<spip cat food experience>

I'm glad that you've found what works for your cats :)

Here's my experience (which spans about 20 years):

My first kitty was fed grocery store food.  Nine Lives dry free-fed and a
small can of wet food twice a day.  The wet was either Fancy Feast or Nine
Lives.  Her coat was usually dry, her teeth needed cleaning fairly
regularly, and she was euthanized at 7 due to acute kidney failure.

After that, we had several cats which were fed petsmart food--Nature's Best,
Nutro, Eukanuba, Iams, Science Diet, etc.  They had okay coats, large and
smelly stools, and teeth that needed cleaning.  We still believed in
indoor/outdoor cats then, and these kitties dissapeared before they got very
old.

For the past 10 years or so, I've always fed ultra-premium.  That includes
California Naturals, Wellness, Innova and Felidae.  I had a dog that had
MANY allergies, and did very well on Cal Nat, but couldn't tollerate
Innova--so I thought Cal Nat was the best, and fed that to my dogs and cats.
They looked good, but one cat, Celia, always had a greasy coat with mats.
When I brought all of my animals to my mother's house, I noticed Celia's
coat lost the grease and the mats.  Mom fed Innova.

Since then, I've been a big believer in Innova.  All the animals improved
when I switched to Innova.  I have cats from 8-2 that have fabulous coats,
perfect teeth, no ear problems, great muscle tone.  My vets always comment
on how great they look, and are surprised that the older cats don't even
look close to needing dentals.

Now, with Ginger's CRF bloodwork, I have Royal Canin Mature 27 in one
feeder, Innova lite in one feeder, and regular Innova in a third feeder.  I
also have Hill's z/d out for my IBD cat, but she seems to prefer the regular
Innova and doesn't have IBD episodes when she eats it.  (The dogs all eat
regular Innova dog food.)

Ginger, lest you think her issues are because of the food, is one weird cat.
I truly believe that she's highly inbred.  She has quite a few issues--I
don't think she can see all that well, she has oddly shaped front legs, an
oddly shaped head, she's missing teeth, and her kidneys are about half
normal size.  Perhaps I should have been feeding her a low protein/low phos
food since she was a kitten, but no vet had mentioned the small kidney size
until now.  Since she's been eating the Royal Canin, and we started her on
sub-q fluids, she's been acting much better, so hopefully we're going in the
right direction regarding her labs. :)

So, that's my experience with cat food. :)

Corey