Grem hates pate food, other options? Note: Australian

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Laura and Gremlin (GA)

Laura and Gremlin (GA)

Member Since 2015
So I've changed Gremlin's diet over to low carb wet food, he never liked the dry food as much anyway, but he always ate casserole or mince wet food. Most of the low carb stuff is pate and loaf which he promptly turns his nose up at and goes to sniff the dry food. So here I am following him around the place, shooing him away from the bad food. I even tried mixing the pate with water, no luck. I know there are a few brands/flavours that have a looser texture but I don't want to feed him the exact same one every day, also, I don't want to waste money buying new foods only to open it and it's pate. The ones I have I'm happy to mix together but I'd rather not buy pate at all and waste it as it's going off in his bowl. That's right, even the other three won't eat it! Well, my sensitive stomach girl tried it this morning and promptly vomited it all back up. Fussy cats!!!
 
We feed our cats a mix of the ff pate, and weruva foods- they are more chunky, and real food- they even look like real food- like humans could eat it. They are pricier than fancy feast- and cheap pates- but good quality- and the cats love them.. The Cats in The Kitchen and the Truluxe are the kinds we mainly use- lots of them are low carb. They do have fish in many of the flavours- but higher quality and up the food chain fish:)

This is an Australian link to buy them
http://www.petbarn.com.au/search/cats+in+the+kitchen/

each one is different in carbs- so you have to look at the food list to see which ones are below 10:) Most are low in phosphorus too:)

http://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm
 
Thank you! I did buy some Cats In The Kitchen from PetBarn the other day. He seemed to like the one I bought which was fish free (as he doesn't much like fish either). I'll make another trip to PetBarn and try a few more flavours.

I haven't seen the Truluxe.

I'll Google Tiki Cat and see if it's available here, thank you.

He loves the fresh mince but I save that for after his BGL tests as a treat. Does anyone know if the FF Prime Fillet of Chicken Grilled is okay? It's definitely under 10% carbs but like most of the FF classics it lists cereals in the ingredients. Grem absolutely loves it!
 
Laura and Gremlin said:
Thank you! I did buy some Cats In The Kitchen from PetBarn the other day. He seemed to like the one I bought which was fish free (as he doesn't much like fish either). I'll make another trip to PetBarn and try a few more flavours.

I haven't seen the Truluxe.

I'll Google Tiki Cat and see if it's available here, thank you.

He loves the fresh mince but I save that for after his BGL tests as a treat. Does anyone know if the FF Prime Fillet of Chicken Grilled is okay? It's definitely under 10% carbs but like most of the FF classics it lists cereals in the ingredients. Grem absolutely loves it!
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Also the plain weruva brand is good too- and they have lots of just chicken :)
 
Nope, Tiki Cat is not available in Australia and is stupidly expensive to buy online.

And it seems PetBarn only have Cats in the Kitchen, not plain Weruva or Truluxe.
 
Laura and Gremlin said:
Does anyone know if the FF Prime Fillet of Chicken Grilled is okay?
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I see it listed as 17% carbs, so it looks like it's off the list of low carb foods

Speaking of fussy cats....I've heard of a type of cat food called Fussy Cat's Mince....it looks like it might be a good option! I don't see any ingredients it shouldn't have and it looks like it's available in Australia

@Bron and Sheba and @Vyktors Mum both live in Australia...maybe they know of some other options that aren't pate's
 
I use the FF chicken fillet as Vyktor's HC, definitely a no go for regular food. It seems that it's only the FF classic pates that are LC. I think some of the Dine varieties may suit Gremlin, some are LC and casserole style. To save you buying the wrong ones I will make a note of which ones I think he might like when Vyktor lets me get out to the shops - I can't recall the names off the top of my head and I don't feed them to Vyktor anymore because I think he has a beef allergy and they all contain beef. Dine is pretty economical too and regularly on special.

You can't order in cat food from overseas without a permit (on each import) so forget that idea :( also only get the cats in the kitchen in the tins, the pouches are higher carb.

Bron feeds pretty much a raw diet which would probably be most ideal. I'm vegan so I can't stomach it but we're going to give it a try for Purrdy.
 
Chris & China said:
I see it listed as 17% carbs, so it looks like it's off the list of low carb foods
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Oh really?? Damn, I worked it out really wrong. Where did you find that information?

Oh no, what am I going to give him! Sorry, just having a meltdown. He really hates pate AND loaf. I really thought that one was okay. I was so very wrong.

Petbarn stocks Cats in the Kitchen and BFF, I'd have to ask about the others. I haven't tried Dine as there's no real list of what is okay and what is not. I thought I could work it out but apparently not! He will flat out refuse to eat if only pate or loaf is given to him.
 
Actually I do remember one type of Dine off the top of my head - turkey flavour with a purple label.

ETA - there's no listing on it but I know it's okay based on the ingredients and the BG results on eating

EATA - I think that @BJM has a recipe for slightly cooking pate foods into something more like dry food that Gremlin might like better too. Not sure what effect the cooking has on the nutrients.

:bighug::bighug::bighug: we will work it out
 
I rang the Fancy Feast people ages ago number 1800738238. Laura you could ring them and ask about the ones you are concerned about. I have phoned on 2 separate occasions and was given the same numbers.
From the gold classic range ...Prime filet of Chicken ..not sure if it is grilled ......has 3.8 carbs and is 70 calories per 100 grams.
The prime fillet of salmon grilled is 4 carbs so I would think the grilled chicken is ok but if I was you I would ring the number and check.
Have you checked out all of these: go down until you get to the australian food list. You should see many options there.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/food-links.133016/
 
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Yes in the foil container.

@Bron and Sheba - the FF people are full of it or they measure carbs in some weird way there has been ongoing problems getting accurate answers out of them since before Vyktor was first diagnosed. The prime chicken of filet is the grilled one and both that and the salmon are definitely not okay as LC. The numbers speak for themselves - I use the chicken as HC for Vyktor with the results you would expect. The salmon I hadn't tried before this week and since I keep hearing its fine I risked it and gave it to Vyktor for breakfast on 10/6 - as I said the numbers speak for themselves...
 
I have looked through so many food lists it's ridiculous. I have lists that I have scribbled myself with what he could eat. It needs to be fine turned though as most of it is pate. I'll attach a pic of the grilled stuff I mistakenly thought was okay.
PhotoGrid_1444443855180.jpg
 
Laura and Gremlin said:
FF Prime Fillet of Chicken Grilled
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I found it listed HERE at 17%

The fact that it contains "cereals and their by-products" is the big hint in the ingredients list...and it's listed as the 2nd ingredient...usually ingredients are listed in order.....the further down in the ingredient list something is listed, the less there is of it

You might check into the Fussy Cat too. The mince varieties look like they just contain meat...no cereals and she might like the texture better than the loaf
 
Vyktors Mum said:
Yes in the foil container.

@Bron and Sheba - the FF people are full of it or they measure carbs in some weird way there has been ongoing problems getting accurate answers out of them since before Vyktor was first diagnosed. The prime chicken of filet is the grilled one and both that and the salmon are definitely not okay as LC. The numbers speak for themselves - I use the chicken as HC for Vyktor with the results you would expect. The salmon I hadn't tried before this week and since I keep hearing its fine I risked it and gave it to Vyktor for breakfast on 10/6 - as I said the numbers speak for themselves...
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OK....I stand corrected.
Maybe we can't believe the FF people.....but I can't believe they would risk their reputation by telling lies.
I specifically said I had a diabetic cat and was concerned about the carbs and they didn't hesitate, even when I double checked. I wish there was some way we could check ourselves.
I don't use FF any more as I do raw, but it would be good to know.

Laura...did you try the Gourmet delight range?
Also there is a canned food which name escapes me it is in a flat rectangular can ....I am heading to WW now and will have a look at the name.
 
Bron is thinking of Ultimates in the flat rectangle containers - there's one with rice in it that may not be okay but the others are fine from a carb perspective - but they all contain fish. I think all the Gorumet Delights also contain fish.

If I had more time and energy for a fight I would report the FF people to the consumer complaints department. When Vyktor was first diagnosed you could ring three times and get three different answers. Now they seem to have developed a list so you get the same answer but it's the same wrong answer. I hate supporting them at all except that the chicken and giblets pate is the only thing that Vyktor will eat with any consistency these days :mad::mad::mad:

ETA: I doubt that they give the wrong answer on purpose, i.e. deliberately lie, but there is something very wrong with their calculations
 
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Bron and Sheba said:
Laura...did you try the Gourmet delight range?
Also there is a canned food which name escapes me it is in a flat rectangular can ....I am heading to WW now and will have a look at the name.
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Yep, he liked GD but threw it up and it's all fish so he won't eat much of it. He's not a huge fish fan. I've seen the Ultimates but didn't know what's okay. They have one with no fish and it doesn't list rice or cereals. I'm at WW now haha

Can someone look at the tin pic I posted before and tell me if I was right thinking it would be okay? I'm hoping it's the company and not my calculations that's wrong.
 
That Turkey Dine one with the purple label is a gravy one, thought gravy was a no no... This is why I am so confused! Also, Dine doesn't list moisture so I can't work out carbs.
 
I forget what it is but inulin is good for diabetics - I forgot about that ultimates as it's a newer one and Vyktor doesn't like the shredded chicken - well spotted

gravy is usually a no no because it's made from wheat - the dine 'gravy' isn't the same sort of gravy if you look at the ingredients on the container there is nothing there that is carby. I have also spoken to the company to make sure there are no hidden ingredients. They are aware of carb issues and do list cereals on every flavour that includes them. The ingredients listed are complete so it is fine. When you open it you'll see what I mean about the gravy not being gravy, it's more like jelly.
 
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that pic you posted - HC

ETA - you can't calculate carbs accurately from the information on our tins, they just don't give us enough information. Give up on specific calculations and just look at ingredients - LC is LC it doesn't matter whether it's 5% or 10%
 
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Just bought these. None of the Ultimates at my WW have rice in them. There is a plain chicken one with inulin. Hope the Dine ones are all okay.
I'm thinking I will slowly compile a list of Aussie low carb foods that are not pate or a dense loaf.

The FF Decadent Roast Chicken label is almost identical to the grilled one and I've seen the roasted one in a safe list. How does that work? Sounds to me like FF doesn't label at all accurately. Or they're telling people the wrong thing. I'm thinking I might not buy FF at all.
 
Laura and Gremlin said:
Just bought these. None of the Ultimates at my WW have rice in them. There is a plain chicken one with inulin. Hope the Dine ones are all okay.
I'm thinking I will slowly compile a list of Aussie low carb foods that are not pate or a dense loaf.
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As long as you didn't get any Dines with cereals listed they'll be fine from a carb perspective but some of them are pate style. Vyktor still hasn't let me out to shop yet :rolleyes: but I will note down the LC casserole type ones when I finally make it

Laura and Gremlin said:
Can you please tell me how you calculated that from the label?
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Sorry I was typing fast in my initial messages since you were right at the cat food shelf but have edited both with further info since - you can't calculate the carbs in FF from the label since it only talks in general terms about minimums and maximums. The carb count of the FF grilled chicken is calculated in some of the US lists but even then on at least one list I've seen - Dr Lisa's - she notes that they aren't as accurate as some of the others because FF refused to give out very specific info.
 
Laura and Gremlin said:
Top one is on the safe list, bottom one apparently has 17% carbs. I don't get it :arghh:View attachment 16869
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I know it sucks, again it's the minimum/maximum thing. I refused to buy any FF that listed cereals at all for the longest time, I would still prefer not to but now that Vyktor needs beef free LC our options are even more limited. But I do know from his numbers that the pate ones are ok - not that that helps you!
 
None of the Dine ones I bought have cereal listed. They look good, I'm thinking Grem will love them! Thank you so very much, I would greatly appreciate it!

Haha, yes, I noticed the earlier posts were edited. Thank you. From that information I'm thinking I will skip using FF all together. It's too risky and seems all the good ones are pate anyway. Even the ones on the safe list may not be safe so I'd rather skip them all. My civvies will be eating well for a while!
 
Yeah the roast chicken's no good either. There are a couple of non-pate ones that I think are ok, eg flaked chicken and tuna but if Grem likes the dine then I would just give the FF a big miss too. Horrible company!
 
When Vyktor was first diagnosed there were no Australian lists (probably a good thing given what has made it on to the lists!) so I had to work it all out for myself I wasn't happy with the answers I was getting from some of the companies - particularly FF! So I just went with what was listed in the ingredients and double checking with the companies that the foods didn't contain anything that wasn't listed. It meant that we did miss some LC options because they contained some quantity of a bad ingredient but if you buy a product that contains zero bad ingredients at least you can be sure it's LC :)
 
Thank you! I'll hopefully be able to come up with some kind of a list, I'll run it past other members and then maybe make it available for use by future users in Australia. If I can learn to understand the calculations better, I will contact some of the companies myself.

It's also good to note that (at least in my town) the supermarkets and Petbarn are the only decent stockists of wet food. Petstock and Pets Delight have absolutely nothing. My mum is going to look at Best Friends in her town and let me know.
 
Wellness is a definite no go... All four of my cats refused to eat dinner tonight as their food had a small amount of Wellness Pate in it. Massive waste, it's all going in the bin. Grem did seem to enjoy a small amount of the shredded chicken from the Ultimates that he picked out around the pate.
 
Sorry they didn't like the Wellness. I have never tried it with Sheba.
I used Ultimates with my cats years ago and they liked it then.

One I keep now and use occasionally is Weruva Fowl Ball....cats in the kitchen range. Sheba loves it, but as I feed her raw she only gets it occasionally. Some of the pouches in that range are good for medium carb food for when you need it.

I am going to ring the FF people again and ask for their information in writing, because when I spoke to them on two occasions they were adamant that the numbers they were giving me were correct. And I did feed Sheba that food for a while and it did not raise her blood sugar. But I had to stop it when she got early kidney disease because it is high in phosphorus. I wrote the Australian list of suitable foods so if some are not correct I want to find out.
If I am able to get a letter from them I will post it.
 
The one Cats in the Kitchen one I've fed Grem he seemed to like so I'll look at getting a few more of those later in the week.

I'm sorry Bron. I did not mean to say your list is incorrect, only that the two lists have very different amounts and so I just don't trust FF. They don't label correctly and seem to tell different people different things. It's not good enough on their behalf.
 
I am truely not worried that you said the list was incorrect Laura.
I am worried though that I might have been given incorrect information and posted it for people to follow.
I need to get to the bottom of it and if the list is incorrect..I need to correct it. I do know that some of our FF are not the same as the US ones, so we can't go on the US numbers.
As soon as I find out more I will post it. Personally I don't like FF but Sheba loved it and I know a lot of cats love it too.

Great Grem loved the dine.
 
Yay for Gremlin going for the Dine!

Vyktor finally let me out late this afternoon, you probably discovered all the ok Dine ones by yourself but in case you didn't the ones I would try Grem on are the turkey in 'gravy' (don't panic beans it's not really gravy, more like runny jelly there are no thickeners, flour etc.) in the purple container, chicken morsels in jelly in a green container, lamb cuts in 'gravy' also purple container and the beef morsels in jelly in the red container.

I also looked at the Whiskas range and the pouches - 1+ favourite mince - seem to be okay. There is nothing bad on the labels but they didn't exist when I was first looking for Vyktor so I haven't spoken with the company about them. It would be worth giving Whiskas a call before trying those just to make sure they didn't forget a nasty ingredient on the packaging.

I also had another idea. You can get dehydrated raw from Citybarn. It's called Feline Natural and there are a couple of flavours. You just add warm water and it's ready to go.

@Bron and Sheba if you can get something in writing out of them showing their calculations and on what basis the carbs are calculated (as fed/dry matter or something they've just made up themselves!) that would be great. It would give us something concrete to potentially give to consumer affairs (or whatever they're called these days). I am feeling a bit shamed for not having at least attempted to do something about it sooner because I do know what they tell people. I have some tins of the grilled ones here (for Vyktor's HC) I just checked and they are imported from the US so I doubt the recipe for those is any different than what the Americans get.
 
I fed him the beef morsels tonight and it was gone very quickly! I think it's on special now too so I'll be getting more.

I'll call Whiskas at some stage about the pouches. They usually get fed Whiskas so feeding those pouches would be no change to them.

There's no citybarn here but I'll look for the Feline Natural dehydrated raw.

All the FF tins I have here say imported by Nestle, NSW. A division of Nestle, South Africa. Product of U.S.A.
 
Hopefully I can get something in writing from the FF people. Seems you can't believe anyone these days. I don't think you can email them....I will look into that as well.
In the meantime, steer clear of them until we find out some information.
 
Does anyone know if the entire Wellness Range are a thick, heavy pate? I've only tried one from the Core range and Grem hated it, I just don't want to buy another tin if they're all that consistency.

Also, does anyone know if "Duos" and / or "BFF" are okay to feed our sugar babies?

Thanks!

Edit: according to this link that was posted earlier http://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm though American, the Wellness Core food isn't suitable anyway. The Duos are definitely no good but some of the BFF range are okay. Think I'll skip Wellness altogether and try some other ones. Now we have Dine I'm not in a huge rush :D
 
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