Fancy Feast Appetizers are a quick and easy way to give your cat a treat, but do they use quality ingredients?
Some of you may have picked up on the fact that I hate Purina. However, I believe in giving a fair and honest review on a variety of products, so I don’t limit myself to trying only stuff that I or my cats will like. Fancy Feast Appetizers are one of the few Purina products that I could see myself using as a treat — but only rarely.
Fancy Feast Appetizers Use White Meat, But It’s Not Human Grade
Most of the time you’ll see terms like “real meat” or “white meat” used in advertising pet foods. The slew of marketing terms Purina uses are at best deceiving. The legal definition of terms like “meat by-products” are deliberately skewed with half-truths while ignoring the other, more negative half.
Fancy Feast Appetizers claim to use white meat. Yes, the half-truth is that they DO use white meat, but they leave out the part where it’s not human grade. Using human grade meat is important because it’s guaranteed to be safe and edible for your pet.
The Spruce explains the difference between human-grade and feed-grade:
Feed grade meats are specifically meats that would not pass inspection if they were intended for human consumption. They may contain a wide range of animal parts (such as bird beaks) that are not allowed in meats meant for people. They may also come from animals that are diseased or dying…
…There are no clear regulations about exactly what defines ‘human grade’ or ‘natural’ pet foods. The assumption, of course, is that human grade pet foods are literally pet foods made from meats that have been inspected by the USDA and could legally be sold in a supermarket for human consumption.”
Basically, pet foods that do not use ‘human-grade ingredients’ are a gamble. It’s a 50/50 shot that you’re feeding your cat or dog meat that is rotten or diseased. I don’t know about you, but no matter how much a food is processed, I wouldn’t feel comfortable feeding rotten/diseased meat to my pets.
It Can’t Be All Bad, Can It?
Fancy Feast Appetizers aren’t all bad. The meat issue aside, there are very few ingredients in these treats. Unfortunately, half of them are bad. Here’s the list of ingredients and what each one means.
White Meat Chicken
I know I just got done saying this was a bad one, given the lack of human-grade meats, but at least it’s real chicken! A lot of dry foods claim to be made with ‘real chicken’, but they’re only about 3% meat. Yikes!
You can actually see the shredded chicken in Fancy Feast Appetizers. That scores this treat some points.
Tuna Broth
Google wasn’t much help as far as a definition goes, but I’m assuming tuna broth is the same as other meat broths. Whether or not the tuna was human-grade or feed-grade, I have no idea. This ingredient is added for flavor and texture.
Guar Gum And Xantham Gum
Ugh, gum. Any ‘gum’ I see in pet food makes me cringe. These ingredients are difficult for humans to digest, let alone cats. They can make your cat gassy and screw up the digestive process, resulting in loose stools and diarrhea. Guar gum and xanthan gum should be avoided at all costs if your cat has digestive issues.
Thiamine Mononitrate
Thiamine is essential to your pet’s nutrition, and it is commonly found in heart and liver meats (muscle meats). Given that this has been added to Fancy Feast Appetizers, I’m guessing that this is to prevent a deficiency in thiamine, which can be a big problem.
Long story short… it’s a vitamin.
Sodium Nitrite
Sodium nitrite, unlike thiamine mononitrate, is not a vitamin. It’s a preservative — a deadly one. The National Center for Biotechnology Information, via the Ferguson Veterinary Clinic in New Zealand, has known about this for a couple decades. “Toxic concentrations of sodium nitrite” resulted in the death of both cats and dogs.
The FDA has since regulated levels of sodium nitrite in food (including pet food), but it’s still concerning to see it used. Given Purina’s history, I don’t see myself trusting them. There are safer preservatives out there that they could have used.
The Meow Place Tries Fancy Feast Appetizers
As far as the taste test goes, the cats enjoyed Fancy Feast Appetizers very much. The texture of the shredded chicken was something they were familiar with, as we sneak them plain cooked chicken every now and then. Everybody gobbled it up!
The thing is that just like humans, cats can have too much junk food — and this is junk food. It can’t even be considered a healthy snack at the end of the day. Think of it as the equivalent of blueberry ice cream. Blueberries are good for you… milk is good for you… but it’s still a fattening dessert with way too much sugar.
Purina has too long and too sordid a history for me to trust their products. After researching the ingredients, I’m even less trustful of them now.
We can only give this product 2.5 out of 5 meows.
I received this item free of charge from Chewy.com in exchange for my fair and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. No monetary compensation was received from either Chewy or Purina and its affiliates.