When our previous kitty was sick, we tried feeding her all kinds of things to get her to eat, but Fancy Feast was strictly taboo. But, I have forgotten why.
Now we have a new kitty (who has not yet been properly introduced). She is fine, but needs to take some medicine which we mix with something yummy to get her to eat it. Well, I picked up some Fancy Feast and she gobbles it up without complaint.
Is there anything wrong with Fancy Feast? Am I putting our new kitty on the road to ________?
Actually, the “classic” style is one of the better cat foods that’s available in grocery stores, defined as being mostly meat. The chunked up ones have lots of filler, but generally “classic” varieties have meat as the first several ingredients and no corn.
I don’t have a problem with “meat by-products” - Cats eat the tail, bones, fur and all of a caught mouse; some bone meal and organ meat wont hurt em a bit.
My vet feeds her own kitties Fancy Feast. She can afford it; I can’t.
Just don’t put it in a Waterford crystal goblet unless the cat is a Persian.
I think also, feeding a cat purely wet food like Fancy Feast might promote poor dental health. It doesn’t give the abrasive, ‘cleaning’ action of crunchy, hard food. But if I think a mixture of wet and dry food is actually more ideal for cats than just pure wet or dry.
By ‘classic’, do you mean paté?
Paté is better for mixing crushed pills into, IME.
Plus wet food makes their poo unbelievably stinky.
Yes. Their pate style foods are currently branded “classic.”
Urinary issues? Some foods are formulated to be less conducive to causing … kidney stones IIRC 
but I could be wrong. Anyway, that’s the only reason I can think to exclude a particular type of food.
Fancy Feast is terrible and will murder your pet. Please buy the brand I sell, instead.
Wet vs. dry: I have heard multiple recommendations. For now, I believe the needle has swung in the direction of wet food. Aside from dental issues, it’s supposed to be “better.” I think some of each is probably best.
The counter-argument to that one is that cats don’t really chew all that much - their dentition isn’t designed for it. So the abrasive function gets only a limited play, one or two crunches and its gone. Plus dry particles can stick between teeth as well or better than wet particles.
Lately, as thelurkinghorror notes, wet food seems more in vogue due to issues of hydration primarily, but also some other arguments.
Please note - I’m not stating any of the above as fact as I’m not qualified to do so, simply noted their are differences of opinion floating out there.
I feed all wet due to urinary issues in one of mine ( crystal formation ) and ultra-premium because I can afford it, but note my last cat muddled through on an all-cheap, all-dry food regimen for 17 years.
(filling in the blank) “catastrophe?”
My last cat more or less lived off three cans of fancy feast salmon a day. Ate the dry food as a snack, too. And we grew him fresh grass in the solarium year round so he had roughage.
Some people have likened it to feeding a child an all McDonald’s diet, but he was in very good health up until very close to the end. So I’m not sure I buy it.
Catatonia?
Sounds like a cataclysm.
Well I’m glad I asked. The wet food has been used as a treat/trojan horse for her medicine. Mostly she eats dry food. I’m curious to see if more people think a combo is really best.
Our last kitty had kidney disease, which eventually took her out. Very sad. Anyway, my gf (the owner of that cat) simply forbade Fancy Feast. Maybe because it has too much protein?
And no, I’m not feeding it to her in Waterford crystal. I put it in a rather old ashtray that I keep around as a sort of trophy from quitting smoking years ago.
I have read that hydration isn’t the issue, protein is. Animal protein, to be precise. Cats are carnivores, not omnivores. They have evolved around eating fast, little furry animals, not corn or wheat. The only plants they eat are those that happen to be inside the digestive tract of the little furry mammals they consume. As Hello Again noted, cats eat the whole mouse and they have been doing this for as long as cats have existed.
The urinary tract problems and other health issues are a result of modern dry foods. Special versions of dry food are not the answer. Animal protein is the answer. Hence, wet canned food made out of animals.
This book discusses the dry versus wet cat food issues very decisively.
Too much protein? What are the fast, little furry animals they have evolved to eat made out of? Remember, cats are meat eaters. They don’t eat veggies.
Wet food is a catalyst to an improved relationship between you and your kitty.
The problem ( sorta ) with that argument is a lot of cheap wet food use carb fillers like wheat and corn and you can find a few premium dry foods with decent ( on paper ) protein counts and ingredient lists. Of course one problem with the better stuff protein-wise is that higher dry protein count can also drive greater dehydration.
The issue with hydration is supposedly the domestic cat’s wild ancestors/relatives are not big drinkers. So while some domestic cats will happily lap up all the moisture they need, others are less prone to do so. Among other things in male cats in particular ( with their ‘narrow urethras’ to quote Hank Hill 
) this can exacerbate any tendencies towards struvite formation and urinary blockages.
But again, I’d hesitate to claim any of the above as gospel. You can find every opinion under the sun espoused by one online vet or another.