Product Review: Meow Mix Market Select with Real Salmon and Crab Meat in Sauce

So what do you do when you're out of Mice Krispies? Go out to the store and find Meow Mix Market Select with Real Salmon and Crab Sauce.

Now our cats seem to get quite "crabby" with all the different wet foods I've tried. I always shop for foods such as NutraMax, ProPlan, or Authority brands that are some of the only wet foods I've ever found without meat or chicken by-products.

Why don't I buy foods with by-products?
Now, for the squeamish, pass over these parts. AAFCO (the Association of American Feed Control Officials) develops and implements laws, regulations, standards and enforcement policies for regulating the manufacture, distribution and sale of animal feeds.

On About.com, I checked and found that they listed the AAFCO standards/definitions for Meat and poultry by-products:

Meat By-Products are parts of slaughtered animals, not including meat (please note: no muscle meat included). Included are lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, partially defatted low-temperature fatty tissue, and stomach and intestines freed of their contents.

Poultry by-products: Consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.

Feel better about what you're giving to your cats? I feel like if I feed my cats those by-products the local claw enforcement will come and they will scream from outside my house, 'OK, this is the cat police! You're the purrpatrator whom we understand has been serving sub par food to your masters. Put your hands up and kick the offending cans of food out in front of you!"

I don't want that to happen so I stopped giving my cats wet food since whenever I fed them ProPlan, NutraMax, or Authority, they acted like finicky Morris the Cat and took a bite, and walked away. I've calculated that I've discarded $2,475.46 (not including 5% Virginia state sales tax) of uneaten wet cat food. O.K., that's an exaggeration. But it SEEMS like it.

Well, a while back in PetsMart I saw Meow Mix with Real Salmon and Crab Meat. It was on sale for 40 cents (regularly 45 cents) for a 2.75 oz cup. I looked at the ingredients. PUURRFECT!!! No by-products!!! The web site doesn't list the ingredients for me to cut and paste and I really don't want to type each ingredient, but here's the list of the first few: Tuna, Fish broth, Sardine, Salmon, Crab, Natural Flavor, Vegetable Oil, Tricalcium Phosphate, Guar Gum, and Tuna Liver.

I need a magnifying glass (which I don't have) to read this label so I hope I get paid a lot on this review to pay for the repair to my eye sight for trying to read this for YOUR benefit: Guaranteed Analysis: Crude protein (min.) 12%; Crude fat (min) 1.8% Crude Fiber (Max.) 1.5%, Moisture (max.) 82%, Ash (max.) 3.0%; Taurine (min.) 0.05%

Now, it's funny that right after I fed our two cats this food, they devoured it! I mean there was nothing left within 5 minutes. A new record. I wasn't sure if it was because they just didn't like the dry food and were SOOOO hungry that they didn't care what they ate, but I found out later that they're smart cats. I looked under their little cat pillow. There was the latest issue of Good Mousekeeping with that brand and flavor highlighted as the top choice in a survey of 1,276 cats. See, my cats know good stuff. The only other flavor I have tried is the Real Tuna & Whole Shrimp in Sauce. The survey showed that came in second place as it has in my household. I know my cats didn't send in a survey on this because we're just trying this out but I know if the survey is held again they'll send it in with this as their top choice in wet cat food.

Our cats no longer seem in a bad mewd and there are no hissy fits. Last night after dinner George (our brown tabby) and Dora the Explorer (our tuxedo cat) sat on our laps and watched their favorite movie: The Sound of Mewsic.