The Good: Gollum genuinely seemed to enjoy it, Seems nutritious
The Bad: Comparatively expensive, Gollum was not absolutely taken with the taste, Not all natural.
The Basics: Purina Pro Plan Adult Seafood Stew Entree for cats is, at best, a good occasional treat for cats.
Gollum had a very good holiday. Gollum, as the only cat I now have, got spoiled by my wife and I, as well as my mother. As part of my ongoing commitment to pet owners, Gollum’s gifts, like the few things we picked up for Daisy and the many, many things we picked up for Myah, are the subject of forthcoming reviews as they experience them. The first gift that Gollum rendered an opinion on was the can of Purina Pro Plan Adult Seafood Stew In Sauce. This is the first food gift Gollum received for the holiday yesterday and . . . Gollum managed to surprise me.
Never before have I seen Gollum get a wet catfood and not devour the whole thing. Actually, that is not entirely true. Gollum tends to devour the entire wet canned food – even basic tuna fish – or avoid it all together, if he is just not interested or not hungry. So, when my wife presented Gollum with the Pro Plan Adult Seafood Stew Entrée, Gollum purred and cried until we opened the small can and then he surprised me. He began mowing down on the can of food and I figured Purina Pro Plan had yet another winner on its hands. However, when I came back into the room, I found the can half-full and much drier than it ought to have been.
Gollum ate half the can of stew, then licked off all of the remaining pieces of the stew in the can without trying to eat the rest. Considering that perhaps the can edge was just too rough for his little tongue, I removed the rest of the stew, placed it in his favorite food dish and brought him back to it. He sniffed at it, looked at me, meowed once and went about his business. He did not return to the stew again until he was hungry again.
This is significant because I have had to, traditionally, take larger cans of similar foods Gollum falls in love with away from him before he gorges himself on it. Given a can of plain, unstrained tuna fish, Gollum will eat all there is and throw up later, rather than share or leave anything in a can or his bowl. The fact that he did not so grossly or completely consume the Pro Plan Adult Seafood Stew Entrée In Sauce suggests that something in this stew did not grab my boy.
My wife picked up the Purina Pro Plan for Gollum using a free coupon she found online. Otherwise, the tiny 3 oz. can would have been $1.74! The Adult Seafood Stew Entree In Sauce opens up easily enough in the 3 oz. can. The small can has a pull-tab which easily lifts off (like old pudding containers used to) and it pulls the metal lid off as the can is perforated at the edges. Opening the can reveals the food inside. Adult Seafood Stew Entree looks like a dry catfood that has been soaked in a translucent broth long enough to bloat up into 3/8” chunks. These chunky meat bites are then packed into the can with a fluid that resembles gravy (or mucus, which might not seem palatable to us, but Gollum really loved) and they may be dispensed into a cat's food dish by either smacking it against the bottom of the dish or spooning the contents out into the dish. It is not recommended to have owners leave the food in the can to have the cat lick it out as the edge of the can may still be sharp enough to hurt a cat's tongue.
As for the Adult Seafood Stew Entree itself, the catfood smell very much like fish. It smells slightly like crab and when the can was open, Gollum came running for it. This particular catfood has two types of chunks in it. There are light tan fish chunks and dark red chunks that Gollum ate with equal vigor.
The Adult Seafood Stew Entree is made with real seafood and Pro Plan does that quite well. The primary ingredients are water, ocean fish and wheat gluten, though there are other meats and meat by-products before the ingredient list becomes a complicated series of preservatives. According to the guaranteed analysis on the can, there is a minimum of 10% crude protein and 2.0% crude fat and no more than 1.5% crude fiber, 3% ash, and 80% moisture. There seem to be plenty of nutrients like calcium present in the food, which makes sense when one considers there are actual animal by-products in this food. This is not wheat-free.
The recommended serving size is two and a half (2.9 oz.) cans per day, but I cannot honestly see giving Gollum this outside as an occasional treat. Despite loving the occasional fish dinner, Gollum still prefers hard catfood. Hard catfood also has clear dental benefits that the Adult Seafood Stew Entree does not have. When the cats chew (to split into bite-sized pieces) their hard catfood, it scrapes plaque and tartar off their teeth. There is no such physical operation going on with this catfood. Gollum's mouth smelled like fish for hours after each serving of this food.
Finally, the 3 oz. container is the least efficient and environmentally sound way to purchase this catfood. In addition to being the most proportionately expensive way (buying by the single can always is), the sheer amount of waste this generates in aluminum cans is stifling to anyone with an environmental conscience.
The result is a weak “recommend,” but more for a recommendation that cat owners do what we did. Use this as a supplementary treat, not a primary food. Purina Pro Plan has better and worse canned cat foods, which I am certain Gollum will enjoy exploring before we ever come back to this one.
For other cat treat products, please visit my reviews of:
Purina One SmartBlend Salmon And Tuna Cat Food
Pounce Moist Chicken Treats
Pro Pac Tempting Tidbits Tuna And Whitefish
5/10
For other pet product reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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