We recently had the opportunity to try some of the new products from Nature’s Variety.
Pride by Instinct
The first one we sampled was the new Pride by Instinct line of grain free canned foods. These are in colorful cans, and each flavor has a whimsical character assigned to it. This seems kind of silly at first, but if you happen to have a member of your household who gets sent to the store for cat food and has a hard time remembering which one to purchase, the silly characters like the glasses-wearing diva cat on the Diva’s Duck flavor probably would help ensure the correct flavor comes home. These are the four flavors we tried:
Two of the flavors, rabbit and chicken, are “flaked” while rabbit and duck are “minced.” (All flavors come in both textures, and there are a few more available too. You can check out the full line at their site, if you’re curious.) These seemed to be similar consistency in the sense that both of them allowed pate-loving cats to eat the sauce first and then decide whether or not they were actually going to eat the bulk of the meal.
Newton!
The flaked texture seemed to be slightly larger pieces, as pictured below.
NEWTON! He is ready to give the food his seal of approval before it is even served.
Since Ashton’s calorie intake is still limited, we had the boys vote on these cans:
Starlet’s Salmon Recipe – Pierre: Paws up! Newton: Paws up! Pierre loves fishy foods and doesn’t get them often. It was clear that he thought this one, especially, was a real treat.
Champ’s Chicken Recipe – Pierre: Paws up! Newton: Paws up!
Diva’s Duck Recipe – Pierre: Paws down. Newton: Paws up! Pierre is a picky eater, so this isn’t surprising.
Ritzy’s Rabbit Recipe – Pierre: Paws down. Newton: Paws down. We haven’t ever had rabbit before, and at first we thought that was the cause. Looking more closely at the label, it turns out that this is really a pork-based food with some rabbit in it (top ingredients pork broth, rabbit, pork, pork liver). Pork isn’t a food that the boys are familiar with at all, so it’s understandable that they would have approached it with caution. .
We like that the recipes are grain free, and are happy that there is no carrageenan anywhere on the ingredient list, too. Although the foods are grain-free, they do have peas and spinach listed high enough on the ingredient lists to be less than ideal. Still, Pierre’s enthusiasm for the Starlet’s Salmon recipe when he hasn’t been eating very well recently is something we are pleased to discover.
Instinct Raw Freeze Dried Meal or Mixer
One of the new Nature’s Vareity products is a freeze-dried raw. We were really excited to try this because we are hoping that now that the transition from kibble to canned is complete to eventually make the transition from canned to raw.
The pieces of this freeze-dried food are roughly the same size and shape as kibble, so cats who are accustomed to kibble might be more likely to accept it than they would other raw. All three of us still think that kibble is addictive, and we took to this just like it was kibble.
It can be fed as a complete meal, or sprinkled on top of other food as an enhancer. Or, as Pierre quickly determined, it could be a tasty mid-day snack.
Pierre dove so enthusiastically into the bag of Instinct Raw that he actually got it stuck on his head and had to shake it off. Do not try this at home! Considering he hasn’t been eating well recently and has had us worried, this was exciting to see.
Also, since this food is so well-accepted all around, it seems like a really good gateway into raw feeding. This is an exciting discovery for the cats who mostly didn’t recognize a raw diet as real food the last time we tried it, and we hope it helps us work on the transition to a species-approriate raw diet.
FTC Disclosure: We received this sample food free from Nature’s Variety. All opinions expressed in this review and on this site are our own.
Great review, thank you ! Dry treats looks especially yummy ! Purrs
Binga and Boodie often eat many of the canned Nature’s Variety foods, and love them! I sometimes eat the freeze dried food and it’s pretty tasty too!
Thanks for the review! We’ve tried the treats and really liked them!
The Florida Furkids
That looks good. 🙂
Luv,
Angel Keisha
We’d have loved to have seen Pierre shaking his head to escape from that pouch.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
We’ve tried the Nature’s Variety Pride too…we like it…but not as much as some of our other foods. We haven’t tried the freeze dried food yet. That we will hafta do! Thanks for the review!
yummy food in shiny bowls. when you finish you can use them like a mirror!
HUGS MADI YOUR BFFF
I think Truffles might like to give this food a try…thanks for the fun review! Those cans are too cute 🙂
Looks like Newton loved the wet food!! Glad Pierre liked the raw stuff. 🙂
We might have to look into getting a few cans of this for Jewel. She is really picky about what she eats, and the vet just wants her to EAT – anything – to keep her weight up so she can fight the CRF. Do you happen to know where they are selling this brand?
oh! we like instinct food here. We use the raw for everyone and the canned for Rocky. It seems to be pretty good quality and we’re pleased it doesn’t have carageenan in it! – Crepes.
Good luck with your transition to the raw diet. I feed raw as well but didn’t have any trouble making the switch, so I don’t have any advice or help to offer in that department. But it sounds like you might have found the ticket with the Nature’s Variety!
A great review! We wonder if we’d like the freeze dried food. It’s not one of our favs. Carl is a sauce mancat and that is all he’d eat if he was allowed. We hope your mom had a good trip home!
Pierre you’re making a strong case for that freeze dried raw! MOL
That was a terrific review. We have tried some of that food and we just didn’t like it. Guess we are just too fussy. Who knows what is the matter with us. Have a great day.
Dat’s Pawsum!! Wees luv da fweeze dwied foods, and mommy’s always lookin’ fuw a healffy altewnative when it comes tu cans. 🙂
Luv and Hugs and Kitty kisses ♥♥♥
Dezi
Dang, you do make it sound mighty tasty!
Mowzers, Pierre. Now THAT’s a dive into your food! MOL!!
We are not big on ‘raw’ here…I turn my nose up anytime it is produced as my ‘next meal’…HAH! Maybe The Kid Sage will eat it…not me! Mom L just luvluvluv’d hanging with your Mom…she is already registered for Nashville 2015!!
Hmmm, we will mention this stuff ta TBT. He is allus on the lookout fer healthy wet canned foods with real bits (or bites). And while we prefer our foods either mouse (and we havent seen canned mice yet) or birdie, we dont have any good stuff that is “duck”.
Rabbit is one of our Minnie’s protein rotations but our mom has found it hard to find raw rabbit or rabbit stinky goodness that is all rabbit (how many times can we say rabbit in a sentence mol). The freeze dried raw looks good. Hey Pierre…we couldn’t tell for sure…did you like it? 😀
Pip, Smidgen, Minnie, Hollie
I was gonna say that I’d never had duck or rabbit and would like to try it but I’m a picky eater who prefers fishy stuff so I prolly wouldn’t touch it. Great review.
Sounds as if the kitties are cooperating and moving in the appropriate direction. XO, Lily Olivia. Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo