A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Caren from Cat Chat with Caren and Cody. The folks at NomNomNow were looking for recommendations for a couple of bloggers that could review their premium cat food in exchange for some food. She thought I would be good for some reason. I don’t know why but I appreciate the confidence.

I told her I didn’t want to do it. I tend to be too honest and I didn’t want to be disappointed and have to give a bad review after getting free food. I did reconsider after reviewing their website and the ingredient list and committed only to talk to their rep.

So a few days later I spoke with Kevin. He was very nice and talked about the veterinary nutritionist that formulated the recipes and about how the food is made fresh and shipped overnight to your door. In addition, the quantity of food is based on the current weight of your pet and the ideal weight that you want your pet to be. I got the impression that it was a small operation staffed by people who really care about the health of my pets so I decided to give them a try.

I told Kevin about my cats and gave him the information about their weights. There is a pretty cool tool on their website that does the math and figures out portion size. If you have more than one pet the packages are numbered so you can tell which one is for which pet. They also sell food for dogs so you could probably order both at the same time but I am not sure about that.

As of now, they have five recipes for dogs and two for cats. I chose the
“Chicken Chow-Meow” because all my cats love chicken and I didn’t want to take a chance with the uncertainty of the “Flavorful Fish Feast.”

It should be noted that the way I feed my cats doesn’t fall into their carefully calculated meal plan. I usually give our cats one 5.5 ounces can of cat food and follow that 10 to 30 minutes later with about the same amount of homemade raw food. They seem to like the variety and I like them to have a variety. My feeling is that I can replace the canned food portion with the NomNomNow food.

I think the cost is similar to that of a high quality canned food but the ingredients are better. I compared their ingredients with that from a can of Earthborn Holistic Chicken Catcciatori, the canned food that is most common in our house.

Earthborn Holistic Chicken Catcciatori:

Chicken Broth, Chicken, Potatoes, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, Tricalcium Phosphate, Guar Gum, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Taurine, Magnesium Sulfate, Vitamin E Supplement, Zinc Oxide, Thiamine Mononitrate, Iron Proteinate, Niacin, Vitamin A Supplement, Sodium Selenite, Manganese Sulfate, Copper Proteinate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin Supplement, Folic Acid, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Potassium Iodide, Biotin.

NomNomNow Chicken Chow-Meow:

Chicken thigh, chicken breast, chicken liver, carrot, asparagus, spinach, cantaloupe, dicalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, salt, citric acid (natural preservative), taurine, choline bitartrate, zinc gluconate, ferrous sulfate, vitamin E supplement, copper gluconate, manganese gluconate, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), selenium yeast, riboflavin (vitamin B2), vitamin B12 supplement, cholecalciferol (source of vitamin D3), sodium iodide.

Since ingredients always start with the largest ingredient and end with the smallest, it is the first few that are most important. That being said, some chemicals can be unhealthy in small amounts so they should all be considered.

In the Earthborn food, the first five ingredients are Chicken Broth, Chicken, Potatoes, Sunflower Oil and Natural Flavors. Chicken broth is okay but I never saw a broth as the first ingredient before. I don’t consider potatoes to be a very healthy food for humans and less so for cats but it is number three on the list. Sunflower oil is not considered a healthy oil. Number five is “natural flavors.” When you see this on the list, be wary.  A natural flavor starts out natural before being sent to Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. Considering that Earthborn is a premium cat food, I don’t even want to know what is in Cat Chow.

The NomNomNow Chicken Chow-Meow has Chicken thigh, chicken breast, chicken liver, carrots and asparagus for the first five ingredients. It isn’t until the eighth ingredient that I found something I didn’t recognize, dicalcium phosphate. I looked that up and it is a calcium supplement, which is necessary because there are no bones in this formula.

The food arrived the other day while I was at work and my wife opened the box and put the food in the refrigerator.  I saw the empty box so I knew it was here but I didn’t have time to do anything with it because our cats are trained to expect food as soon as I get home and any delay results in a meow-fest. So I gave them a can of food and then took a shower.

When I got out of the shower I grabbed three bags of the food and placed them in warm water for a few minutes before scooping it onto their plates. I didn’t see any directions so I just winged it. I took a video of this so that the cats could do the review for me.

They all seemed to like it. Even Chris who I struggle with to get to eat wet food. Floki especially liked it but Chris and Frankie stopped before they finished. That was probably because I gave them too much. It didn’t look like there was much food in the bags but once I scooped it onto their plates I could see it was way too much considering they already ate some canned food.

Also included with the order was a flavor packet and a container of beef broth.

I saw the beef broth in the fridge but didn’t know what it was for until later when I found the instructions and the card with the flavor attached. Both are to help finicky eaters. I moved them to my desk to take the above photo and returned the broth to the fridge but left the flavor pack on the desk. You can guess what happened. The next morning I saw Frankie licking the desk. It was still too dark to see what he was licking but I felt something gritty so I turned a light on and saw this the torn up flavor packet on the floor.

Also included in the order was a sample of chicken jerky.

It was well received by our boys but our carnivores can be like little babies sometimes. I needed to break them up into smaller pieces to make it easier to eat.

We also received a sample of the Flavorful Fish Feast which our boys gobbled up.

As of now, it looks like I found a great replacement for our canned food but I still plan on also feeding them the homemade raw food as well. I think if I were to give any advice to the company I would recommend grinding the vegetables into smaller pieces so it is more difficult for the cats to avoid.

What do you think? Is this something you would be willing to try? If you are interested, click here for their website and more information. They have a special offer that gives you 50% off your first order. I am not compensated in any way for this post except for the food I already received.