Catfood vs Dogfood

Being a bit of a science-fiction/comedy geek everyone’s favourite Jim is a big fan of Red Dwarf. So watching Red Dwarf Smeg Ups on VHS (yes they’re still around) Kryten was asked if Craig Charles actually ate dogfood in ‘Marooned’. The answer was negative “It was catfood”. Ever on the lookout for an excuse for science, JimmerUK set out to see if the right choice was made.

Something I found out during some ‘research’ for this, all meat is categorised by the quality of the carcasses used. Top grade is A, the worst is E. Pet food sits, somewhat unsurprisingly at D, but get this… McDonalds meat is category E. That could be an article in it’s own right.

This was all a bit of a giggle from the start. I I had the idea and it was funny. I told all my buddies, “I’m going to eat petfood” and they laughed. I bought the stuff, laughing like a loon, (the cashier at Sainsbury’s gave me a funny look, obviously not knowing I didn’t have pets). This was all a big joke… until I opened up the first tin.

Probably the most famous brand of catfood in the country if not the world, so it’s got to be the best, but is it the best tasting? A quick look at the label shows a happy, smiley, contented cat. The implication is he’s just yummed up a tin of this stuff, labeled as “Supermeat”, but quite what that means I don’t know.

I look at the ingredients.

Meat and animal derivates (including min 4% chicken), minerals.

Only 4% chicken?! Is this “Supermeat” really hard to get hold of then? 4% of anything does not maketh a meal, how they can get away with saying this has meat in is unbelievable.

So what’s the other 96%?

ANALYSIS (%): Protein 9.5 / Oil 3.5 / Ash 2 / Fibre 0.3 / Moisture 83 / Vitamin E 8mg/kg.

Hang on… ash?! There’s half as much ash in this catfood as there is meat! Shouldn’t they label this “Chicken & Ash Flavour”? And what’s this 83% “Moisture” nonsense. If something’s 83% water, it should never be described as “moisture” which hints at only a little bit of water. This catfood is a drink with bits in, more Cat-a-Cup-a-Soup than food.

Fuck it, if I read too much into this I’m never going to eat it.

This was my first time eating catfood, so I had nothing to compare it against, other than normal human food, so I have no idea what to expect. On first inspection, it didn’t look so bad, but it did have a distinctive smell. It was covered in a tonne of nasty looking jelly though.

Let’s eat it.

Holy crap! That’s bad. Cat’s certainly should know the difference, between this shit and real food.

Actually, on second thoughts it wasn’t as bad as I expected. It tasted like watery corned beef only with some little bits of crunchyness that I don’t know what the hell they were. Remember though, this was meant to be chicken. I like chicken, and was prepare to give the catfood another try, so I went in for another bite.

Admittedly it didn’t get any better, but it didn’t get any worse.

So we added the Felix Crisp Crunchy Topping which apparently comes with Tasty Meat.

The ingredients are not much different, 4% meat in each little “nugget” (cunningly shaped letters to spell FELIX), but the analysis shows there’s 9.5% ash. That’s more than double the meat! This should be labeled “With Disgusting Ash” instead of “with Tasty Meat”.

It certainly makes the food look better, adds a bit of colour, but whether it tastes any good is another matter.

Surprisingly, it’s better. A lot better. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t eat this for dinner, but it’s a lot better than the meat on it’s own, and it didn’t make me want to retch, (although the same couldn’t be said of Missus JimmerUK).

Now it’s time for the point of this so called experiment, the comparison… Dog food.

So what about some dog food eating fun…

Dogs eat absolutely anything. As a child I had a dog, and I distinctly remember one occasion when my little sister did a poo on the potty. Mum wasn’t swift enough to clean it away, but the dog was. He ran over there, took a sniff, and yummed up that kiddy turd like it was tasty chunk of juicy, fresh meat. Dogs also regularly lick their own testicles. So surely the guys at Pedigree Chum aren’t going to give too much of a shit about what the food tastes like. Let’s find out.

Pedigree – with chicken in Jelly.

A quick glance at the ingredients shows them to be pretty much identical to the catfood, minimum of 4% fresh meat with other ‘Meat and animal derivatives’. It does have more ash than the catfood (2.5%) but less moisture (only 80%), but it does have 5mg/kg of Copper Sulphate… why?

FUCKING HELL! Bleurgh!

Dog food is some nasty shit. Having eaten it, I don’t think I would even feed it to my dog, if I had one. I might even consider buying a dog just so he doesn’t have to be forced to eat this crap. It’s that bad.

This stuff was meant to be Chicken in Jelly, “made with fresh meat”. It wasn’t. This tasted like beef, but it was meant to be chicken for Christ’s sake! This was really bad. God awful, fucking bad. I went in for another mouthful, but couldn’t do it, I spat it right out. I’m not normally a sweary person, but fucking hell. I can now see why dogs lick their own bollocks, it’s to get rid of the taste of the dog food.

Next up are the Pedigree Milky Biscuits.

Supposedly “light and tasty” these “delicious milky bones” are less than 5% fat. Diet biscuits for dogs It’s meant to be “rich in calcium” but only contains 4%. What’s the technical definition of “rich”? If it’s 4% surely these biscuits are also rich in ash as they contain an alarming 14%.

Let’s have a bit.

Hmmmmm… interesting. These don’t actually have a taste (which is a relief after the supposedly delicious chunks of meaty goodness). They’re certainly not tasty in any way, shape, or form, more of a dry dough kind of deal. They don’t taste good, but they don’t taste bad.

So that’s pretty conclusive. Catfood tastes better than dogfood. Science at work. Catfood is offensive, and I shan’t be eating it again anytime soon, but if it was a choice between catfood, dogfood, and death… I’d eat the catfood. If it was dogfood and death, I’d rather die.

Surely there can’t be anything worse than dogfood. Is there? Maybe…

So what’s worse than dogfood?

Pot Noodle, and not just any old Pot Noodle, this is Sainsbury’s own brand Beef & Tomato. Let’s give it a go.

This is bad, bad, bad. I can now see why mad old ladies eat catfood instead of cheap shit like this. This just has no taste to it, it’s just water with ribbons of nothing, there is a bit of a smell however, but it’s not a good one, more like rancid tomatoes than beef and tomato.

To quote Red Dwarf:

LISTER: We’re going to die, aren’t we? How much food is there?
RIMMER: There’s half a bag of soggy Smoky Bacon Crisps, a tin of mustard powder, a brown lemon, three water biscuits, two bottles of vinegar and a tube of Bonjella gum ointment.
LISTER: That’s it? There’s nothing else?
RIMMER: Just a Pot Noodle. Oh, and I found a tin of dog food in the tool cupboard
LISTER: (Sighs.) Well. Pretty obvious what gets eaten last. I can’t stand Pot Noodles.

That’s it folks, I have a sudden urge to sniff Missus JimmerUK’s bottom, right after I lick my own balls.

Enjoy the ‘making of’ video below.

Fame Corner

Here I am on Channel4’s Thisisaknife albeit for half a second.

I was also featured on British Forces Radio, but unfortunately didn’t get the email until too late, so missed out on doing an interview. Boooo.