Caturday: Instinct Limited Ingredient Rabbit Formula Canned Cat Food

I found these cans of Nature's Variety Instinct Limited Ingredient Rabbit Formula cat food at my local auction house. Yeah, I know that's kinda weird. They sell a bunch of totally random stuff aside from the auction items, most recently I got several cans of Surge soda and a bunch of bully sticks for the dogs. Anyway, these were $0.40 per can, not expired, and a super great deal.

Nature's Variety offers some of the few limited ingredient diets for cats, and the foods they make are quite high quality. They're also super expensive, which makes me glad that neither of The Hellions has food allergies.

The limited ingredient rabbit food is made from rabbit, peas, vitamins, and minerals. Nature's Variety also makes an Instinct rabbit-based cat food that contains pork, and the labels are very similar.

I'm a fan of Nature's Variety and the Instinct product lines, they're pricey but worth the money if you're battling food allergies. Brisbane, who was allergic to everything, particularly loved their canned dog food. This company does not own their own production facility, their cans are co packed by CJ foods, along with several other brands.

This is a loaf-style food that will appeal to a lot of cats. Mine go crazy for it, but they also just love food in general. I would absolutely try this for a picky cat, especially if I really needed to get them to eat.

Food Friday: Spot Farms Grain Free Pork Dehydrated Dog Food

When I spotted Spot Farms Grain Free Pork Recipe Dehydrated Dog Food, I was intrigued. When I read the list of ingredients I knew I needed to get this for Brisbane. He had major surgery less than two weeks ago, and still has quite a lot of stitches in his mouth. I've been feeding him canned food Honest Kitchen premix with cooked meat, and Fresh Pet Vital dog food. Having another very soft food option is awesome. As Brisbane is allergic to chicken, turkey, duck, eggs, corn, barley, and sweet potato, having a limited ingredient, single-protein dehydrated food is amazing.

The Company

Spot Farms sources all of their ingredients in the USA. They use chicken, turkey, and pork raised without antibiotics. Our box of pork dog food has a picture of Ralph the pig farmer from Iowa on the back. The website and product packaging loudly proclaim the food to be human grade, but with a asterisk leading to a statement that the food is indeed for our pets and not for humans.

The lack of detailed company history or information about the founders or inspiration for their products leads me to believe that Spot Farms is probably one of several brands owned by the same company. Their contact info is for Arthur Pet Products of North Carolina. This same company owns Full Moon Dog Treats, which has a website almost identical to the Spot Farms site. 

Following the trail further, I learned that Arthur Pet Products is a division of Perdue Farms Inc. Perdue Foods produces chicken, turkey, and pork, and is indeed a family owned business. I had to really dig to find whether Arthur Pet Products was really theirs, and it is. They seem like a good business with a decent focus on meat animal welfare, it's toobad they decided to go the giant faceless corporation route with their dog food.

The Food

My first thought when preparing this food was that the recommended portion sizes for this food seemed very large. My second thought was that it seemed very much like canned dog food as soon as it was wet. It even smells like canned dog food. The food soaks up a ton of water, and gets really thick and difficult to stir. I actually had a bit of trouble getting all of the powder moistened before the whole thing turned into a giant squishy glob.

Since there's no gelling agent or thickener like carageenan or guar gum in here, I'm guessing the potatoes are what gives the Spot Farms food that particular texture. Have you over over-mixed mashed potatoes with an electric mixer, so that they turn gluey? It's kind of like that. 

Bottom Line

Brisbane likes this food. It's soft enough to be safe for a dog with missing or sensitive teeth, or a mouth full of stitches. At $35 for a 3.5 lb box, I doubt it's any cheaper than canned dog food, but it's a hell of a lot lighter to haul home from the store.

Spot Farms dog food is new enough that the Dog Food Advisor website has not yet analyzed or rated their products. It looks like Perdue Foods had a recall earlier this year due to plastic bits found in chicken nuggets. They've also had recalls due to improper handling of raw chicken. All of their recalls seem to be voluntary, which means they value their customers over their reputation at least to an extent. 

This is only the second dehydrated, rehydrated dog food I've seen on the market. It is sold exclusively through Petco. I like Spot Farms because they are a people food company that has branched out into dog food. 

Food Friday: Acana Singles Pork and Butternut Squash

Acana Singles are single-source protein, low-glycemic kibbles designed for dogs with food allergies. Like most grain-free dog foods, it features a very high meat content. It also features multiple legume ingredients which boost the protein level without adding a lot of simple carbohydrates.

I like Acana's foods a whole lot. They use as many fresh, local ingredients as possible, and cook the food in its own juices rather than adding water. The kibbles are dark and heavy and dense. The food smells meaty yet pleasant. Ru will actually eat it.

One thing I would like to point out about this food is that it is called Pork and Butternut Squash even though the squash is actually in sixth place in the ingredient list. Notably, it sits behind two different types of lentils. So this is actually a pork and lentil food.

Dog Food Advisor also makes note of this fact, and this food loses a star from its rating for its deceptively large legume content. The review for Acana Singles notes that the company uses ingredient splitting to make the meat ingredients appear higher on the list. The Pork and Butternut Squash food lists red lentils, green lentils, green peas, yellow peas, and garbanzo beans individually. If these were all just listed as "legumes", they might be the first thing on the list.

Acana Singles Pork and Butternut Squash only earns a four-star rating at Dog Food Advisor, but it's still pretty awesome. In building the database for my Dog Food Wizard, I noticed that Acana Singles are some of the only kibbles that don't have a litany of vitamin and mineral supplements at the end of their ingredient lists. They only add zinc proteinate, everything else comes from the food ingredients, and they still meet AAFCO standards for "all life stages" (meaning puppy) food.

I love that Acana Singles use a single protein source in each recipe, but I sort of have trouble calling them "Limited Ingredient Diets" simply because they use so many different types of carbohydrates. I've communicated with a number of different owners of dogs with weird food allergies, and some have found via elimination diets that their dogs have very specific intolerances. Some dogs can't have lentils, some can't have peas, some can't have garbanzo beans.

I think that a truly limited ingredient food should use a single protein and a single carbohydrate. This system works best for elimination diets and narrowing down possible food intolerances. The name "Acana Singles" is a little deceptive, and I was honestly a little surprised to see so many different carbohydrate sources in the ingredients.

Have you tried any of the Acana Singles foods for your dog yet?