Whiskas Cat Food Review
It’s not surprising Whiskas cat food is so inappropriate for a cat when you realise it’s made by Mars, makers of unhealthy confectionary.
In our Whiskas cat food review you’ll find out exactly how Mars cunningly market this well known brand made with corn, wheat, and soybeans to millions of consumers and their poor carnivorous cats.
I have a favor to ask with this review. For the sake of our cats, if this review opens your eyes, then please share this page with any social media cat groups you’re a member of – thank you 🐾
Whiskas cat food review – Meaty Selections (dry)
What the marketing says
One think Whiskas are good at are cute TV commercials with beautiful healthy cats and kittens.
TV commercials don’t mean the product is good. All they do is get the word “Whiskas” in your brain so when you go to the store and see the brand you instantly recognise it, and buy it.
Whiskas Meaty Selections may sound meaty (it’s in the name, right!), but you’ll be surprised how much grain is in this dry food for carnivorous cats.
Meaty Selections, like most Whiskas cat food formulas, is for ADULT 1+ years. Most decent cat foods are for all life stages as they contain enough nutrients to support kitten stage through to old age.
It’s not the case with these Whiskas formulas though, and that’s because they barely meet the requirements for an adult cat. They don’t meet the requirements for a kitten.
In the next stage of this Whiskas review you find yourself asking this 👉 “How does Whiskas cat food even meet the requirements for an adult cat!?”
What the ingredients really say
I’ve listed the ingredients of Whiskas Meaty Selections dry cat food at the bottom of this review. These were copied straight from the Whiskas website, and you’ll note they’re all in UPPER CASE. This is common for a cheap and nasty food as it’s harder for the eye to read, and they don’t really want you reading it.
I’ve colored some of the nastiest ingredients in red so you can see how bad this cat food is.
We find a scary inclusion – BHA (or butylated hydroxy anisole). It’s considered a carcinogen, only found in bottom dollar pet foods.
There’s been studies which date back as far as 1974 which have shown BHA (and BHT) to increase the risk of cancer, cause liver enlargement, and hinder the rate of DNA synthesis and cell development. You can find out more in this document from the Center for Science in the Public Interest which states the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers BHA to be “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.”.
You’ll also find in this EFSA Journal a further concern from feeding BHA specifically to cats.
So why’s BHA in Whiskas? It’s used as an antioxidant to stop it going rank. There’s better choices, but they’re more costly.
If this Whiskas cat food review hasn’t put you off already, let’s take a look at the main ingredients in Meaty Selections. They’re not what you might think.
You’ll see poultry by-product meal listed first on the ingredients, but it’s very likely the next four ingredients are in the same or similar amount. These happen to be two inclusions of corn, combined with wheat and soybeans.
They don’t sound like good ingredients for a carnivore.
Let’s take a look at those “main ingredients” visually, as this may well be how they’re composed:
If you consider that chart, the most appropriate inclusion for a cat is poultry by-product meal. Do you know what “meal” is?
“Meal” is a rendered product, which means it’s a powder created from boiling up chicken bits in a big vat. In America this can be 4D meat, inclusive of dead, dying, diseased, or down. In other words, not very pleasant. Generally meals such as this are from parts of the chicken which can’t otherwise be sold, so often mostly carcass.
Carcass is high in phosphorous which can be harmful for a cat in excess, but in a food such as Whiskas it’s kept to a minimum simply from keeping the ingredient to a minimum. They do that by ramping up the grains like corn, wheat, and soybeans which are also in this cat food (and again not species-appropriate).
To offer a comparison with a real high end food, you won’t find meat meals or lots of grains in a cat food like Orijen.
You can argue chicken by-product meal is at least meat, but the wheat is more worrying. I’ve been involved with pet food since 2007 and I consider wheat to be one of the most problematic ingredients effecting cat health and premature death.
If your cat is itchy or scratchy with bad skin, then wheat will likely be the cause (same for dogs). I’m sure it’s also a leading cause of kidney failure as one of the biggest killers of cats worldwide, and this correlates with the amount of cat foods sold containing wheat, for carnivorous cats.
The 6th ingredient is an ambiguous animal fat. Ambiguous is never a good sign in cat foods as it’s an assurance of the cheapest possible option. Fat is 13% which at least is better than the Nestle cat food equivalent Friskies.
You may laugh at the 7th ingredient – natural chicken and turkey flavor. What do they mean by “natural”, and why is it just “flavor”? Isn’t it the real thing?
It definitely says “Meaty Selections” on the front of the bag, but “Grainy Selections” would likely be much more truthful.
Whiskas, in my honest and truthful opinion, is an absolutely terrible cat food.
Should I feed Whiskas to my cat?
To offer a summary of the worrying information above, I wouldn’t recommend feeding Whiskas to your cat. It’s not surprising Whiskas cat food has had so many complaints over the years, and I honestly can’t find any benefits to feeding this to your cat day after day after day.
Ask yourself this – Is Whiskas good for cats when you consider it’s made from corn, wheat, more corn, soybeans, and preserved with BHA as a potential carcinogen?
Us humans consume toxins in our diet, but unlike our pets our diets are varied. If you feed a cat a food with toxins continuously from one day to the next then you’ll run into problems. Toxins and carcinogens build up in the body.
If Whiskas makes your cat sick, it’s not surprising. If you feed something like this to your cat for a few years and they start showing signs of poor organ health, then it’s worth considering Whiskas as a root cause. The same applies to bad skin, scruffy coat, or obesity.
Whiskas may be cheap to buy, but the possible poor health down the track could prove costly in vets bills.
I wouldn’t feed Whiskas to my cat. I hope you don’t either.
What about Whiskas wet food?
Thankfully Whiskas wet foods don’t contain the laundry list of grains we find in the heavily processed kibble.
We do, however, find the use of starches such as tapioca which aren’t necessary for a carnivorous cat.
Just like Whiskas dry cat foods, we find the wet foods also use food colorings. They don’t tell you what, they just say “colour”. It makes you wonder what on Earth this might be, doesn’t it?
The ingredients of Whiskas wet foods don’t suggest quality. They don’t even list the vitamins and minerals individually, just yet another ambiguous labelling get-out-clause “Vitamins & Minerals”.
What about Whiskas High Protein dry cat food?
I’ll skirt over Whiskas Dry Cat Food High Protein in case anyone has read this far and may think this is the better option. I think it’s only available in Canada.
The first ingredient in the high protein recipe is chicken by-product meal, so you’d be excused for thinking this is the main ingredient.
In actual fact the 2nd and 3rd ingredients are both corn. This is a labelling trick known as splitting, and the reason they can put meat before corn. It’s more probably the corn outweighs the chicken by-products 2 to 1.
If that isn’t bad enough, Whiskas High Protein still contains the usual suspects of wheat, soybeans, rice, and even more wheat.
Does that sound optimal for a meat eating animal?
No sir.
Where to buy Whiskas cat food
Not that you would, but if you’ve learned something from this Whiskas cat food review then thank me by buying a better cat food through one of the links below (I’ll get a small commission which helps keep this resource up and running).
For the best prices why not order on Amazon.com?
Ingredients
Ingredients of Whiskas cat food (Meaty Selections):
POULTRY BY-PRODUCT MEAL (NATURAL SOURCE OF GLUCOSAMINE AND CHONDROITIN SULFATE), GROUND YELLOW CORN, GROUND WHEAT, CORN GLUTEN MEAL, SOYBEAN MEAL, ANIMAL FAT (PRESERVED WITH BHA and CITRIC ACID), NATURAL CHICKEN AND TURKEY FLAVOR, SALT, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, TAURINE, DL-METHIONINE, CHOLINE CHLORIDE, VITAMIN E SUPPLEMENT, ZINC SULFATE, BHA & CITRIC ACID (a preservative) YUCCA SCHIDIGERA EXTRACT, NIACIN, COPPER SULFATE, VITAMIN A SUPPLEMENT, VITAMIN B12 SUPPLEMENT, THIAMINE MONONITRATE (VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN SUPPLEMENT, MANGANESE SULFATE, D-CALCIUM PANTOTHENATE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), VITAMIN D3 SUPPLEMENT, FOLIC ACID, POTASSIUM IODIDE, BIOTIN
Guaranteed analysis
Guaranteed analysis of Whiskas cat food (Meaty Selections):
| Protein | (min) 35% |
| Fat | (min) 13% |
| Crude Fibre | (max) 4% |
| Carbohydrates * | Estimated 34%. |
I hope this Whiskas cat food review has opened your eyes to what’s in this terrible Mars brand allegedly for a carnivore. Please help us and other cat owners by sharing this review with any social media cat food communities you’re a member of – thank you.
