In our latest series of articles, we’ll be conducting reviews for some of the most popular cat food brands. While everyone wants to feed their cat a healthy food, manufacturers make this task exceptionally difficult.
In this article, we’ll be diving into the Meow Mix brand to see what their ingredients look like, the nutritional values of their food and determining whether Meow Mix is good for cats or not.
Is Meow Mix good for cats?
We can’t recommend Meow Mix. When it comes to bottom of the barrel cat foods, Meow Mix is about as low as you can get. A decent ingredient doesn’t appear in this food until spot number 9 on the ingredients list, which means that there’s little of it in here at all.
That’s because manufacturers are required to list ingredients in order of prominence in the food. So, the further down the list, the more negligible that ingredient is. Which unfortunately, means all of the decent ingredients are just there to fool you into thinking you’re buying something good.
While on the Meow Mix bag you’ll see tasty features of salmon and chicken, the truth is that this is really a plant based food. The first two ingredients are corn based, a cheap filler food that offers little to no nutritional value to your cat.
The only meat products present in the first 7 ingredients are chicken by-product meal and animal digest. Both of these are slaughterhouse waste products which are not deemed suitable for human consumption, which means the quality is pretty much always questionable.
Meow Mix Original Ingredient List
Ground Yellow Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken By-Product Meal, Soybean Meal, Beef Tallow (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Animal Digest, Calcium Carbonate, Turkey By-Product Meal, Salmon Meal, Ocean Fish Meal, Phosphoric Acid, Choline Chloride, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Titanium Dioxide (Color), Vitamins [Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Thiamine Mononitrate (Source of Vitamin B1), Riboflavin Supplement (Source of Vitamin B2), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Source of Vitamin B6), Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source of Vitamin K Activity), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement], Minerals [Ferrous Sulfate (Source of Iron), Zinc Oxide, Manganous Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite], Taurine, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Red 40, Blue 2, Rosemary Extract.
Above you can see the full ingredient list for the food in question, and to be honest, there’s not really anything redeeming here. We’d never feed our furry staff members Meow Mix, and foods like this are often difficult for cats to digest due to the glut of cheap carbohydrates.
The only positive aspect of the food is that it’s cheap, but we think that if you take a moment to realize what you’re actually paying for, which is meat flavored corn, then you’d see that this food is not as good of a deal as it seems.
Cats are obligate carnivores, and feeding them a plant based diet like Meow Mix is a big no-no for us! If you’d like to offer your cat a much better dry kibble food, then we’d recommend one of the below brands.
While it may cost a bit more in the short term, your cat will be healthier for it, and that will mean a longer life with less vet bills down the road. We personally feed our feline ambassadors Halo, because it’s great for sensitive tummies.
Need a healthier cat food? Try one of these!
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Want to save on your monthly cat food costs? Purchase your cat food online and you’ll not only get the best pricing, but many retailers will even give you 5-10% off every purchase for signing up for auto-ship! However, our favorite vendor Chewy will also give you 30% off your first auto-ship order.
Meow Mix Nutritional Breakdown
In most cases, the ingredients don’t give the full picture, and you’re going to want to dive a little deeper into the nutritional breakdown for a food. The right balance of nutrients is also important, and you should make sure that your cat’s food offers the correct ration of fat, protein and carbohydrates.
Is Meow Mix good for cats?
Below you can see a pie chart that breaks down the nutritionally information for this food. While different recipes for the same brand will differ slightly, in most cases, manufacturers stick to similar nutritional profiles for all flavors in their line up.
That makes this a pretty good indicator of what you can expect from the brand as a whole. So, let’s see what Meow Mix has to offer our feline friends!
Is Meow Mix a good cat food nutritionally?
Above you can see the nutritional ratio for this particular food. Immediately we can see that the carbohydrate count is far too high. This is honestly not a surprise, we’ve already established that this food is mostly made of corn!
Cats need meat, not carbs, and cats who eat too many carbohydrates often become obese, which leads to a lot of health problems down the line. We prefer significantly less carbs in our dry foods, and preferably close to none in our wet foods.
The protein count looks decent at first glance, but the truth is that most of that protein is likely coming from plant sources based on the ingredients, which is not good. It’s important to verify protein source for cat foods, and if there’s too many plant ingredients far up the list, then it’s easy to tell that you’re being ripped off nutritionally.
Fat content is also a little higher than we’d like, and if your cat is not very active then you can likely expect them to gain weight on this food, which is essentially junk food for cats.
Has Meow Mix ever been recalled?
No, Meow Mix has not experienced any recalls. However, their parent company, JM Smuckers, which also owns popular dog food brands such as Old Roy, Kibbles n Bits, and Gravy Train was found to have traces of euthanasia drugs in several of their dog foods.
Complaints about Meow Mix
A number of consumers have cited serious health problems for cats that had been switched to Meow Mix. The complaints included symptoms like lethargy and bloody stools. Some animals were also hospitalized.
Other pet parents have also claimed to have received bags of food or treats which were full of mold, so a quality control issue could be to blame.
While there’s no conclusive evidence that the food is to blame for the sick cats, there are so many complaints of this nature against Meow Mix that it’s hard not to be suspect of their offerings.
Some consumers have noticed a difference in appearance for these batches, but it’s currently unclear if there has been any changes to the formula or contamination, and no recalls for Meow Mix have been issued as of writing.
In closing, Meow Mix is at the top of our list when it comes to bad cat food brands, and we would not recommend it to anyone. They use the worst ingredients possible, and their quality control seems questionable in many cases.
There are so many great cat food brands out there that there’s no reason to feed your fur babies this meat flavored cat cereal. It’s pure junk, and there are many other affordable brands out there which are much healthier choices. We can recommend these brands to you to help you out.
You should consider a great cat food as an investment in your cat’s future health that will help to maximize the years that you get to spend with them.
PS. If you need to save some cash on your monthly cat food bills, then Chewy will give you 5-10% off every time your order if you sign up for auto-ship. Plus, your first auto-ship order is eligible for 30% off!
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