# Gourmet Perle Food is for Kittens to???



## agnes-savannah (Nov 16, 2010)

Hi
I have one quick question because I don't know this brand can anybody tell me can I buy this Gourmet Perle cat food for my 9 weeks kitten?

Thank you
Agnes


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## Lulu's owner (May 1, 2009)

agnes-savannah said:


> Hi
> I have one quick question because I don't know this brand can anybody tell me can I buy this Gourmet Perle cat food for my 9 weeks kitten?
> 
> Thank you
> Agnes


Plenty of people will tell you that they wouldn't feed Gourmet Perle to any cat and can recommend much better quality stuff but regarding your question, I think "kitten food" is basically a marketing ploy, to sell food at a higher price than they could otherwise get away with.

Having said that, I know that lots of cats do love Gourmet Perle.


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## hobbs2004 (Mar 12, 2010)

Lulu's owner said:


> Plenty of people will tell you that they wouldn't feed Gourmet Perle to any cat and can recommend much better quality stuff but regarding your question, I think "kitten food" is basically a marketing ploy, to sell food at a higher price than they could otherwise get away with.
> 
> Having said that, I know that lots of cats do love Gourmet Perle.


Can only second what Lulu's owner has already said


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## Lulu's owner (May 1, 2009)

hobbs2004 said:


> Can only second what Lulu's owner has already said


Did I mention any names???


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## hobbs2004 (Mar 12, 2010)

Lulu's owner said:


> Did I mention any names???


Eh?????????????? You mentioned Gourmet Perle


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## jenny armour (Feb 28, 2010)

try telling my cats that, even though they are constantly hungry with it


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## dougal22 (Jun 18, 2010)

jenny armour said:


> try telling my cats that, even though they are constantly hungry with it


They would be hungry because it's full of stuff cats don't need! Equivalent to us eating McDonalds everyday 

Hi Agnes, welcome to P/F, if you haven't looked already, check out the A-Z guides of wet and dry food in this section. You'll find some great food, probably much cheaper than Gourmet too


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## jae12 (Nov 5, 2010)

Hi,

After getting more help from Hobbs I placed an order with zooplus this week for a few different brands. I've found it's no more to pay than the foil pate I was getting from lidl. 

I decided to buy a few tins of Smilla,Animonda Carny,Grau and a small bag of dried ORIJEN. Someone local also kindly dropped of a can of animonda for me to (or rather my cats to sample) well they loved it and I have to say that it must be more filling as they seem to be eating slightly less. 

Even though they are 10 weeks old I ordered normal adult found as all the info I've found suggests that adult food is fine. I guess if in the wild they wouldn't have a different menu to Mum.


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## jenny armour (Feb 28, 2010)

fortunately its not their only diet. how do you know that it is the equivalent of macdonalds?


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## hobbs2004 (Mar 12, 2010)

jenny armour said:


> fortunately its not their only diet. how do you know that it is the equivalent of macdonalds?


Granted, the analogy with fast food is not quite correct.

1) Gourmet perle is a complete cat food, so needs to contain all the nutrients your cat needs to maintain his/her health. (As an aside, interestingly though, there are only European and US guidelines as to what level of nutrients should be included, no concrete directives). However, if Gourmet Perle were a complimentary (i.e. treat) food, then the fast food analogy could be quite fitting as neither provides a balanced diet in the long term.

2) Also, while fast food tends to be quite fatty and calorific, the opposite is true with Gourmet Perle and quite a few other commercial foods that are easily picked up (most of which are of the complimentary ilk). They do not contain enough fat.

Contrary to human food advice, which tends to be to use low fat options, cats need fat. In order to have a good protein and fat balance, commercial wet food should contain about 5% fat. Gourmet Perle has half of that.

3) Gourmet Perle also contains various sugars. As said on other threads on here, manufacturers include sugar for a variety of reasons; one being appearance (makes the food shiny), others allegedly for palatability purposes (though cats cannot taste sweet things I believe). While the link between sugar and feline dental health is controversial, why feed something that is not needed in their diet (like huge amounts of grains) which might or might not have any negative effects.

Here is why I think other foods are better.

A) there are other foods on the market that are better declared in terms of the meat content and the types of meat and meat byproducts that go in them.

With the Gourmet/Whiskas/Felix etc type foods they only declare the obligatory 4% of the flavour meat but you have got no idea what other meats and meat byproducts they put in. And how much more.

B) they also tend to contain a lot of jelly/gravy. For example, Whiskas in jelly contains 48% meat chunks, the rest is jelly. Now that is a lot of money to pay for what is essentially filler. Incidentally, that also goes for Bozita jelly tetrapacks and toplife.

C) they are expensive for what they are (Perle for example is about £1.23 a day compared with foods that have a higher meat content, such as Animonda, Grau, etc, which are less than £1).

True, they are easily available in supermarkets but better and cheaper foods can be found with a little searching, either online (a few of online retailers offer a good selection, with zooplus at the helm) or in independent pet shops, who are often willing to order stuff in for you.

Don't be led by the price of the product. But always check the price against the feeding recommendations. Whiskas, Felix and the like appear to be cheaper. But since you need to feed more of it, they are less economical than foods that may appear to be more expensive initially but that you need to feed less of.

So, if I were to look for food for my cats I would scrutinise the label as well as the manufacturer's website, which often contains more info re the types of meat and byproducts that go in (or take the short cut and look at the A-Zs ). I would also choose pate food, which tends to contain more meat/byproducts and less jelly. Within that I would look for foods that declare meat as the first ingredients followed by various offal. And I would choose complete foods that have a high protein and high fat content (5%).

Hope that helps and makes it all clearer.


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## agnes-savannah (Nov 16, 2010)

Thanks guys for all answers!!!!!!

The truth is that I'm new in all of this, this is my first ever cat  Thank you *hobbs2004* for great post.
Now I know what I should looking for


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## dougal22 (Jun 18, 2010)

jenny armour said:


> fortunately its not their only diet. how do you know that it is the equivalent of macdonalds?


McDonalds = figure of speech. Hobbs has kindly answered your question in depth. Thanks Hobbs


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## Lokiandhela (2 mo ago)

agnes-savannah said:


> Hi
> I have one quick question because I don't know this brand can anybody tell me can I buy this Gourmet Perle cat food for my 9 weeks kitten?
> 
> Thank you
> Agnes


Hi. Don't give gourmet perle to your kitten...I gave my cat a bad belly doing that and he was 5 months. Every cat is different I'm aware....but I'd say no.


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## Bertie'sMum (Mar 27, 2017)

This topic was originally started in 2010 - so is 12 years old !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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