Healthiest/cheapest canned food for cats?

[Aerobe]

I buy Merrick dry for my cats and do wet as a treat.
Their wet food comes in some pretty awesome flavors. (Seriously just reading them will make you say woah. They have Thanksgiving Dinner.)
Their wet is $1.60/1.70 at Petco for a 5.5oz can. Which is a massive can. They also have a 3oz can which is like $1.30 I think.

It is a bit pricey but if you get the larger can you save since you may only need to feed 1 can a day depending on your cats weight. My girls only need 1 can each I just divide it into 2 meals.
Buy online and do repeat delivery and the price drops even more. A case of 24 5.5oz cans is $34.47 = $1.43 a can.

[Malted Shark]

Definitely agree to avoid Hill's, and please do not feed Purina. I blame my family's lack of knowledge when they were younger and Purina for my cats now having Diabetes and IBS. Wrong food choices can have horrible consequences in the long-run.

As for brands I'd suggest, anything low carb, high protein is great. I like Merrick and Weruva quite a bit. As well as Tiki Cat, but I haven't looked much in to their exact ingredient list so someone else can chime in on if that's a'okay or not. Fancy Feast isn't the best, if you go with it, I'd recommend the Pate varieties if your cat will eat it, those tend to be the healthier ones of fancy feast. And I've got to admit, I sometimes use 9Lives even though I know the ingredients are horrible. I have to switch up brands a lot because Tip(my diabetic) can't stand sticking to 1 brand and it doesn't mess with her, but I wouldn't recommend it because for most cats it tends to cause them stomach upset.

[speed2616203260fan]

I've found that 9lives cans have small fish bones in them...I saw it while dishing it for my baby and immediately threw that can in the trash and threw the rest out. My cat tends to not chew very much and I really didn't want to have her choke on them.

[AraTeran]

speed2616203260fan

I've found that 9lives cans have small fish bones in them...I saw it while dishing it for my baby and immediately threw that can in the trash and threw the rest out. My cat tends to not chew very much and I really didn't want to have her choke on them.

Any canned cat food made from fish can have bones in it. That is not limited to cheap foods like 9lives.

[11 Cardinal 11]

AraTeran

speed2616203260fan

I've found that 9lives cans have small fish bones in them...I saw it while dishing it for my baby and immediately threw that can in the trash and threw the rest out. My cat tends to not chew very much and I really didn't want to have her choke on them.

Any canned cat food made from fish can have bones in it. That is not limited to cheap foods like 9lives.

And here Ive been purposefully looking for and feeding my cats bone. eek

[AraTeran]

11 Cardinal 11

And here Ive been purposefully looking for and feeding my cats bone. eek

I wouldn't trust fish bones to my cats if they came in a can that is supposed to be bone free. That is a problem with the manufacturing process.

I have zero issues with fish bones intentionally left in canned fish (like salmon) or bones from whole cooked fish like sardines, smelt, and anchovies. Harley loves smelt heads.

[Flygoedla]

Lavena Epona

Anything made by Hill's is a very good food formulated by veterinary nutritionists. Purina One and Purina Proplan are also good and I think you can find coupons for them. Not all the Purina lines are great but those two are good.

Most of the more expensive boutique foods are formulated by computers and not looked at by a vet at all. This also applies to any of the blue buffalo brands.

There are really 3 things you need to ask a company to determine if the food is good.

1. Do they make their own food in their own factory in country you're buying it in? If they say yes that's good. If they outsource it (especially if that place is China), you probably don't want it. Outsourcing means that the food is made in a factory with hundreds of other foods where there may be cross contamination.

2. Do they have a veterinary nutritionist on staff to formulate the diet? If they don't, that's a bad sign. That means that they're just entering things into a computer without any thought as to whether the diet would work in the real world, which leads to the final question.

3. Do they do feeding trials? If not, that means your pet is the trial and will be determining if the food is actually a safe and healthy food to be feeding the population.

That all being said, some pets do fine on the cheaper store brands or refuse to eat the better quality foods. Some cats just flat out refuse anything but fancy feast or friskies. These have been on the market so long that the food trial has effectively been done so while they're not the best, they're not considered the worst either. If the cat doesn't have gastric upset on the food or other health problems that require a certain type of diet, then they're fine to use.

There is so much more I could say but it's the middle of the night, I'm on my phone, and this is a lot of info already. I hope this helps.

Hills and Purina are actually bottom of the barrel of pet foods. Cheap? debatable - healthy? No.
Veterinarian =/= registered Dietician. I rarely trust a doctor or a vet for food advice since the often only have a week or two of coursework in nutrition.

Unfortunately cheap and healthy often do not go hand in hand, you get what you pay for. Cats are true carnivores, not even possessing the necessary digestive enzymes in their saliva to break down carbohydrates. Their digestive tracts are far too short for such tough foods anyways.

Cheap foods are often filled with fillers just come out the other end. I try to advise sticking to any brands that advise that their wet food is 90% or higher of meat and organs.

[[` K ]]

Pet food was never intended to be healthy, it was originally a ploy by livestock companies to make a profit off of the meat they couldn't otherwise sell. For the most part, this hasn't changed. As far as healthy and cheap brands go, you're likely not to get the best of both worlds. Matter of fact, the mainstream brands run the risk of seriously injuring or killing your pet. Look up lawsuits in the industry as of late, it's really insightful. Your best bet would be to do your research on cat diets and consider learning about the starches, proteins and supplements behind even making them yourself. Pick up a good cookbook. Most people don't have time for this, but on the upside you'll likely cut more costs than you can imagine with this alternative. It's good enough that you understand dry food not offering any real benefits to your animals; it doesn't actually do any favors for their teeth as you might assume.

So, yeah, I'd take some time to look into this and do as much research as you can afford.

This post has a lot of claims with no cites, and I apologize for that; it's early. I do mean the best though. Good luck.
*after skimming some of the replies, perhaps other people have already covered my bases.

[!nternet`]

Friskies, Iams, Science Diet, Purina ALL have CORN in them. CORN is not good for your cats, it is a cheap protein source that does not digest well in their system.
I would highly recommend looking for "grain free"
Some stores sells Wellness (grain free brand) for 1.35 a can. It should cost about 40/ month with 1 can a day + dry food. You spend 200/month or more on food for yourself. Your cat should be no different in getting the best for the long run.

[Nurse Kipsie]

I really do not believe that a good quality cat food that is also cheap exists.
I'm fairly certain that it does not, unless you feed raw or homemade.

My idea of 'cheap' is anything that the lower American class (minimum wage, govt assisted) can afford, which is never the higher end foods.

[Latrans]

Nurse Kipsie

My idea of 'cheap' is anything that the lower American class (minimum wage, govt assisted) can afford, which is never the higher end foods.

This cracked me up; it reads as very classist.

[Nurse Kipsie]

Latrans

Nurse Kipsie

My idea of 'cheap' is anything that the lower American class (minimum wage, govt assisted) can afford, which is never the higher end foods.

This cracked me up; it reads as very classist.

rofl I think I was commenting without rereading.
It sounds funny, but it's true.



I've lived in the poorer broken-down areas before, so I speak mainly from that point of view.
This is how I view 'cheap'.

A few months ago, 'cheap' for me (personally) was a bit higher priced. I could buy a case of high quality canned with no issue.

At the moment my paychecks are smaller and i'm a college student, so 'cheap' is Friskies canned.