You may not remember Mars brand Advance causing the debilitating illness megaesophagus in Australian dogs as a result of mycotoxins in corn as a significant ingredient, but I do.
At a guess you learned two things from that first statement – how Advance has a record of harming Australian pets, and also how it’s one of the many brands of pet food from Mars.
After that saga several years ago the Advance cat and dog food recipes marginally improved, but the reverse seems to be true from 2024.
Let me summarise:
Your cat is a carnivore, right?
That means their diet should comprise of mostly animal – meat, organs, bones, guts. It sounds yucky to us, but this is the natural diet for your cat.
So, I ask you – why is Advance cat food made with wheat and corn?
Let’s discuss that fallacy of commercial dry cat food and more within this Advance cat food review:
Advance cat food review (dry)
What the marketing says
Now you know Advance cat food is made with ingredients such as wheat and corn, do you wonder why these aren’t mentioned on the front of the bag?
You’ll find the word Chicken in big bold letters, but look just below that and you’ll find the words “Derived from meats and grains” in regards to the protein content.
Given your cat’s digestive system is geared to digest protein from animal ingredients rather than grains, a good question to ask yourself is how much animal protein is in the food compared to grain protein?
To step into science for a moment, the ability to digest animal or plant matter is largely about coefficient of fermentation. In short, the short digestive system of a cat (and also a dog) means they are able to digest animal protein but not so much plant protein. We have longer, thicker digestive systems, which allows us to digest plant matter better, but a good thing to remember is animal matter is easier to digest.
Consider the words “super premium food for cats with select natural ingredients“, and “Expert Pet Nutrition“.
Did you know the words “super” and “premium” come with no guarantees?
They’re just marketing words to convince you you’re buying a wonderful product, and that’s it. There are no regulations which mean these words assure you of a high quality cat food.
As for “Expert Pet Nutrition”, note the small ™ which comes next. It’s a trademark, and again comes with no guarantees of a quality cat food. It’s a term which makes you believe the brand is credible.
Let’s take a look at the ingredients of this food for your pet carnivore, and I’ll let you decide if it’s right for your cat.
What the ingredients really say
Advance Pet Food is often highly recommended by professionals in the pet industry, and highly endorsed in breeder communities.
If you ask anyone who recommends Advance whether corn and wheat are good for cats, it’s likely they’ve never once considered this question.
Yet they’re recommending a dry processed food made from these ingredients. The reason for this is simple – we’re often utterly duped by marketing, and rarely think for ourselves.
There are three ingredients in the Advance Adult Chicken formula for cats aged 1-8, and these are meat, wheat, and corn. We’re not told percentages, and even though meat is listed first it doesn’t mean the wheat and corn aren’t in the same amount.
This could mean 66% (or two thirds) of the main ingredients are grains.
You may pick up on the “Chicken” actually being chicken or maybe turkey or perhaps duck, or some combination of these, but it’s a relative moot point – at least meat is what we should be feeding our cats.
Wheat is an ingredient I associate with budget pet foods, and one of the most problematic ingredients in terms of dietary intolerance and poor health in the long term. It comes as no surprise so many cats suffer urinary issues on dry processed kibble, although a marketing claim on the bag I didn’t mention earlier I do find surprising – “Urinary Tract Health”.
However, if your cat begins to suffer urinary issues in their middle age, your vet may recommend another brand of Mars cat food – Royal Canin – another dry moisture less kibble made with grains for your carnivore.
I ask you, would you feed wheat to your cat if it wasn’t baked into their kibble?
I thought not.
As for corn, as a high protein grain which is far cheaper than meat protein, it offers pet food manufacturers a way to really keep production costs down and profits up.
Corn is arguably better than high GI high carbohydrate grains like wheat, but wouldn’t you prefer your cat to get their protein from meat and avoid carbs from foods unnatural for them to eat?
I’ll round off the Advance cat food review by covering the remaining ingredients.
Fat is a requirement in cat food, and chicken fat is fine. Next we have another boost to the protein, sadly once again from cereals rather than animal ingredients.
Natural flavours is a cotton wool term which sounds better than chicken digest, the fatty liquid created from cooking chickens in a large vat. It’s in most dry cat foods, and I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
It’s nice to see whole egg, although as this is listed after salt consider it less than 1% of the formula. The same for fish oil, likely beneficial but not much of it.
Ambiguous antioxidants. Hmm.
Should you feed Advance to your cat?
If you’re set on feeding Advance cat food to your pet carnivore then I’m sure there are worse options.
You may be surprised how many “cat food” products seem to neglect the biology of the species they’re apparently designed for (or are they designed for profit rather than your cat?)
My best recommendation would be to not feed Advance cat food for the entire diet.
Perhaps feed Advance alongside other cat foods which have a larger emphasis on animal ingredients, such as raw, BARF, air-dried, freeze-dried, or even home made species appropriate meals?
Ingredients
The ingredients of Advance cat food (Adult Chicken formula):
Meat (Chicken &/Or Turkey &/Or Duck), Wheat, Corn, Chicken Fat, Cereal Protein, Natural Flavours (Chicken), Plant Fibre, Salt, Vitamins And Minerals, Whole Egg, Brewers Yeast, Amino Acids, Fructooligosaccharides, Fish Oil, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Antioxidants, Beta Carotene
Guaranteed Analysis
Guaranteed analysis of Advance cat food (Adult Chicken formula) are below.
Note: The previous formula had more protein (34%) and more fat (20%), and also listed moisture as 6.5% and ash as 9.5%. Taking into account the new percentages of protein and fat, this would give an estimate of carbohydrates to be 33%.
| Protein | (min) 32% |
| Fat | (min) 19% |
| Crude Fibre | (max) 1.6% |
| Carbohydrates * | 31% (estimated) |