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 put this down to their better diets and set about creating a holistic pet food company that uses high-quality ingredients to provide superior nutrition.
Solid Gold now creates food for cats too, using the same principles of 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 a wide range of flavors.
This company 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 the overall health of your cat. Solid Gold is also good value for money. If you’ve been considering switching your cat’s food, then read on to find out everything that you need to know 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
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 range of 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 as a result.
Solid Gold includes prebiotics, which help encourage the growth of the bacteria that are found in a healthy gut. It also contains probiotics, to help keep the population of those healthy bacteria thriving.
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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, then be aware that many of Solid Gold’s recipes can contain these. In that case, your cat might be better off with a limited-ingredient diet, and we recommend the Natural Balance L.I.D High Protein Tuna Formula in that case.
What Does Solid Gold Cat Food Contain?
Solid Gold offers such a wide range of cat foods, both wet and dry, that it’s impossible to list all of the ingredients that 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 do 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 both prebiotics and probiotics. The latter are the healthy bacteria that live within our digestive systems, but they can need nutrition of their own in the form of prebiotics.
To ensure a healthy gut, Solid Gold contains both prebiotics and probiotics. Solid Gold provides prebiotics in the form of whole superfoods. It also uses probiotics, which have been carefully treated so they don’t die off before being eaten by your cat.
Superfoods
As a holistic cat food brand, it’s no surprise that Solid Gold foods contain whole superfoods. Depending on the product, these can include carrots, blueberries, cranberries, and pumpkin.
Carrots are a source of beta-carotene, necessary for healthy eyes. Blueberries are full of antioxidants, as well as providing fiber, Vitamins C and B6, and potassium. Cranberries help support urinary tract health and contain immune-boosting antioxidants. Pumpkin is a great 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 the digestive health of your cat through the use of high-quality ingredients.
Most recipes are grain free
As obligate carnivores, cats really don’t need any grain in their diets at all. Despite this fact, many cat food brands use grains to bulk out their foods without the need to add expensive meat. Grains like soy, corn, and wheat can frequently 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
Some recipes contain pea fiber
One thing we don’t particularly like about the Solid Gold range of cat foods is that many of them contain pea fiber. This is basically a filler and contains little nutritional value. It can help in providing insoluble fiber, but that can usually be gained through the use of other ingredients as well. Peas can also trigger allergies in some cats, so if your cat has a reaction to a new cat food, it’s worth checking to see if peas are hidden in the ingredient list somewhere.
For a pet food company that’s been operating for 45 years, Solid Gold has only ever had one recall. This 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 that “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 both wet and dry cat food to choose from. To help get you started, here are in-depth reviews for three of our favorite Solid Gold cat foods, both wet and dry.
As well as containing real tuna as the first ingredient, this highly palatable wet food also contains spinach, carrots, and pumpkins.
It’s free from gluten, grain, fillers, added sugar, soy, or corn. As a high-quality wet cat food, it doesn’t contain any by-products or artificial preservatives, flavorings, or colors. This wet cat food 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 this wet cat food is formulated to meet the nutritional requirements of all life stages. This cat food 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 a blend of nutrient-dense ingredients, including whole eggs and fiber-rich peas, and functional superfoods, like cranberries, blueberries, and salmon oil.
The first ingredient in this dry cat food is chicken meal, although it does also contain real chicken further down the ingredient list. This contains 42% protein, 20% fat, and 3% fiber. As with all Solid Gold foods, it’s enriched with probiotics to help support a healthy digestive system.
This cat food is formulated to meet the nutritional needs of all life stages, meaning if you have a multi-cat household, including both mature cats and kittens, you can feed this 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 to those who also spend time outdoors, and this dry cat food from Solid Gold is specifically formulated for indoor cats. With 36% protein and 16% fat, this 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, which is 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 kibbles 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, all of which are formulated with one primary goal in mind: to improve the digestive health of your cat.
With that goal in mind, it uses a range of high-quality ingredients, including real meat, superfoods, and 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, though, it’s a great choice. With such a wide range of flavors and textures to choose from, 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.
