Solid Gold pet food was launched in 1974 by Sissy Harrington McGill. As a Great Dane aficionado, she noticed that European Great Danes were healthier and living longer than those in America. She determined that European dogs were eating better diets and created a holistic pet food company that uses high-quality ingredients to provide superior nutrition.
Solid Gold now creates cat food using the same principles supporting digestive health. As one of the first natural pet foods launched in the U.S.A., Solid Gold continues to create a wide range of nutritionally robust recipes in various flavors.
It suits cat owners looking for a good-quality brand with a long track record of producing cat food where priority is placed on using a holistic blend of ingredients designed to promote your cat’s overall health. Solid Gold is also good value for money. If you’ve been considering switching your cat’s food, read on to find out everything you need about Solid Gold.
At a Glance: The Best Solid Gold Cat Food Recipes
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Product
Details
Our Favorite
Solid Gold Indigo Moon High Protein and Grain Free Holistic Dry Cat Fo
VMG Partners own Solid Gold. Solid Gold dry cat food products are produced in the U.S.A., and its canned cat foods are made in Thailand.
Which Types of Cats Is Solid Gold Best Suited For?
Solid Gold is suitable for all cats and kittens, thanks to its high-quality ingredients, including real meat, superfoods, vitamins, and minerals. It’s especially well-suited to cats that may have sensitive digestive systems and suffer from poor gut health. Solid Gold includes prebiotics, which help encourage the growth of the bacteria found in a healthy gut. It also contains probiotics to keep the healthy bacteria thriving.
Feeding your cat a high-quality diet is important for keeping them healthy and happy. But it goes beyond the food you choose; the dishes they use also matter. TheHepper NomNom Cat Bowlis our favorite for its unique, five-star design that protects from whisker fatigue and promotes good posture which also aids in better digestion. As an added bonus, it’s beautifully crafted and offers a modern take on the traditional cat bowl that fits seamlessly with all home stylings. Learn more about the NomNom by clicking here.
At Excited Cats, we’ve admired Hepper for many years and decided to take a controlling ownership interest so that we could benefit from the outstanding designs of this cool cat company!
Which Types of Cats Might Do Better With a Different Brand?
If your cat has an allergy to particular ingredients like chicken, pea protein, or egg, you’ll have to choose another brand since Solid Gold’s recipes can contain the ingredients. Your cat might be better off with a limited-ingredient diet, and we recommend the Natural Balance L.I.D High Protein Tuna Formula.
What Does Solid Gold Cat Food Contain?
Solid Gold offers such a wide range of wet and dry cat foods that it’s impossible to list all of the ingredients it uses! But we’ll take a look at a summary of the popular ingredients.
Meat
Most Solid Gold wet cat foods contain meat as the first ingredient. This can include tuna, mackerel, chicken, crab, salmon, turkey, beef, and shrimp. While their dry cat foods contain meat, they also include meat meal, which is usually the first ingredient as opposed to the real meat further down the list.
Prebiotics and probiotics
With a clear focus on supporting digestive health, Solid Gold cat foods contain prebiotics and probiotics. The latter are the healthy bacteria living within the digestive system, and the former are carbohydrates, which are fermented by healthy bacteria.
Superfoods
As a holistic cat food brand, it’s no surprise that Solid Gold foods contain whole superfoods. Depending on the product, they can include carrots, blueberries, cranberries, and pumpkin.
Carrots are a source of beta-carotene, necessary for healthy eyes. Blueberries are full of antioxidants, providing fiber, Vitamins C and B6, and potassium. Cranberries help support urinary tract health and contain immune-boosting antioxidants. Pumpkin is an excellent source of dietary fiber to help support digestive health.
Omega Fatty Acids
Solid Gold cat foods contain omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which help provide energy, encourage correct gut function and a strong immune system, and help your cat’s coat and skin feel and look healthier.
Image Credit: Veera, Shutterstock
Things We Like About Solid Gold Cat Food
It’s formulated with your cat’s digestive health in mind. You might expect this to be the case for all cat foods, but that’s not always true. Solid Gold cat food has a firm foundation of being formulated with the primary goal of improving your cat’s digestive health through high-quality ingredients.
As obligate carnivores, cats don’t need grains in their diets. Despite this fact, many cat food brands use grains to bulk up their foods without adding expensive meat. Grains like soy, corn, and wheat can cause allergies in cats. Solid Gold cat food has plenty of grain-free options for your cat to enjoy
Things We Don’t Like About Solid Gold
One thing we don’t particularly like about the Solid Gold range of cat foods is that many contain pea fiber. It is a filler and contains little nutritional value. It can help provide insoluble fiber, but that can usually be gained through other ingredients as well. Peas can also trigger allergies in some cats, so if your cat reacts to a new cat food, it’s worth checking to see if peas are hidden in the ingredient list.
For a pet food company that’s been operating for 45 years, Solid Gold has only ever had one recall. It was for a batch of its Wolf King and Wolf Cub dog foods in 2012. This was a time when there were many recalls in the pet food industry due to potential salmonella contamination.
Neither of Solid Gold’s products that were recalled tested positive for salmonella, and its website states that it recalled the products voluntarily as a precautionary measure.
Solid Gold states, “Pet safety is our number one priority, and we take necessary precautions to ensure our products are safe for pets.”
Solid Gold has a wide range of wet and dry cat food. To help get you started, here are in-depth reviews for three of our favorite Solid Gold cat foods.
As well as containing real tuna as the first ingredient, this highly palatable wet food contains spinach, carrots, and pumpkins. It’s free from gluten, grain, fillers, added sugar, soy, and corn. It is a high-quality wet cat food with no by-products or artificial preservatives, flavorings, or colors. Five Oceans has shreds of real tuna blended into a delicious and palatable gravy. Wet foods are an excellent way to maintain your cat’s hydration levels, and this has a moisture content of 80%.
The protein content is 13%, and Five Oceans is formulated to meet the nutritional requirements of all life stages. It also contains live probiotics to help keep your cat’s health and digestion in top shape.
Calorie Breakdown:
Pros
Grain-free
Real tuna as the first ingredient
Supplemented with vitamins and minerals
Cons
Made in Thailand, not the U.S.A.
Some cans contain a large amount of gravy and not as much tuna
Not all cats like the flavor
2. Solid Gold Indigo Moon High Protein & Grain-Free Holistic Dry Cat Food
As one of Solid Gold’s bestselling products, this high-protein dry cat food uses nutrient-dense ingredients, including whole eggs, fiber-rich peas, and functional superfoods like cranberries, blueberries, and salmon oil. The first ingredient in Indigo Moon is chicken meal, but it also contains real chicken further down the ingredient list. It contains 42% protein, 20% fat, and 3% fiber. Like all Solid Gold foods, it’s enriched with probiotics to help support a healthy digestive system.
Indigo Moon is formulated to meet the nutritional needs of all life stages, and if you have a multi-cat household, including mature cats and kittens, you can feed it to them all.
Calorie Breakdown:
Pros
Made in the U.S.A.
Free from fillers
Good for fussy cats
Cons
Contains peas, which can trigger allergies
Uses chicken and fish meal
3. Solid Gold Let’s Stay In Indoor Formula Dry Cat Food
Indoor cats can have slightly different nutritional needs than those who also spend time outdoors, and Let’s Stay In cat food from Solid Gold is specifically formulated for indoor cats. With 36% protein and 16% fat, it contains less protein and fat than blends designed for more active, outdoor cats.
It’s also formulated with 8% fiber and helps prevent hairball formation. The fiber is provided from peas, apples, and lentils. This blend also contains superfoods like blueberries and pumpkins. This is formulated specifically for indoor adult cats, so if you have an indoor kitten, it’s best to find them an alternative dry food specifically formulated to meet their needs.
Calorie Breakdown:
Pros
Grain and gluten-free
Specifically formulated for indoor cats
Real chicken as the first ingredient
Cons
Contains pea protein and pea fiber
Contains meat meal
What Other Users Are Saying
Pet Food Reviewer — “The majority of Solid Gold’s canned or wet food products do offer suitable nutrition that is high in protein and fat.”
Best Cat Food Reviews — “Solid Gold is above average. The dry foods have much lower carbs in the kibble and feature more protein than similar products.”
Amazon — As pet owners, we always double-check with Amazon reviews from buyers before we buy something. You can read these by clicking here.
Conclusion
Solid Gold is a cat food brand with a solid reputation (excuse the pun) that’s been around for over 40 years. It has a wide range of both wet and dry foods, which are formulated with one primary goal in mind: to improve your cat’s digestive health.
With that goal in mind, it uses high-quality ingredients, including real meat, superfoods, prebiotics, and probiotics. Most of Solid Gold’s cat foods are grain-free and contain good levels of protein and fat. It has had one recall, and some blends use ingredients that aren’t the best, including pea fiber, pea protein, and meat meal.
In terms of reliability and pricing, it’s a great choice. With such a wide range of flavors and textures, you’re bound to find an option to suit your cat.
Christian is the Editor-in-Chief of Excited Cats and one of its original and primary contributors. A lifelong cat lover, now based in South East Asia, Christian and his wife are the proud parents of an 11-year-old son and four rescue cats: Trixie, Chloe, Sparky, and Chopper.
