When I’m shopping for food to give my cat, I’m always a little overwhelmed by the amount of pet food brands. The largest pet food company in the world is Mars Petcare, so I’m always seeing their food in the store as they own approximately more than 42 different pet food brands. One of those brands is Goodlife.
Goodlife currently sells food that is only made for cats. But did you know that when the brand was first established, it made food for cats and dogs? They ended up discontinuing its sales of dog food and now stick with only feeding cats. They claim to help cats live their life to the fullest by adding nutrient-filled ingredients that are high-quality and delicious.
The way this company portrays themselves to people is that that they are a brand that isn’t too expensive. Additionally, they say they can give your cat nourishing and wholesome food that helps enhance your cat’s life when they eat this food.
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What types of cat food does Goodlife offer?
Goodlife makes three different kinds of dry cat food. There are three promises Goodlife makes when talking about their cat food. Their three promises are listed below:
- This cat food doesn’t contain any wheat or soy in its ingredients.
- There are no preservatives found in the ingredients or any artificial flavorings
- Salmon or chicken are listed as the first ingredient included in the cat food
Even though these qualities seemed very appealing upon first reading them, the ingredients found in the recipes aren’t as nutritional as they may seem. The first ingredient they list is salmon or chicken, but what they aren’t saying is that these recipes actually use different plant ingredients and protein that are very high in carbs.
It is indeed true that these ingredients don’t have wheat or soy in them, but they aren’t free from grain. They’re fairly high in carbs as well. When Goodlife originally made this claim, they included that corn also wasn’t included in the ingredients. Unfortunately, this isn’t true as they recently searched for a low-cost protein source to include in their food and decided corn gluten meal was the best option to use for this.
To add on to this, as stated above, Goodlife says their ingredients are free of any preservatives or any flavors that are artificial. Something they happened to leave out though, is that their food has artificial colors. This is used in a lot of people’s everyday meals, so it’s totally fine for humans to consume. This isn’t the same for cats though. If artificial colors are ingested by cats, you may see them suffer from different types of health issues.
As a final point, dry food doesn’t contain the proper nutrients needed to keep cats healthy and hydrated. There aren’t any additional options Goodlife provides to help them with this hydration issue. Their food is made and handled in the state of Illinois.
Goodlife Brand Recipes
- Salmon
- Indoor
- Chicken
Goodlife Recall Information
From the information I’ve read, seen and had access to, it looks like there has never been a recall for this cat food.
Where can you buy Goodlife cat food?
Any larger stores that you normally find your cat food in will have Goodlife cat food available to you as it is available almost everywhere. You can also find it if you surf the web. I’ve seen it being sold on Chewy or on Amazon.
Customer Reviews of Goodlife cat food
Let’s check out different people’s varying opinions on this food by looking at a few different reviews about this popular brand.
I found 158 different customer reviews that were featured on Chewy. It ended up getting an average of 4.8 out of 5 stars. When it comes to how many people liked the product, 96% of people that reviewed it said they would recommend it to their friends or family. Below are the reviews of this product:
Positive Reviews
“After I switched my cats to this food, they don’t seem to get sick as often. Especially when it comes to vomiting. They definitely vomit a lot lesser. I recommend this brand to other pet owners now.” – George Rayson
“My cat’s favorite is the brown rice. It’s a healthy ingredient that they’re included and I really like that. The best thing? It’s so reasonably priced. Plus there’s not a lot of fillers.” – Wendy
Negative Reviews
“The only thing I don’t like is the artificial food coloring. Does pet food really need it? I would have preferred for them not to include it.” – Amanda
“Seemed to give my cat more diarrhea. However, I have heard of so many good reviews so I guess it depends on the specific cat.” – Randy
Goodlife Dry Cat Food, Real Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe Review
Top 5 Main Ingredients: Chicken, Brown Rice, Chicken By-Product Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Brewers Rice
Since chicken is listed as the first ingredient in a lot of Goodlife’s food recipes, chicken is of course listed at the top of this ingredient list as well. I did discover though that this chicken is at the top of the ingredient list because it’s the heaviest listed in this recipe. But, chicken that is fresh consists of water weight of 70% and isn’t normally a source of protein for animals. If we were to take this chicken after it’s processed and weigh it, it wouldn’t be listed as high up on the ingredient list.
Ingredient number two is brown rice. This contains more nutrients than white rice has, but it isn’t as important to a carnivorous cat. The third ingredient on the list is chicken by-product meal. This meal is rendered and made from by-products of chicken processing that is normally consumed by humans. It also has different foods that are nutritionally valuable and ingredients that are only minimally easy for cats to digest. These include the backs of chicken, their viscera and their feet.
A by-product of corn processing is corn gluten meal. This product is high in protein and very dense so it makes it popular for creators of animal products to use it in their foods as it isn’t very expensive at all. Though it contains protein, it’s plant protein and not animal protein, which is what cats actually really need in their diet since cats have a strong carnivore diet.
Next is brewer’s rice. This rice is a byproduct of rice processing. When it comes to nutrition, this rice is very equivalent to white rice. There are two animal ingredients that aren’t clearly specified. This is natural flavor and animal fat. They can both be taken from animals that are unknown but can be poultry, beef, sheep or pork.
To spruce up the food to make it visually appealing, artificial coloring is added to it. There are also tiny amounts of dried apples, tomato pomace, dried peas, dried cranberries, blueberry pomace, dried spinach, and dried sweet potatoes.
At the end of this list of ingredients is fish oil. It contains a lot of omega-3 fatty acids and can help your cat’s skin and coat remain healthy. The last ingredient is called yucca schidigera extract, This can help support your cat’s joints. It also helps reduce the intensity of fecal aroma that can be found in cats.
This food has 14.8% of crude fat, 26% carbohydrates and 38.5% crude protein. This food can cost you around 19 cents to 29 cents a day if you follow the 10lb cat feeding recommendations they list.
