taste of the rockies

If you recall, a while back Jonny’s Partay put on a series of contests during one of which our runners up all received a sample of “Taste of the Wild” pet food. After the fact, Andre Blackman contacted me and asked if I wouldn’t mind sampling the food on my own “Rockford Milhausen” aka “Rocky” and do a write up on my findings. While I am often reluctant to switch up my pets food a brief search on the company and their products made me want to give a try.

To be completely honest, up until that point I knew nothing about pet food, cat food, pet digestion, etc. After reading various reviews I was ready to dig in and let my cat dig in on some new grub. Why did I want to try another cat food? What were the facts I came across? Pet diets are very important obviously. Some things to consider are feline obesity, feline diabetes, and balances in the amount of amino acids, carbohydrates, etc. are all important things to consider when feeding your pet. An excerpt directly from http://www.catinfo.org…

Diabetes is one of the most common feline endocrine diseases and, in the vast majority of cases, is directly linked to a high carbohydrate diet of dry food.

These mass amounts of carbohydrates often come in the form of corn filler added to the food. Reflecting back on our Documentary Club viewing of King Corn - this stuff goes into everything; it’s not healthy for us - and it’s sure not healthy for our pets. Taste of the Wild is a grain free formula. Directly from their site…

A grain-free formula for all life stages with peas and sweet potatoes provides highly digestible energy for your active cat. Made with real roasted venison and smoked salmon, this formula offers a taste sensation like no other. For today’s healthy cat, this formula is supplemented with fruits and vegetables, providing natural antioxidants to support a healthy immune system and overall good health.

This is all well and good, because “grain filler=bad”. Furthermore, I wanted to dig into the ingredients on the bag and see how it measured up against some of the guidelines I found for “healthy cat food” out there. So obviously, “no corn, no soy, no by-products” is the first obvious thing. Excellent! “Roasted Venison and Smoke Salmon”, “All life stages”, and “42% Crude Protein” all rang a bell for me. Cats are “obligate carnivores” which means that cats are built to get their proteins strictly from meats and a lot of dry pet foods, while having a high protein percentage on the bag, get most of those proteins from carbohydrate sources such as soy, etc. The high protein percentage, knowledge that there are no by products, corn, or soy and the AAFCO statement…

“Taste of the Wild Rocky Mountain Feline Formula is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) Cat Food Nutrient Profiles for all life stages.”

all tell me that this food is most likely going to be great for my pets digestion and over all health.

As far as dry foods go Taste of the Wild is ok by me. But ahh, what about the cat? I tested it on Rocky as snacks for a while and he liked it, he liked it a lot. I actually have a video I’ll append later where he literally dives head first into a large ziplock bag filled with the stuff. It didn’t make him sick and he didn’t appear to have any allergic reactions. This is another important point to touch on when trying new foods out on your pets. Animals have a lot of allergic reactions to various proteins and carbohydrates and you should always pay close attention to itching, scratching, diet, bowel movements, etc when changing out your pets food (whether dog, cat, whatever). Pending his body not rejecting the change - he enjoyed these thoroughly as a treat - and once I gave him a few bowl’s full he dug right in. After taking this data and reviewing it against other foods I’d fed him in the past I’m much happier with Taste of the Wild than some of the larger brands that pull a lot of their protein content from carbs. Nobody wants a fat cat, a diabetic cat, or a cat with kidney/bowell problems. I want my little guy to live forever - or at least as long as humanly (felinely?) possible.

The only downside to Taste of the Wild is that it is manufactured by a company called Diamond pet Foods which was largely responsible for pet food recalls last year. Taste of the Wild however was not on that list of recalls probably largely due to that the contaminate came from Rice Protein which is not an ingredient in the food. If I had time to do more research I’d be interested to see what pesticides the vegetables found in Taste of the Wild are treated with (since the bag does not indicate that it is organic, I’ll assume they are treated with some type of pesticide). All in all - these things pending I’ll give Taste of the Wild 4 out of 5 stars. Only holding back due to the manufacturer, lack of information on vegetable pesticides, and the ingredient “natural flavor” which can be construed as a number of things. Thank you Andre and thank you taste of the wild - I’m a much better dad/pet owner now. Taste of the Wild, pending further research, may very well end up in my shopping cart next time I go shopping for my little guy - at the very least it’s a huge improvement over what I’m feeding him now!