For those of you who have questions,
Thank you for reaching out to our team, as your feedback is very important to us.
For over 80 years, the Evanger's family tradition of sourcing and creating foods that focus solely on premium nutrition remains both our unwavering mission and our personal passion for nutrition, education and quality. The entire line of Evanger's foods promote and include high meat content, including a full range of meat-focused, yet grain and gluten free, canned diets for cats.
In the US alone, 50% of our pet population is overweight. Just like in humans, when a pet is carrying around excess weight, this can lead to many other health issues, many of which are preventable.
Diet matters.
We have an on-staff nutritionist to help direct our efforts, and we want to clarify our email communications.
Cats are obligate carnivores, so our Vegetarian canned food has never been intended to be any pet's only food source, especially cats.
Our nutrionist typically only recommends Vegetarian for older cats that might not have ready access to natural grass as a digestive aid. In addition, the additional fiber appeals to some cats, as this supplemental vegetarian food can either be fed separately or mixed into food.
Animal proteins are number one for cats Some Veterinarians recommend more plant fiber in some cases for cats, as this is a very nutrient dense way to comply with this directive. Canned foods, in general, mean plenty of moisture is present, which helps make them more effective.
Even though its use is very limited for cats, Evanger's Vegetarian added the "daily recommended vitamins and minerals for cats in all life stages," based on compliance requirements.
Again, we thank you for your questions and your continued partnership. We welcome any opportunity to serve you and offer your pet the best nutrition from the best sourced USA ingredients on the market today.
Sincerely,
The Evangers Team
Most likely this response will be seen by few to none. So your clarification is still safely hidden from the public. Your marketing tactics for this product are irresponsible and demonstrate your lack of interest as a company in the actual health of cats.Clearly you rely primarily on your dog food clients for the bulk of your sales. Otherwise, you would have made this clarification on your website one the page where this product is being shown off and sold and you would ask distributors to do the same.
ReplyDeleteI believe the "complete balanced dinner" on the label is incongruous with what you state in your blog post - that this is a supplemental meal, not meant to be a complete regular meal for cats.
ReplyDeleteHave you clarified this on your website? Most casual consumers don't know you have a blog. I also wonder if you let your distributors know so they can clarify it on their sites. For cats, eating vegetables can lead to a whole host of medical problems too like having kidneys that have to work twice as hard to process it. Cats also need Vitamin D3—not D2 which is plant-based and cannot be processed by cats.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt that everyone would have an opinion about this topic but the fact is that there are numerous reasons why an animal would benefit from a vegetarian diet. Dogs with colitis for example. Ive had a customer call the other day that their dogs blood work showed the dog was allergic to every animal protein. A vegetarian diet works great to add fiber to ones diet and to reduce the fat intake. There are so many reason apart from ethical treatment of animals so when formulating this food we wanted to make sure that if someone were to feed it, that it would be as best as it can be. It is a complete and balanced diet under AAFCO regulations. We also have to comply with AAFCO labeling laws, which is why the wording, font, size of characters are what they are.
ReplyDeleteIn this formula, we use extra sweet, GMO-free Beauregard sweet that we get fresh direct from the farmer. We also include egg and non-Chinese taurine along with chelated minerals in this formula. The goal was to make it complete as possible for our animals.
Compared to the alternative vegetarian or even vegan formulas on the market for pets, we feel this formula is far superior and hope that as a responsible pet owner, if you wish to feed, that your pet enjoys it.
Emily,
DeleteWith all due respect, the concerns and comments about the Evanger's Vegetarian Complete and Balanced Dinner are about the dangers of a vegetarian diet as it pertains to CATS, not dogs. Please do not lump cats in with dogs. Their nutritional requirements for survival are not the same. To claim they are is as irresponsible as it is to suggest there's nothing wrong with a pet food that's labeled as a complete and balanced vegetarian dinner Vegetarian for cats.
Emily, I respectfully disagree with your response. Dogs' and cats' nutritional needs are very different, and it isn't appropriate to compare them they way you do in your response.
DeleteIt seems to me like you are saying "If other companies are making vegetarian and vegan diets for cats, then we should, too. Let's make sure ours is the best." The fact of the matter is, cats cannot eat a vegetarian diet and survive. As Evanger's notes in this blog post, cats are obligate carnivores.
I believe marketing the food in the way that you are is both misleading and irresponsible. You don't need to label the food a complete dinner. You could call it an appetizer or a side dish. Fancy Feast, for instance, has some meat-based appetizers that they do not call complete dinners.
I can only hope that you will change the way you are labeling and marketing this food.
Emily,
DeleteThis isn't about opinion. It's about science.
It's especially alarming to me see that not only is Evanger's doubling down on insisting on the appropriateness this vegetarian food for cats, you're now highlighting that your in-house nutritionist recommends this food for senior cats. As cats pass middle age (when they are most likely to become overweight) and enter their senior years they have an increased maintenance energy requirement, so they need additional protein, not less. A 12 year old cat only digests about 75% of the protein they ingest, and the percentage goes down as the cat ages further. Geriatric cats who don't get enough digestible protein or the cat will consume his own muscle tissue in an attempt to get enough protein, causing the typical "skinny old cat" look with which we are all familiar. Skinny old cats have muscle wasting because their diet isn't meeting their escalating need for more protein. This is why telling consumers that vegetarian food with poorly-digestible protein is especially appropriate for senior cats is especially irresponsible.
I understand that you're currently on the defensive because you're suddenly a lot of voices concerned about the way you're presenting this food as a vegetarian diet for cats. The way to deflect that is not to say that it's especially recommended for the group of cats for whom it's the least appropriate of all. Please reconsider the marketing positioning of this product for the health and well-being of the cats who will be placed exclusively on this diet by some consumers as long as you market it as cat food.
This post is tagged with the label for fat dogs, but not the one for vegetarian cat food. Someone searching for information on vegetarian cat food will not find this post.
ReplyDeleteFrom what you are saying this should only be given as an occasional treat as it doesn't meet a Cats need for Meat. Unfortunately I am afraid many pet owners might get the idea they could feed this exclusively from the labeling on the can.
ReplyDeleteThis is the perfect blog for anyone who wants to know about this topic. The article is nice and it’s pleasant to read. I have known very important things over here. Thank you so much for this post.
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