Blue Buffalo Tastefuls Flaked Wet Cat Food Variety Pack, Made with Natural Ingredients, Tuna, Chicken, Fish & Shrimp, 5.5-oz Cans (24 Count, 8 of Each)

Better for kitty than many others!
I’m a wildlife biologist, so I spend a lot of time thinking about what animals eat—and that includes my cat. I’ve seen firsthand how poor nutrition affects long-term health and, unfortunately, a lot of cat foods contain fillers and/or artificial flavors (lookin’ at you, Fancy Feast).Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they must eat meat to survive. They rely on nutrients found only in animal tissue—like taurine, arachidonic acid, and preformed vitamin A—and can’t synthesize these on their own from plant sources.While they can digest small amounts of plant matter, it’s not nutritionally necessary and offers limited benefit. In the wild, any plant material they consume usually comes from the stomachs of their prey or as an incidental nibble (like grass).Their digestive systems are optimized for meat, not starch; because carbohydrates aren’t needed to meet their nutritional requirements, they have low levels of the enzyme that breaks down carbohydrates. Not all grains are evil, but they’re often used in cheaper pet foods as inexpensive fillers—to bulk up the food instead of using more meat.That can lead to weight gain, kidney trouble, blood sugar spikes, and food sensitivities. Fillers mean lower quality nutrition — grains don’t provide the amino acids cats need (like taurine), so foods that rely heavily on them are less nutritionally complete.I feed my kitty Blue Buffalo Tastefuls, which is a good balance of quality/nutrition and cost. It comes out to be about $1.44 per 5oz can, which isn’t bad if you take a look at what other brands cost for lower-quality food. It’s made with real meat products and doesn’t rely on cheap fillers like corn or soy.TL;DR:Blue Buffalo Tastefuls edges out brands like Friskies, 9Lives, Whiskas, Fancy Feast, Sheba, and Cat Chow because it’s made with real meat as the first ingredient—none of that mystery meat by-product business. It skips the artificial flavors and preservatives, and doesn’t bulk things out with cheap fillers like corn, wheat, or soy. Tastefuls is packed with protein and has a more natural ingredient list overall, which means better nutrition, healthier coats, and happier bellies. Plus, picky eaters tend to go nuts for it—without the upset stomach afterward.

Generally, a very good choice, but I had one big problem
I have been feeding my cats Blue Buffalo since shortly after the company was founded, and was once a demonstrator for the company. Since I began feeding Blue Buffalo, I have raised four cats into their twenties, one of them making it to within a few months of 29 years of age.I am a big fan of Blue Buffalo cat food products. I free-feed Blue Buffalo kibble, and that’s pretty much the only kibble that my cats receive, although I’ll occasionally buy another premium kibble just to give them some variety.However, my two cats split a can of wet food in the morning and, if they have eaten it, another one in the evening, and I rotate among a wide variety of premium canned foods because they pretty much insist on variety in canned foods.In several years, I have never had a problem with a can of Blue Buffalo wet food, that is, until this case. One can from the last case of food that I bought had gone very, very bad. I don’t know what had gone wrong with this can but when I opened the can, the room filled with the most disgusting stench I have come across in a long time. I dumped it into a bowl, and it came out as a liquid that smelled like a decaying body.It was really, really bad. I dumped the contents of it onto the grass at the far end of my backyard, and after double-bagging it within two plastic grocery bags, the empty cat food can still reeked so bad that I couldn’t deposit it in my trash can. I had to take it outside and hose it off for a while before bagging it up into a couple of other plastic grocery bags.Had this been the first time that I had ever tried Blue Buffalo cat food, I would never again purchase the product. I don’t know what might have gone wrong in the process, but this was gross.However, since I have been successfully feeding pretty much every recipe of Blue Buffalo cat food products to my cats for many years without ever before having such a problem, I can forgive it, although I do feel the need to mention it. Something went wrong here. Nevertheless, my cats were not in danger because there was no way that I would try to feed something that smelled this bad to my cats.So, I was out of just one can of food from a case of twelve, and I was subjected to a grueling olfactory experience, but no one died. I will continue to buy Blue Buffalo food because I believe that Blue Buffalo has added years to the lives of my cats, but I hope this never happens again. My overall experience with this food would be a solid five stars, but this one wasn’t good.I would like to say that I think the recipe was better before they changed it to Tastefuls. Although my cats will eat the Tastefuls, it seems that they preferred the earlier recipe. Although I am noticing no deleterious effects, I think they’d do well to return to the earlier recipe.

Good quality & larger cans are significant values!
Nutritious ingredients at economy price, for larger-size cans.Unsure why all 4 of my cats only eat few bites, then refuse to finish 1/2 can portions of any flavor?