10/05/2026
This is why i feed all my cats half raw and half N&D by Farmina. Pet cancer rates are through the roof. Our pets are our family and as a breeder I want my kittens to have the best start possible.
You might save a bit of money on food by feeding cheaper food but I can tell you long term you’ll save money in Vet bills by feeding higher quality.
🚨 A Clean Label Project investigation of 100 top-selling cat foods across 62 brands found heavy metals, glyphosate, and plastic chemicals in wet, dry, and air- or freeze-dried products, including foods marketed as natural or premium.
This isn’t just a handful of outliers.
Contaminants showed up across the category, in the food cats eat nearly every day.
Most products tested contained at least one heavy metal, and a substantial share also contained glyphosate or a plastic chemical.
• Lead: 99% of samples
• Cadmium: 96%
• Arsenic: 94%
• Glyphosate: 37%, higher when more plant ingredients appeared in the top 10
• DEHP, a plastic chemical: about half of products, highest in canned and pouch foods
• Bisphenols, including BPA: found less often
The dose depends on what’s in the bowl.
Dry food had roughly three times more lead than wet or air-dried products.
Fish and seafood formulas had about 18 times more mercury and 2.5 times more cadmium than foods made with other proteins, and wet seafood products had nearly 28 times as much mercury as wet foods made with other meats, especially poultry.
Chicken was lower in mercury and cadmium but higher in lead and herbicides.
About 85% of poultry-based foods met the project’s purity standard, versus 25.7% of fish and seafood products.
But switching proteins doesn’t clear the problem, it simply changes which contaminant is highest.
The study tested one batch per product, so it can’t show batch-to-batch variation, and it doesn’t prove any single food will harm a cat.
The industry says manufacturers already use supplier checks, testing, and quality controls, and that owners should feel confident.
That doesn’t erase the exposure pattern the testing found.
Cats don’t rotate meals the way people do.
The same formula, day after day, is how small amounts become a lifetime load.
Lead, cadmium, arsenic, and mercury aren’t cleared on a clean schedule, and the kidneys that filter them are already a common point of failure in older cats.
No level of lead is considered safe in people, yet pet-food rules for these contaminants are thin.
Premium labeling didn’t keep them out.
If a cat lives on one bag or one case of cans, this is ongoing exposure, not a one-time finding.
Rotating proteins, favoring wet or air-dried food, and cutting plant-heavy formulas can lower specific risks.
The bigger question is why nearly every product tested still contained lead. 🧐
