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Is your cat a fan of gourmet recipes? As cat health experts like to put it, the only way to a lifetime of companionship with your feline friend is feeding it on nutritious and tasty meals.
Whiskas branded filet mignon flavor in meaty juices wet formula is amongst the many formulas you can find today. According to the Whiskas brand company, this is a formula with natural sources of nutrition and a mignon flavor that will keep your cat coming back for more.
Is this formula a worthwhile investment? Find out below.
Ingredients in Whiskas
Water sufficient for processing, beef, meat by-products, chicken liver, poultry by-products, natural flavor, chicken, calcium carbonate, sodium tripolyphosphate, added color, potassium chloride, dried yam, carrageenan, dl-methionine, xanthan gum, salt, erythorbic acid, Choline chloride, l-cysteine, taurine, guar gum, zinc sulfate, vitamin e supplement, thiamine Mononitrate (vitamin b1), natural filet mignon flavor, ferrous sulfate, sodium nitrite (for color retention), copper sulfate, manganese sulfate, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin b6), folic acid, vitamin d3 supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin k activity).
A Closer Look At The First Five Ingredients
Water
As you might expect, water is mostly added for moisture and cooking purposes. It does not add any nutritional value to the food.
Beef
Beef is considered to be a higher quality ingredient. It is an excellent source of animal protein and contains many other nutrients that are very important for a cat to survive and thrive. Since this is not in “meal” form, that means this ingredient still contains all of its moisture content prior to cooking. Once fully cooked, most of this ingredient will have evaporated due to its high moisture content. That means, even when this ingredient is ranked highly, it will usually only provide a small percentage of the overall protein in the food. There is no dismissing this ingredient, though. It is high quality and we are pleased to see it listed.
Meat by-products
This is about the lowest quality meat product that can be included in any cat food. We are very disappointed to see this ingredient listed. Meat By-Products are parts of slaughtered animals including the lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, partially defatted low-temperature fatty tissue, and stomach and intestines freed of their contents. In addition, meat by-products can also legally contain animals that were dead, dying, or diseased before slaughtering. Many times, animals with tumors are ground and processed, meaning, ground up cancerous tumors could legally be included in your pets food. While unlikely, it can even legally include road kill. Perhaps worst of all, this ingredient COULD include meat from euthanized cats, dogs, horses, or other animals. Meat by-product is an unnamed meat source and you never know for sure where it is coming from or what animals are being used. Also note that meat by-products are not approved for human consumption. It consists of unwanted parts only acceptable in the pet food or feed industries. This is one of the most controversial meat ingredients that could be included and there is much to be concerned about when purchasing any pet food that includes meat by-products.
Chicken liver
Here is another ingredient you probably wouldn’t want to see on your own dinner plate, but most cats seem to enjoy the taste of liver. Uncooked liver, or liver in very high quantities, can actually be toxic to cats. However, in this food, it is clearly provided well within safe limits. In fact, this ingredient is a pretty high quality ingredient overall. It provides a good source of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and other nutrients your cat can benefit from.
Poultry by-products
This ingredient is made from grinding clean, rendered parts of poultry carcasses and can contain bones, offal and undeveloped eggs, but only contains feathers that are unavoidable in the processing of the poultry parts. The quality and composition can change from one batch to another. For the most part, this ingredient contains the “non-meat” poultry products like feet, beaks, and bones. While you probably wouldn’t want to eat poultry by-products on your own dinner plate, cats tend to love this stuff. This ingredient does provide a high amount of protein, but we are unable to tell exactly what parts of the animal they are using and that is a bit troublesome.
Other ingredients to take note of
Chicken
Chicken is a very popular ingredient for pet food and in this case, they are referring to whole chicken. This is a very high quality meat source and we are pleased to see it listed. However, whole chicken loses about 80% of its content during the cooking process since the majority of whole chicken is water. After the cooking process is complete, the amount of whole chicken remaining is substantially reduced. Therefor, while whole chicken is a great source of meat protein, this ingredient alone is not enough to provide sufficient levels of meat protein in a cats diet.
Added color
There is absolutely no reason to included added color into any cat food, ever. It’s extremely disappointing to see this ultra-low quality ingredient included. Added color is used for marketing purposes only. They want their product to stand out sitting on the shelf at the store, so they add coloring to their product. Essentially, the coloring is added to entice YOU (the human) to purchase the food over other brands. Your cat could care less what color the food is. Unfortunately, added color is quite controversial as there is growing evidence suggesting cancer in cats from too much food color exposure. At worse, this is a harmful ingredient and at best, it is a marketing ploy with no nutritional value or positive benefit to your cat. We usually have a tough time recommending any cat food that includes such a controversial ingredient.
Salt
Salt is necessary for a cats body to function properly, but too much salt can be dangerous and even deadly. Usually, salt is added to pet food in order to meet AAFCO nutritional requirements. Salt, or sodium chloride, is indeed necessary so cat food that doesn’t contain enough will have a bit of it included. Salt helps your cats cells move nutrients and waste products where they need to go, and it helps his or her tummy make the right amount of acid to digest food properly. According to the Journal of Nutrition, average-sized cats need about 21 milligrams of salt per day. Many cat foods have higher concentrations than that. The National Research Council recommends no more than 42 milligrams per day. Most of the time, salt in commercial cat food products poses no danger and does have some nutritional benefit.
Natural filet mignon flavor
We must admit, it was a bit surprising to see this on the ingredients list as it is purely a marketing ploy. The first thing to understand is that natural flavors are listed on the label because they have been added to the food. That is, it’s not natural to whatever food product your cat is consuming. Despite the natural origins of natural flavors like this one, cat food companies are not required to disclose the chemicals used to create the flavor. In fact, a flavor could be the result of blending hundreds of unique chemicals. As a cat owner, you may want to know what chemicals are included in your cats diet. If you are interested in getting the facts, you may be able to contact the manufacture directly. Perhaps they can specify exactly what goes into creating this “natural flavor”. We do find this unique label to be very creative, however.
Is this an allergy causing formula?
Judging from the ingredients, this formula is unlikely to cause allergies in cats. It contains no allergens making it ideal for all cats.
Ingredients that can bring harm to your cat
Gluten – This ingredient is associated with causing allergies in cats. It is also known to raise sugar levels in cats. Over time, this can lead to diabetes. Gluten refers to the proteins found in wheat endosperm which is a type of tissue produced in seeds that’s ground to make flour. Many pet food manufactures will use this ingredient to help boost the protein percentage of the food.
Soy – Soy is another common food allergen for cats and is also known to cause gastric upset. This ingredient is considered a very low priced filler ingredient. While it will certainly help make your cat food more full, the full nutritional benefit in this ingredient is questionable at best. Many cat food brands will tell you the allergy risk is very low with soy, but it is one of the most well known food allergens that cats deal with in commercial pet food. Overall, this is a pretty low quality ingredient.
Wheat and corn – Both of these ingredients are grains and unfortunately, they have links to food allergies in cats. While most cats will not form allergic reactions to these ingredients, cats with pre-existing food allergies should avoid both wheat and corn based products. In addition, wheat and corn can be very difficult for some cats to digest. Since cats are obligate carnivores, their digestive systems are designed to process meats and not grains. These ingredients boost the protein percentage of the food, but cats do not get the same nutritional benefit from plant proteins as meat proteins. Cats require meat protein to live a healthy life. Both of these ingredients are most commonly found in lower priced cat foods and include the grains as a way to help make your cat feel more full without actually adding more expensive and nutritional ingredients to the food. In smaller quantities, these ingredients shouldn’t pose any issues, but wheat and corn aren’t considered to be high quality ingredients by any means.
Artificial coloring – We find it quite irresponsible to include artificial coloring in pet food since the health concerns about these added colors are so controversial. Your cat does not care what color their food is and the only reason artificial coloring is added to this product is for marketing purposes. It makes the food look better to you YOU, the human consumer. Of course, many cat food brands are very defensive about their use of food coloring. Here is an example of how the Purina brand defends their use of fool coloring. Notice how even in their explanation, there is no perceived benefit to these ingredients other than changing the color. There is also a growing amount of evidence to suggest food coloring may be linked to cancer in not just dogs and cats, but also humans. Here is an article that explains a bit further. In short, since there is some controversy surrounding this ingredient, we find it a bit strange that cat food companies would spend money adding this ingredient into a product when at best, it has zero nutritional value for your cat and only has marketing value. At worse, it could pose health risks. It just doesn’t seem like the risk of including this ingredient is worth it.
Conclusion
The filet mignon flavor in meaty juices is an average formula. It contains no allergen and is rich in quality protein nutrition. However, the presence of added color is a minus for this formula and the use of water instead of meat based broth is also a disadvantage. It also contains other fillers that are not really beneficial to your cat.
