.com/swa5545.htm

Chicken meal is simply chicken that has been baked to remove bacteria and other toxins. Chicken is simply pure chicken.

What people don't know about chicken, is that it is made mostly of water. If a label on a bag of dog food says %60 whole chicken, that is quite misleading as that does not take into account how much of that %60 of chicken is left after baking it to remove unwanted substances!

When the label on the bag says %60 of chicken meal, your getting more of the chicken because the product has already been baked to remove unwanted affects such as bacteria.

Explanation:

Converting dry matter basis This can be the hard part. All pet foods have different levels of moisture. Canned foods can have up to 80% moisture whereas, some dry foods can have as little as 6%. This is important for 2 reasons. The first is that the food is priced by the pound, and when you buy dog food that is 80% water you get 20% food and the rest is water. So the amount of food your pet consumes is small and expensive. The other reason for understanding percent moisture is to help you compare crude protein and fat between brands and between canned and dry. The listings on the label are for the food as it is, not as it would be on a dry matter basis. So without converting both brands of food to a dry matter basis you will not be able to compare them accurately. Fortunately, the conversion is not that complicated.

If a dry dog food has 10% moisture we know that it has 90% dry matter. So we look at the label and check the protein level that reads 20%. Next, we divide the 20 percent protein by the 90% dry matter and we get 22%, which is the amount of protein on a dry matter basis. Does this make sense so far? Good. Now let us compare this to canned food that has 80% moisture. We know that with 80% moisture we have 20% dry matter. The label shows 5% protein. So we take the 5% and divide it by 20% and we get 25% protein on a dry matter basis. So the canned food has more protein per pound on a dry matter basis after all the water is taken out. We can do the same for fat, fiber, etc.
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If I leave Evo and Core kibble out, the Evo always disappears first. Allegedly Evo is 8% carbs and Core is 11%.
 
One of the main feline nutrition links referred to here is the website of Dr. Lisa Pierson DVM. Here's the link: http://catinfo.org/

This is what I was referring to:
Look for a muscle meat (preferably, not an organ meat like liver) as the first ingredient.  A muscle meat will be listed as “chicken,” or “turkey,” etc.  not  “chicken by-products” or “chicken by-product meal,” or  “chicken broth” or "liver".   “Chicken meal” is technically a muscle meat but the term “meal” denotes that it has been rendered (cooked for a long time at very high temperatures) and may be lower in quality than meat that has not been as heavily processed.  A "meal" product is more commonly found in dry foods.  By-products can include feet, intestines, feathers, egg shells, etc. and can be less nutritious than meat.  See here for more on by-products.
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I know that you are not ready to switch to canned, but her articles are well worth reading.
 
Just an FYI - I would be much more inclined to get my information from Dr Lisa's website than from "searchwarp.com". I have no idea where that info comes from vs. Lisa Pierson, DVM.

I am not arguing whether or not the chicken listed in the food is really chicken but rather questioning whether or not taking nutritional information from an unknown, unprovable source as gospel is a good idea.
 
Susie and Moochie said:
Just an FYI - I would be much more inclined to get my information from Dr Lisa's website than from "searchwarp.com". I have no idea where that info comes from vs. Lisa Pierson, DVM.

I am not arguing whether or not the chicken listed in the food is really chicken but rather questioning whether or not taking nutritional information from an unknown, unprovable source as gospel is a good idea.
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I agree, Dr. Piersons nutritional information is golden, and by far some of the best around. Basically I was just looking to debate a "lesser of two evils". I eneded up going with the Instinct since it has fewer calories and still under 10% carbs.

I am giving the civies' soft food in the mornings now so I will eventually get them on soft food. I just have limited funds and my diabetic gets the evo 95% chicken canned and it's not cheap plus all the recent vet bills. Side note, we discovered a lump on lydida that I need to now take care of.
 
So sorry to hear about Lydia's new problem. Hopefully it's benign.

Have you considered making raw yourself? It looks like it would actually be a little cheaper than canned. If you can buy in bulk the price comes down considerably.

We have an old hand cranked food grinder that I hope will work. A local feed store will soon be carrying some and I'm waiting to try that to see if Tess will eat it, before I try to set up production.
 
I have Wellness Core out for my other cats. It may be higher calorie than what we were feeding before (Purina ONE hairball) but it seems to last forever. They don't eat nearly as much as they did of the other.

Also, PetSmart has a sale going on right now on Friskies canned. 40 cents a can, I think. You could feed 1/2 dry, 1/2 friskies to save $$.... just a thought.
 
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