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Nature’s Variety Instinct Rabbit Formula

Are you familiar with Nature’s Variety Instinct brand cat food? If not, I suggest you check it out. I gave my four taste testers (Wilson, Barney, Daisy & Dolly) the Rabbit Formula the other night as their evening wet food treat. In our case, it was unanimously accepted.

As you open the tin, you will notice a cake that appears to be a bit granular. The cake is packed with what appears to be an “au jus,” but it is flavorful water. Water is the third ingredient in the recipe behind rabbit and pork liver. Down the ingredients list is another interesting ingredient, considered to be a holistic health item, montmorillonite clay. Montmorillonite clay is a natural de-tox agent and can be used to clean out the intestinal tract of any nasty agents such Ethoxyquin, BHT and BHA, which are known preservatives in other “un”-natural commercial brand foods. It’s an interesting ingredient and you may wish to research this a little more on your own to see how beneficial this ingredient can be to your cat, especially if your cat suffers from diarrhea. Other interesting ingredients in the recipe include artichokes, broccoli, cabbage, kale, cranberries, pumpkin, tomato, blueberries, and parsley.After observing the granular texture in the can, the cake had a firm consistency that offered a little resistance as I pushed in the spoon. However, the food easily scooped out and did not stick to the spoon as I put it on the little cat plates. Though it is a firm cake, it really did not take much effort to break it up into smaller bits. As I spooned it out, I noticed some peas and bits of carrot and noticed that it smelled like a lean cooked meat. My cats really seem to enjoy both the flavor and the texture of this Rabbit Formula.Nature’s Variety Instinct Rabbit Formula is 95% rabbit and pork liver and it is grain and gluten free. This product meets the AAFCO nutritional requirements for all life stages. Nature’s Variety Instinct Rabbit Formula is made in the United States.

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Dick Van Patten and his crew at Natural Balance are releasing Alpha, a new grain free formula.  New Alpha is being introduced on the heels of other recently introduced grain free formulas that I wrote about in January 2011: Green Pea & Chicken and Green Pea & Salmon Limited Ingredient Diets.  Mr. Van Patten is coming out strong in the field of grain free foods with the hopes to capture more of the grain free market segment of cat foods.  If you suspect that grains have or can contribute to a cat’s poor health, then Alpha is a product you may wish to try or put into your food rotation.

Alpha is being marketed as a formula based on the diets “when cats roamed the earth” hunting for their meals in the wild.  However, this formula utilizes the garbonzo bean as a unique source of proteins.  Hardly an item a cat would hunt for.  However, notwithstanding, Natural Balance uses chicken, turkey meal and duck in one formula and trout, salmon meal and white fish in another formula.  They put in prebiotics for a healthy digestive tract, too!  Both Alpha blends provide a nice base of proteins supplemented with a grain free carbohydrate source.  Mr. Van Patten has come up with a unique blend of ingredients that might very well be a favorite in your cat’s daily line up of nutritious foods.  Check out Alpha from Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance at Only Natural Pet Store.

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This is NOT an April Fool’s day surprise.  Wysong pet food corporation has created a starch free cat food formula they call Epigen.  Wysong is taking on the “grain free” products currently in the market that claim “grain free” is better.  Wysong isn’t just going toe-to-toe with “grain free” pet foods, they are coming out swinging and slamming “grain free” foods.  Wysong must be quite confident in their science behind this new food formula.  As of now, Epigen is the first of its kind on the market so I’m sure other pet food companies will be scrambling to see what they can do.  Isn’t competition in the free enterprise market wonderful?!  My interpretation after reading Wysong’s Epigen literature, starch is the 800 pound gorilla in the room full of cat foods that no one has addressed until now.  Wysong contends that starch is an UN-natural surgar source given that starch is a “polysugar” in the biochemistry world.  Further, Wysong contends that though pet foods are “grain free,” the replacement ingredients are starches such as potatoes, peas and tapioca.  If I may borrow Wysong’s theory “starch is starch” no matter if it comes from potatoes, peas, tapioca, wheat or corn.  Wysong claims that a true starch free diet will address a number of health issues including, but not limited to, obesity, cancer and diabetes just to name a few, whereas, “grain free” foods don’t address or “cure” any health issues since they contain starch.  How can this be when cat owners who have switched their cats to “grain free” diets have claimed they see a change in their pet’s health?  The proof will be in the kibble!  Wysong’s new Epigen is a large step forward in cat food innovation and I, for one, am anxious to give it to my cats.  Oh, yeah, though we don’t talk about the “other” pet, Wysong Epigen is made for dogs, too.