I would say that it is always worth the effort to get them to eat "better" food. IMO, Whiskas and co aren't "bad" foods - they to one level or another contain the nutrients a cat needs - but they are let down in quality because you don't know what you are feeding. They also often contain sugar and/or vegetable protein (a cheap way to bump up the protein content of a food). Some also contain an unspecified amount of unspecified cereals.

The thing with the labelling is that they loosely (but in line with regulation) specify that their food contains a certain amount of meat and by-products. Thing is, they don't say how much of each. By-products are cheap; a whole lot cheaper than meat and you have to ask yourself how it is that they can produce a tin of cat food for a little money if the cost also needs to include the processing, the company PR, the tin, the label as well as a healthy profit margin. So, when they talk about meat and by-products I think we can safely say that it will contain mostly by-products.

There is nothing in itself wrong with by-products but I would rather know what they mean by that and how much of that they put in in relation to meat. And better quality food manufacturers do that (or at least appear to; but even there you are still bombarded and bamboozled with PR). Their labelling of the ingredients is just so much more apparent. I am happy to pay that little bit extra for that.

Catch is though; all that "better" food is pate food. If she really doesn't like the texture and your set on getting her to eat some better food then perhaps start with mashing it up only a little bit and over time increasing the degree to which her food is mashed until it is like pate. If it takes weeks or months, so be it but the world of "better" cat food is your oyster when she does.



Edit: And then, of course, there is the world of raw food....

Thank you very much for that, very helpful indeed
I have considered going RAW with Furball but with her stubbornness and fussiny ways I am worried that I won't be able to get her to eat enough, it took me long enough to get her to eat a chicken wing

I think my best bet is to do as you say and start mashing her food to encourage her to eat pate food

Thank you very much for your help

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A pleasure and good luck! Let us know how you get on!