Nature's Variety Instinct Dry Food

I looked up all the cat foods that my pet store carries because I wanted to get both of my cats off of Royal Canin considering how much grain it has in it. Instinct Rawboost for Indoor Cats seemed like the best of the bunch, the first 4 ingredients are meat. I know that dry food isn't really great for cats, but I'm not rich enough to feed them wet food exclusively and it's how they've both been fed for their entire lives and I'm not going to change that.

I put some out and my cat that doesn't have diabetes, Beau, immediately started to eat it. After a little lick fest he went zooming all around the house so I think it's safe to say that he likes it. I hope Charlie does, I do wonder how it will affect her blood sugar though. She never ate much of the dry food, unless she was really hungry.

The 5th ingredient is tapioca starch and I know from my daughter, who has Type 1 Diabetes, that starch doesn't cause a spike in blood sugar and has an even-ing effect. I'll have to see if she eats it and then check her bg I guess. Has anyone else tried or used this food?

 

just talked about this food yesterday, the indoor version is over 30% wet carbs/over 35% for dry carbs. not a good choice at all for our diabetic cats (and non-diabetic ones either IMO), even in small amounts. only thing i would use it for, is for low BG/hypo times..

 

Ah well, we'll see how it goes. It seems like it was nutritionally better than Royal Canin and I can't get the Young Again in Canada. I feel like I'm doing the best that I can considering finances and how I usually feed my cats.

 

Hi Cathy, my cat has recently, about 2 months ago, developed food sensitivities. He was scratching around his ears and doing more licking than usual. I have tried the brand of Merrick limited ingredients. The good thing is that it is duck, rabbit, chicken, or lamb. So far he has shown no adverse reactions. It is pricey but it was on sale at Petco.

 

I've used the Instinct Original Chicken dry food (not Raw Boost) for a couple of my diabetics. When Wendall had pancreatitis it was the only thing he would eat. He loved it, had a little every day even after he recovered and it didn't make any appreciable difference in his sugar. He lived to be 19 and was diabetic for 11 years. Last week I took a cat at the request of my vet, untreated for 3 months and rapidly spiraling down into DKA. He had gone from 16 to 9 lbs. and wasn't interested in wet food. The smell seemed to make him more nauseous. Instinct got him eating again and I'm pretty sure it's helping to save his life. Now I'm starting to transition him back to wet food by crushing and using it as a topper.

FYI, anything that says "for indoor cats" is generally much higher in carbs.