Pieces of bone and other stuff in pate cat food

Discussion in 'Feline Health - (Welcome & Main Forum)' started by Wendalore, Nov 10, 2019.

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  1. Wendalore

    Wendalore New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 10, 2019
    Hi,
    My cat might have diabetes, which is what brought me here.

    What I want to post about is this: I saw a thread here in which someone talked about finding pieces of bone in their Friskies pate.

    I want to say that I have been dealing with this for months now. A couple of years ago, I discovered just this: since my shelter cat will only eat Friskies and Fancy Feast pate, I was feeding him that. Sometimes he would leave a lot. I began poking around in it and found hard pieces of things. I would push my finger down to the bottom of the bowl and take out what I felt. It was very time consuming. But he seemed to eat it better.

    One day I decided to strain it. The strainer I had got out lots and lots of pieces of "things" but when I felt the pate, it still have fine hard things in it. The strainer was letting tiny pieces though. So I found a very fine strainer. (the first one I got wore right through in a couple of months, so then I got a tougher one and it's been lasting.)

    What I do is I put the serving into the strainer and hold it above the dish (I use fairly flat dishes) and push the food into the bottom of the strainer over and over until eventually most of the soft part is through and remaining in the bottom of the strainer is the most disagreeable, to my taste, "crap" that you would not believe could be in FOOD. Most of the soft food sticks to the bottom of the strainer and I carefully scrape it off and plop it into the dish. Scraping it pushes some of the soft food back up into the strainer, so I repeat pushing it though the bottom of the strainer and scraping it off the outside of the bottom of the strainer and plop it into the dish. You may create your own way of getting all that you can into the dish. It is pasty and adheres to itself and to the spoon and the strainer, so you scrape and scrape, like you can use a butter knife and a spoon against each other. It makes me very happy to see that now I am going to feed my pussycat pate with no "crap" in it! If he had wanted objects in his food, he would have chosen chunky food or shreds etc!

    I just read some of Dr. Lisa's things and she says that "bi-products" are good for cats. Hopefully they will not be "not good for human consumption" etc. Years ago in my hippie days, reading Adele Davis, we learned that organ food is good for us—liver, kidneys, and other. So I've been thinking maybe it's the same for cats, and am glad to think that she agrees. It's more nutritious in some ways than muscle meet. But the collection of pieces of things, not so much. I've been entering Google searches about this problem and have gotten nowhere. The woman that wrote what I read here today was thinking it might be a bad batch. Another said, write to the company. Even on Quora I got an answer suggesting I complain. Like they don't know? It's very clever what they do. As I watch the food being pushed into the strainer, I don't see the pieces at all. It is not until I get down until there is almost no soft food left that the pieces appear. That means that people don't see those pieces. You spoon the pate into the cat's dish and push it around a little and put it down for your beloved feline. And he eats it. Or not.

    My cat is fairly picky, well, very picky. When I first got him at age 3 from the shelter (he had come from a home that couldn't keep him, so he was not a street cat) he would only eat pate and he would only eat chicken. I wanted to do right by him so I went to the pet food store and tried all kinds of the more expensive food. Trying and trying, I wound up with his favorites. From the supermarket. Friskies and Fancy Feast pate/classic. Mostly chicken and sometimes beef. I've been working in a little fish. Poultry Platter, Country Style Dinner, Mixed Grill, Liver and Chicken and now Tuna and Chicken, and then for Fancy Feast, mostly Chicken pate and some salmon and some shrimp, and some beef. And I really want to stress—this is not about a "bad batch." This has been going on for coming onto two years in MY experience. The Friskies, you can tell it's a formula they use. A certain percentage of "big crap" and of "tiny fine crap" — sometimes there are a couple of flat hard black things, big ones and little ones. Only two or tree per serving. Then there are the flexible solid white things. And hard white things. And who knows what else. I haven't gotten further into analysis of the variety! Just get it away from me!! and out of my pussycat's food!

    I live in New England, but I doubt that it is different in any other part of the country. I get it at WalMart and at Stop and Shop. I've seem it at the drug store, too. So if you put your finger into your cat's Friskies pate, and detect that "stuff," and you want to keep feeding your cat this economical food, you might try to invest in the finest, largest strainer you can get. It won't do you a lot of good to use an ordinary strainer, because the fine "crap" goes right through those holes.

    I expect that you will all believe me once you've done your own exploring that it is not a matter of a "bad batch." And complaining is not going to change a thing! That's their formula. But I wonder if it is bad for a cat to be swallowing all that…stuff. Cat's don't masticate their food, I think, so they just swallow it down. I really would like to know more about it. And I'm so happy I found a place where someone wrote about it and I can spread the word. Oh yes, one more thing. It's time consuming to strain it. And you have to use a stiff brush on the turned upside down strainer to get all the tiny "crap" out of the strainer holes. But I've got it down to the point where I can do it pretty fast! Although I wish I could just buy smooth by-product pate that I could just dish out of the can. Someday I'm going to go to the more expensive store and experiment with their pate! Oh, another thing, Fancy Feast chicken pate, is much smoother than Friskies chicken dinner. Their fish and beef have more stuff in them. But Friskies has such a lovely weird variety to amuse you whilst you are feeling disgusted with the world of capitalist profit domination.

    Good luck! Let us know!
     
  2. Diane Tyler's Mom

    Diane Tyler's Mom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2018
    Hi I'm in N.J. and use Fancy Feast Classic Pate Chicken and the Beef flavor
    One time II put the chicken in a flat dish and added a little water like I usually do. I then got my finger and started to smash it down to make it smoother and I did feel little hard pieces of something, also like you said I saw a few little black things.
    You are going to think I'm nuts but I picked out one of the pieces of the hard thing and put it in my mouth to see what it might be and how hard it was. It broke up pretty easy
    I had posted the question and asked if any one else felt these things. They said no, I guess because they didn't do what I did. Someone said if I remember correctly it might be cartilage.I just found my post where I had asked this question and some one said they also mushed it with their finger and felt the same thing .
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2019
  3. Larry and Kitties

    Larry and Kitties Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 28, 2009
    Just think of what housecates do in the wild. They eat almost all of mice and other rodents. Yes there are bone/cartilage/ligaments fragments in canned cat food (and likely dry food too) just like what a cat would consume in the wild. I syringe feed one of my civi's frequently and I have to poke out the fragments when the clog the outlet of the syringe.
     
  4. Diane Tyler's Mom

    Diane Tyler's Mom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2018
    Hey Larry I never thought of that but you are right, I'm so glad I chewed on it lol
     
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