Introduction
This is a review by Dorothy Wandruff of Nature’s Variety Instinct Frozen Raw Food for cats. Personally, I was attracted to it. The concept appealed to me. I feel there is a need for cat food that is more like the cat food of wild cats and less artificial. It should be better for a cat’s health if it is a more natural food….
Michael
Dorothy’s Experience with Nature’s Variety Instinct Frozen Raw Food
….I read the ingredients and it all looked fine and delicious. Even with the busy weekend ahead, I placed a few of the nuggets in various cat bowls, wrapped them well and put them in the fridge to thaw overnight.
It was an adventure trying to get the cats to like it! I started by putting only the thawed nuggets down, and no other food. Marvin was the only one to even give it a lick, and I think he was just being polite. He never really ate any. Nor did any of the cats. Daisy the dog however, loves it!
To be fair, I have tried many premium canned cat foods that have been manufactured in what they describe as human-grade food product for cats. For whatever reason, the cats are not interested. I think it has something to do with smell. The only quality brand I’ve found that they do like is Weruva. Of course they love friskies too, which certainly smells awful, but I prefer not to feed it to them. So many cereals, grains and animal by products they just don’t need. I had high expectations for this brand, but they did not go for it.
Perhaps if it was raw mouse! Or maybe even the chicken version? If you would like me to try that too I’m happy to order it up. I’m sure Daisy will eat it if the cats don’t.
Here are a few more pictures of the study:

Short Video
Michael’s Conclusions
Disappointment. But not surprised. It seems that theory does not translate into practice. This food should be attractive to cats as it is designed to be natural and high quality.
I wonder whether the fact that it is frozen and then thawed is a factor? Perhaps not. Even a freshly killed mouse would probably be ignored. It is probably more about cats being used to the usual commercially manufactured cat food.
You can see from the packaging that it arrived frozen. This seems amazing to me. Is it viable to send out frozen food in the post? Is it going to thaw out partially? Will that have an influence on palatability?
I feed the rabbit raw medallions from Instinct and my two cats love it. I had to mix it with their regular wet food first, though, to get them used to the taste. They have been on dry and wet food for over 10 years so raw food was a new concept to them. They did eat it after it was mixed with the wet food and then started eating it raw. Now they love it and their health is so much better, too. I stopped feeding them the raw (the store that supplies it is far away) and their coats started looking rough again. They are back on it and I feel so much better!
He is the sweetest boy ever. I adore Marvin. He keeps me smiling and laughing.
I agree. I still have a good three pounds, and this morning I mixed a thawed raw nugget with Weruva canned chicken. They did eat it. It would be an interesting experiment to slowly work towards just the raw. However, the bag says for cats and dogs, so I’m not sure it has all the necessary nutrients a cat needs. Maybe the dry food would supply enough. They all like to graze on kibble during the day. I give them a good quality grain free dry food. What do you think Michael?
Yes, you make a point I missed. Commercially produced cat food is highly palatable. Although it is just processed rubbish to form tasteless protein chunks there is plenty of taste and smell added. I suspect that plain raw food is not tasty or smelly enough. I am fairly sure that it would benefit cats if they could get used to it. It is a shame that the domestic cat has become distanced from his wild cat roots. One day domestic cats won’t know how to catch a mouse. They’ll be fat with small legs and long fur. Furballs.
I love that Marvin is polite – Red was polite too, he would always try something if I wanted him to, what a sweety 🙂