| Country of origin | Australia |
| Available from | Woolworths |
Smitten could lead to the premature death of your cat. Products such as this are likely the reason many cats die of conditions such as renal failure. There’s a simple factual reason why 👉 Cat’s are obligate carnivores, and this product is mostly cheap grains and grain by-products.
Baxters, the equivalent home brand offering for dogs, has solidified itself as the #1 most problematic dog food reviewed on this website, with numerous reports of sickness and death.
It doesn’t say so on the packet, but Smitten is a glorified version of their Woolworths Essentials brand for people who (sadly) can’t afford real cat food (or seriously don’t know any better). Just compare the boxes – they’re the same box, just different graphics.
All “flavours” in the Smitten range are really just cereals and cereal by-products as the main component. The short digestive tract of a cat isn’t designed to process grains, let alone cheap nasty grains, so this would likely overwork their digestive system and kidneys to the point of failure. Products such as this are designed for profit, not keep your pet healthy.
Take a look at the ingredients for the Chicken and Salmon with Natural Tuna Flavour formula. Can you find “salmon” or “tuna” listed? I can’t. So why have they written it in CAPITALS on the front of the box? In truth, the meat and fish content of the food is a concoction of various rendered meats and meat by-products, whatever can be sourced cheaply at the time of manufacturer. If you picked up the keyword “rendered”, then you’ll have an idea of how nasty this ingredient may be.
There’s such a discord between what they say on the box and what’s listed in the ingredients. If the real ingredients were pictured on the box you definitely wouldn’t buy it. It’s amazing they’re allowed to market it so deceivingly, but that’s Aussie pet food regulations for you.
Woolworths may sell this stuff as “cat food”, but that doesn’t mean it’s good, species appropriate, or healthy. It may be cheap, but the real cost will be in vets bills and heartbreak down the track.
We do not recommend you feed this to your cats, or any other cereal and cereal by-product “cat foods” for that matter. Avoid.
Ingredients
Wholegrain Cereals and/or Cereal by-products (derived from Wheat and Rice), Meat and Meat by-products (derived from Chicken, Beef, Fish, Lamb), Tallow (derived from Poultry and/or Beef), Natural Flavours, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Whole Canola, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Choline Chloride, DL Methionine, Essential Vitamins & Minerals, Taurine, Natural Colours, Natural Antioxidants
Smitten cat food put my senior cat in hospital twice 1St time I didn’t realise that what made his s so sick I honestly didn’t think he would survived he did pull through but we try him on it again not thinking much of it and day after eating it he got very very sick vomiting, very lethargic had no spring in his step at all unfortunately the second time he did not make it and passed away, I would never buy or recommend this product again.
Hi Katherine, I’m so sorry to hear about your cat. I would urge you to add this information to the APOG report as well – https://www.apog.com.au/recall-issue-log/smitten-woolworths/
That s not correct, my cat loves the tuna mince can food which contains real tuna , made in Thailand, the chicken cereals fake one is the one made in Australia, overall it’s good if you only buy the tuna mince one , it’s was only $1.5 for a can , now they went up to $1.75 still good
I love these products specially the crystal Kitty litter and the Lavender one my cat will not use his tray if I don’t get it I have also given my cat when he was little the milk this is also good for little one Love Smitten Product
Smitten cat food!!! Absolutely disgusting, my cats had diarrhoea and they have vomit after eating this food . I have thrown the whole packet into the rubbish. This product should Not be on the market .
Hi Susana, could you add this information here please – https://www.apog.com.au/recall-issue-log/smitten-woolworths/
Thank you!
How about smitten milk? My kitten really likes it but I notice the milk have added gum. Should I still give her on regular basis (e.g. mix with freeze dried food)? Thanks
Hi Susan, I expect the gums are added to thicken the milk – make it less watery.
Its why i dont buy it. Its cheap, cats like it, but i dont want them suffering from kidney/renal desease in the furture
Smitten: Strike with a hard blow. This cat food is vile and awful for cats. If it’s the last thing available cook beef and chicken l for your cats.
I get that Smitten isn’t too good, but my cat loves Smitten (wet food esp tuna which stinks to high heaven) & I have to mix in some into his Hills Science KD food to get him to eat that! I tried numerous brands before I came up with this one.
I agree. I fed my greatly-loved cat (inherited from the neighbour at 18 months after they shot through) the absolute cheapest ‘No Frills’ wet and dry cat food Frankilns had, as being a pensioner I never had (and don’t have) two-bob to rub together. No Frills wet Tuna and their Salmon was stinky too, but she loved it (hated ‘Dine’ – didn’t eat just any old rubbish, lol) and lived 16½ years.
Both my cats love Smitten Kitten too and when I couldn’t get it for a while due to COVID I bought Whiskers and that made them sick. It is very hard to source at the moment. I hope they don’t stop making it.
What about the smitten tin food
Hi Paya, I wouldn’t say Smitten tinned food is any better than the dry food, with ambiguous “cereals” as one of the two main ingredients. If it’s better than the Woolworth’s Essentials brand, but not by much, and cereals aren’t an appropriate diet for a cat which is a true obligate carnivore.
Thank you,
My cat is really fussy but I found he loves the tuna. I was about to do a bulk buy when i found your review.
I’ll be looking for something else now.
Thanks again
Considering some kibbles I’ve seen it has a much lower amount then I first thought reading your review. (Of carbs, I forgot to write it)
It contains the usual crappy ingredient list that we see in all cheap foods, it contains the teeth cleaner ingredient tripolyphosphate and at least it contains taurine would you believe that I’ve seen dry foods without it despite the warning that went out years ago.
100% GMO canola because it’s cheap.
At least it says where the tallow is from could be worse.
Salt the usual, probably to force the cats to drink more water as it’ll dehydrate them all the way to urinary crystals yay!
I guess it could of been 10x worse then wheat and rice.
Unlikely there’s anything natural about the colours and antioxidants, I know that either BHA or BHT can be legally defined as natural.
One peanut butter has listed no artificial preservatives but contains 320 antioxidant.
Based on a decent variety of both dog and cat food dry foods from around the world especially UK I can say that this could be infinitely worse.
Protein although grain based is actually pretty good, I’ve seen some truly horrific 12% protein foods for cats and no it wasn’t canned or anything it was an actual dry food.
Why does your name & Angels name keep changing, is something going wrong on the site?
My cats are fussy and refused to eat Smitten.
It was quite good before. But now got them back on the much more expensive Whiskas.
I changed my name was bored you could say of using my name I had Amateria from myst 3 last time this time I put Edanna from myst 3 also as they are the two levels I love the most.
What about Angel though? I’ve written her name as Andzia in the past which is her real name but there’s just something about that name I don’t like so I use Angel, I call her by both names in real life though.
In fact a wide variety of names even for Rusty.
your life sounds interesting
It is I’m surrounded by things I love especially games haha, what I don’t like is friends who don’t understand me like the guy friend from QLD he listens well enough to problems but when it comes to me wanting to be left alone he just doesn’t seem to understand why and yes I’ve told him and explained some stuff he was doing that annoyed me, he said he’d work on it and now he’s started being a kid again and it’s aggravating, might once again have to tell him, I’m wondering if maybe there’s something he hasn’t told me about himself like a disorder as he tends to forget and acts quiet childish a lot of the time.
I’m on my iPad daily, Facebook, I open dog food advisor at least once and leave a comment if I feel the need, chatting with Susan on Facebook and yeah chatting on skype with that guy when he’s sending hundreds of messages telling me to come online and my “NO” means nothing.
Came home yesterday after going shopping, I’ve gotten quiet the mood for shopping for clothes it’s interesting as I’ve never really cared, so I’m using this mood as often as possible while I have it because that’s actually a really good thing, I needed more clothes, more colourful clothes for summer.
Was sick after I came home though I think it was the Japanese food I am almost always sick after food like that.
Played The Evil Within 2 all the way to 1am had a ton of fun, I’d been playing Assasins Creed up till now as that game is so beautiful I simply could not get off it, but because I didn’t have a mood for it this time around I started up the other game and despite the fact it’s not as pretty and a dark game I still had plenty of fun.
I sleep next to 8 soft toys of varying sizes( I have a lot more I switch them over every 6 months or so) I have a 55 inch plasma which is seriously the best tv I’ve ever owned, I wanted to change to a 4K one for the ps4 pro but shyt the normal tv reception was so blurry compared to my smooth as a babies bottom plasma I simply could not even force myself to buy anything else, perfect sound, perfect picture no need to change.
Ps1 to ps4, Xbox original 2002 version I think(only have Panzer Dragoon Orta game for that, truly beautiful amazing game with beautiful music), GameCube, Foxtel and Telstra Tv lol.
Thanks to me living at home with everyone Rusty and Angel can have the best type of foods and treats, except for milk sticks those are junk food but if it gets Angel off of Rusty for a bit or makes her less depressed when she’s having an off day why not.
Warcraft is my go to game online, I have others downloaded but eh they’ve become boring which I’ve noticed is happening to a lot of people, I guess at the end of the day we’ve all seen everything and done everything and it’s new and exciting for a few days and then it stales.
Some people find their new game or their extra game some don’t, not long term anyways and anyone who does congrats.
I don’t like having the same name, same picture throughout life lack of a better way to put it, my real name and look don’t count because real life is different, I do however like to change my hair color, but I only have a very small amount I can change now since I had my hair cut.
Because I’m pieces I can either be a very good friend or you can make me very angry haha. I’d love to be artistic as I know it’s within me but I can’t draw for shyt, the next iPad I buy I’ll be buying with the pencil and I’ll start practising and see if I get anywhere.
I make up stories a lot, like everyday and sometimes if I have a mood for it I play them out as in larping or live action role play with myself, I’ve done this on games and for real and sometimes with the right mood they are incredibly well performed, I feel every emotion to the degree I start getting angry, happy or I start crying.
If only I could do it in front of someone or even a camera sadly I’ve tried and it just doesn’t happen as in I loose the mood and the different voices and everything just goes splat.
I’m still very much in love with all things mermaid and hope to buy a tail someday and get really good at swimming with it, I also like fursuits don’t see anything wrong with them and hope maybe one day to bring a personal story of mine to life.
However until I am able to cure or at the very least control the pudendal neuralgia so it doesn’t flare up every single day I doubt very much of anything will happen, it makes me loose my temper when it’s burning constantly and I don’t see that as a good thing if I was to go work somewhere. It’s also not just burning, my feet burn, can’t sit or stand for long periods, even lying down these days can be aggravating, electrical shocks, numbness and a whole host of other things plague me daily.
Coffee helps with a lot of the problems, but it won’t help forever, red wine helped but has stopped working, medications have stopped working so have to try new ones, eventually everything stops working if you take enough of it for long enough, either that or I’ll start reacting badly to it and have to stop.
I was told several times throughout the years that it was me who caused this problem, but it was eventually put to rest when a special doctor said I was born with it because of my history. Either way it’s a very detrimental mentally condition to have, it’ll change you if you ever needed changing and you’ll learn to have a little more respect for things in life, but don’t expect it to completely change a person I’m still very short tempered haha.
I wrote a lot! Enjoy!
WOW, that took a long time writing
I’ll make sure i stay on your good side, so you don’t lose your temper,
Anja was one more name for angel, have a nice day.
It was apparently the wrong spelling of Andzia, it wasn’t until I saw her vet report that I was like did they spell her name wrong? and mum was like no that’s how you spell it.
Maybe 20 mins of writing or so, I did copy and paste it a few times as I’ve had the problem of my iPad deleting what I’ve written and did not want to loose all that.
You too, =O it’s started raining here I’m going to enjoy it a bit and then get on with moving closer to the end of this game, although dizziness just got me so maybe I won’t get as close as I thought.