Newton: Some of you may remember that Ashton mentioned the other day that we have been on a long dietary journey from kibble to canned food, and the nice folks at Nature’s Variety asked if we wanted to try their raw food, Instinct Raw Bites.
Nature’s Variety makes three formulas of raw frozen food: chicken, duck, and rabbit. We chose chicken and duck, since we big fans of poultry canned foods. We thought the transition would be easier that way.
The Instinct raw bites arrive frozen, so you get them from a store that sells them from a freezer and store them in your own freezer, right next to the ice cream.
Ashton: Hey, you didn’t tell me we get ice cream as part of this, too!
Newton: Not right now, Ashton. We’re talking about Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw Bites right now, not ice cream. The raw bites are about the size of kibbles. We compared them to the size of some of our old kibbles for comparison. This is nice because it’s a familiar form factor and doesn’t seem as foreign to us. They look like this when they are right out of the package:
Newton: When they’re right out of the package, I will sniff them, but won’t eat them because they’re frozen.
The instructions on the package say that you should thaw them for fifteen minutes, then they will be ready to eat. After 15 minutes, I will lick them, but the remaining ice crystals mean that I still won’t eat them. Ashton will try to eat them, but drops them back into the dish. Both of us found that you need to wait at least 30 minutes at room temperature for them to be thawed enough to eat.
Because it’s a raw food product, the recommendation from Nature’s Variety is taking away any uneaten food after 30 minutes, so that was cutting things pretty close, for recommended safety’s sake.
One of the things the head peep discovered during our test was that if she overslept even a little bit, she didn’t have 30 minutes to spare in the mornings. She quickly realized that she needed a backup plan so that she didn’t have hungry, angry cats!
In addition to making sure we had backup canned food in case of not having time to thaw, we tested something that Nature’s Variety doesn’t recommend at all: thawing of the food in the refrigerator before eating it. Like typical cats who don’t like playing by the rules, both Ashton and I loved it best that way. Pierre doesn’t accept new food readily, so he wasn’t convinced even with defrosted food, but we’ll continue to work on him.
Ashton: I’ll eat Pierre’s portion! Hey, are you going to finish that?
Newton: You better believe I am! I love Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw Bites, and they have made me a big fan of eating species-appropriate raw food!
Disclosure: We received our raw bites at no charge from Nature’s Variety. We also received a small fee to cover the time it takes to cover the time it takes to take photos and write the blog post. Receiving the product and fee did not influence anything we say. All posts on our blog reflect our unbiased opinions.
Whisppy says
We like that the raw was bite sized. The ones Mommy found locally so far have them in containers / patties so it takes a longer time to thaw. And she doesn’t like having to thaw a container just to get a portion then freeze it back.
What does Nature Variety mean “to take away uneaten food after 30 mins”? Do they mean to have it thrown away or put back in the freezer / fridge?
Sparkle says
My human brought home a small bag of these from the pet store not too long ago… oddly enough, I took to them faster than Binga and Boodie did. They thought my human was nuts when they first were served. I actually dug in! Of course, I shunned them later on, as is my wont.
Deztinee High says
Pawsum!! Meez so glad yous like yous new noms. They look purretty good tu me. 🙂
Luv ya’
Dezi
RedSetter says
This is really interesting. Obviously diet is big in my thoughts with Magic right now but I think I’d struggle with only allowing her and Red a 30min feeding window as they are grazers. They both eat wet food so if I see some of this or something similar I might give it a try, or more accurately buy it to offer to them! Thanks for sharing.
Ingrid King says
I’m not sure why Nature’s Variety wouldn’t recommend thawing these out in the refrigerator overnight. I’ve always done that with frozen raw food in all different forms, and it works great. You can even thaw out a couple of days’ worth of food ahead of time. After a while, it becomes routine, and feeding raw becomes as easy as opening a can – and so much healthier!
The Island Cats says
We tried one of the Nature Variety frozen raw foods in the past but didn’t like it. These raw bites look like they may be something different. We might need to give these a try.
Melissa & Truffles says
Truffles tried the Nature’s Variety raw treats and didn’t care for them. So glad you’re loving your new food, though!
Hannah and Lucy says
We don’t like food that is cold – we like room temperature.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
madi and mom says
yummy I love post about food!!
Mom says I live to eat…MOL
Hugs madi your bfff
Brian Frum says
That process sure doesn’t sound very practicle for us!
Marg says
We are with Brian on this. There are way too many of us to try to do all this thawing and make sure it all got eaten. But I am sure it is very healthy. Glad you all like them so much. Take care.
Oui Oui says
We don’t have a good track record with raw foods. None of us will touch it, not even the treat kinds. But we will eat the ice cream it’s next too! We like to have our breakfast warmed up in the microwave in the mornings. A nice warm meal is sweet!
Angel AbbyGrace says
That is a pawsome product, we may have to look into it and try it for ourselves.
Timmy Tomcat says
Dad tried us on raw back when Buddy was still a Ginormous 20+ pounds. We ree-fused. Since then he has given bits and more bits to us when he makes our Chick-Hen treats. Rumpy and Einstein will eat raw but not me.
Now I asked Dad bout the suggested times out and he says they are ridiculous. No bacteria will grow in a half hour let alone an hour. Also keeping these in your fridge is fine. Think about when your peeps last made burgers. Oh, gee, the burger sat in the fridge for a few hours better throw it away. Common sense rules.
I think I see these in our future so thanks much for the review!
Timmy
Kitty Cat Chronicles says
YUM YUM YUM those raw bites sound delicious!!!
Fraidy Cats! says
our Minnie eats the NV raw medallions and our mom thaws her day’s ration overnight. We haven’t tried the raw bites but our mom wants to cause it looks easier to portion out. Thanks for the review!
Pip, Smidgen, Minnie, HOllie
Cathy Keisha says
Good review. I don’t like food once it’s been in the frige so I don’t think I’d eat freezer food. The peeps have seen this food in ShopRite but find it’s too expensive and they don’t think I’m worth it.
Mark's Mews says
Sounds great! But we love our wet food.
Spitty the Kitty says
Huh. I dunno. I have always refused Human food in any form (hamburger, chick-hen, steak, shrimp, etc.) so I don’t know if I would eat that. I don’t really think so, but I might get the Human to buy a bag anyway, just so I can get excited and sniff it and then walk away, ha ha ha! I love that game!