Purina ONE Beyond food review

Update! I would NOT feed the food right now because it has made both Sunny AND Smokey sick. I got a new bag and the cats have both been sick since. Looked it up and while there is no official recall (yet), there are lots of reports of this food causing problems in cats and dogs lately (vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, increased thirst, etc) and there is early speculation that there MAY be a toxin in it. OK, so as most of you know, I've been feeding my cats Purina One Beyond for a while now. I did not intend to start feeding this food but the food they had been on (Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul) was recalled because of salmonella so I tried this and when I tried to switch them back, they did not tolerate it well so I had to stick with this Purina stuff. That's not all bad though. For example, I can get the Purina much easier (the other was very hard to find) and don't have to make a special trip to get it. I also figure that if it is ever recalled, with Purina being such a large company, I'll hear about it sooner. But here is an overview of what I think of Purina One Beyond Chicken and Whole Oat Meal Recipe. First off, here is the ingredient list... Chicken, chicken meal, whole brown rice, soybean meal, whole barley, whole oat meal, soy protein isolate, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), dried yeast, dried egg product, natural flavor, dried beet pulp, fish oil, phosphoric acid, caramel color, dried carrots, salt, calcium carbonate, dried sweet potatoes, dried apples. OK, so chicken and chicken meal are a great first two ingredients for any food and are a great way to start. Whole brown rice is a quality grain so I can't complain about it either. Soybean meal I would rather not see (soy has little nutritional value for cats). Whole oat meal is another quality grain addition. Soy protein isolate I don't like seeing for the same reason as the previous appearance of soy but also because protein isolate tends to imply that they are trying to boost the overall protein content (I would rather see them boost the protein content with another animal protein). Animal fat always is questionable because the origin is not listed but at least it is naturally preserved. Dried yeast is not going to hurt anything. Dried egg product is a good ingredient because eggs are high in protein and are an excellent addition. Natural flavor is OK but I would like them to say what "natural flavors" they are using. Dried beet pulp is in most cat foods and is a fine ingredient. Fish oil is an excellent source of Omega 3 fatty acids so seeing it is always good. The next two ingredients are not important. Dried carrots, dried sweet potatoes and dried apples are all very good ingredients that show a high quality food. The other ingredients in-between are not of significance. Overall, the food is a well made, healthy food. This is really a very big step for Purina! I would like to see a few more animal protein sources (some type of fish or turkey maybe) but I'm comfortable feeding this to my cats. They seem to like this food and do not seem to be gaining any weight on it (Sunny already was overweight when I started them on it). If you are looking for a good quality food that you can find easily, you might look into getting this food.

Spring is in the air!

Well, it's been a WHILE since I updated my blog but here is an overview of what's been going on. Smokey and Sunny are doing well. I still need to get Sunny to lose weight but with two cats (one of which is NOT overweight and is extremely active), it can be hard to get one to lose weight while keeping the other one happy. Still working on it though. Lilly is also doing well. She seems to enjoy her out of cage time and doesn't seem to be getting overweight (gotta watch for that in guinea pigs!). Seze (my leopard gecko) is doing fine. The aquariums have been doing well for the most part. The disease (in November) did not kill all the fish (2 black skirt tetras, both platies and 2 danios lived) though the danios have died since then (not sure what killed them but since I had them a while, I'm guessing old age). I've added a few fish since I last updated including 2 khuli loaches (cool little fish) and a new school of glowlights (quarantined this time!). The reef doesn't currently have any fish in it but the corals look good. Still battling an aggressive algae but I think I'm finally getting it under control.