If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I’m passionate about species-appropriate nutrition for cats. Cats are obligate carnivores, and they need meat not only to survive, but to thrive. The optimal diet for a cat is a properly formulated raw, home-cooked or grain-free canned diet. Cats shouldn’t eat dry food; even the grain-free dry varieties are too high in carbohydrates.
You can find many of the articles I’ve written about this topic in the Feline Nutrition section right here on this site. I also provide one-on-one consultations if you need help with transitioning your cat to a healthier diet.
What I look for in a food I feed and recommend
- Protein is listed as the first ingredient on the label, and the meat/poultry used is fit for human consumption. If the meat is organic, that’s even better.
- The food is grain-free (no rice, barley, or any other grains. Even though these are considered healthy in human nutrition, cats’ digestive tracts are not designed to digest the unnecessary carbs).
- The food does not contain by-products, corn, soy, or any other fillers.
I am often asked what brands I recommend, and you can find a small list of recommended brands in my post The Best Food For Your Cat: My Recommendations. The brands listed are foods I have thoroughly researched, and feed to Allegra and Ruby. One of the brands I recommend and like is Weruva.
Weruva recently sent us a very generous sampling of some of their products. Since I rarely accept food for review, the girls were super excited when I opened the box!
Why I like Weruva
The first thing I like about Weruva is that they don’t even make any dry food. I also like that you can actually recognize the ingredients in their canned formulas. I had asked for chicken and turkey flavors only – I limit fish to only an occasional special treat. Their chicken dinners look like the chicken fricassee my mother used to make!
According to the company, all of their formulas are produced in a human food facility using many of the ingredients and processes that are used in products made for people. Their base proteins of chicken, beef and fish include only top quality muscle meat, such as white breast chicken, whole tuna loins and select cuts of beef.
But as with any cat food, the true test is whether your cats will eat it. “Eating” may not be the right word to use in this context: Allegra and Ruby practically hoover up their Weruva meals. I alternate raw food with canned food, and of all the canned food I feed, Weruva is the paws down favorite, with Fowl Ball being a particular favorite at our house.
We got to test the new Cats in the Kitchen Pouches and Canned formulas, and they were all a big hit. I love that they have no vegetables at all in them, it’s all meat. Some of Weruva’s Cat Cuisine formulas do contain small amounts of vegetables and my girls usually just eat around them. These formulas are also slightly higher in carbs, so I prefer to use the all meat ones (and the girls are not complaining!).
We also received a can of their new freeze dried chicken treats, which proved to be a big hit as well.
Weruva addresses a few concerns I have about the diets
There are a few things I don’t like about Weruva, and I discussed my concerns with David Forman, one of the company’s owners.
Their diets are made in Thailand.
I generally prefer foods that are manufactured in the US. David Forman explained: “Our foods are produced in a facility in Thailand that also makes food for people around the world, including the US and the strict EU and Japan. Similar to our USDA, there is a branch in Thailand called the Department of Livestock Development (DLD). The chickens we source in Thailand are part of an Animal Welfare Standard that sets forth ethical treatment guidelines that helps protect livestock and cattle at the farm, during transport and at the time of processing. Thailand is the 3rd or 4th largest poultry producer in the world for human consumption with much of it exported…so there is heavy regulation by the Thai government to ensure the ethical treatment of animals as well as high processing standards. The diets of the chickens is non-GMO.”
The taurine, and a few of the minerals, are sourced in China.
I generally don’t recommend diets with any ingredients sourced in China, but I wanted to understand why Weruva made this choice, given how much I like everything else about their diets. David Forman: “Indeed, country of origin has become a very important issue. What we have always maintained is that it is less about the country of origin and more about the quality control from a particular company and what proactive steps a company takes when they learn there is an issue. Many people are focused on “US only” production and feel it is the safest, but the reality about that is that the US has experienced and continues to experience higher rates of recall than most countries, including those in China.” Given the recent slew of pet food recalls, most of them for dry food, this point is well taken.
David continued to explain: “As it pertains to taurine, it does come from China. The last statistic I heard was that 98% of the world’s supply of taurine comes from China. I believe Japan produces the next highest amount, but when looking into sourcing from there, as supply is extremely limited in comparison to demand, new customers more or less get on a waiting list as the existing customers get priority. As to the other minerals from China, we have had no reason to doubt the quality of the ingredients or the availability thereof. While we do understand the concerns about China, suffice to say, sometimes unpopular decisions are still healthy ones.”
The diets are lower in calories than many other canned diets.
This isn’t so much a concern, as it is something I want you to be aware of – you may have to feed larger amounts to make up for the lower calories, as compared to other brands. However, chances are, your kitties won’t be complaining about that!
For more information about Weruva and their products, please visit Weruva.com.
I received free products from Weruva. Receiving the complimentary products did not influence my review.
