I found it very interesting this past week seeing some recent cat food commercials on tv. The company 'Gourmet Delight' is tapping into a growing awareness in pet people, that commercial food is the product of the waste of the people food industry; and often not really fit for a cat to eat. So 'Gourmet Delight' is saying they have no nasty fillers or cereals.
Well, I had actually found and evaluated 'Gourmet Delight' just 1 week prior to the commercials going to air. They seem to have a problem with their packaging and their recipe 'lining up', as every single can in the multi-pack carton had 'rice' listed in the ingredients. Me thinks rice is a cereal...and yet the box was proclaiming 'no cereals'. So I went and looked at the individual cans that of course are more highly priced. Lo and behold, same ingredient list, but NO rice. Maybe their packaging is mis-timed with their product?
The moral of the story is, we need to read and (somewhat) understand ingredient labels. It is not foolproof of course, as companies do not have to list ingredients, or all the ingredients - so for all we know, the same recipe with the rice is being used by 'Gourmet Delight', because there is no legal requirement for accurate and full disclosure of pet food ingredients here in Australia. (And yes, I did buy a couple cans of Gourmet Delight - without the rice!)
But we consumers do the best with what we have to go on...which leads me to my thinking on how I assess canned cat food.
Well, I had actually found and evaluated 'Gourmet Delight' just 1 week prior to the commercials going to air. They seem to have a problem with their packaging and their recipe 'lining up', as every single can in the multi-pack carton had 'rice' listed in the ingredients. Me thinks rice is a cereal...and yet the box was proclaiming 'no cereals'. So I went and looked at the individual cans that of course are more highly priced. Lo and behold, same ingredient list, but NO rice. Maybe their packaging is mis-timed with their product?
The moral of the story is, we need to read and (somewhat) understand ingredient labels. It is not foolproof of course, as companies do not have to list ingredients, or all the ingredients - so for all we know, the same recipe with the rice is being used by 'Gourmet Delight', because there is no legal requirement for accurate and full disclosure of pet food ingredients here in Australia. (And yes, I did buy a couple cans of Gourmet Delight - without the rice!)
But we consumers do the best with what we have to go on...which leads me to my thinking on how I assess canned cat food.