Hi Momo,

We’re going to add the product as part of an upadate to the review in the next couple month. Overall it seems like a good solution for a Urinary specific formula

But then Purina Beyond was given its own listing with overall B-. And Purina Cat Chow given its own listing with overall D rating. Then there is a separate listing for Fancy Feast, not under the Purina name, which brings us to 8 listings, and it got an overall B- score. I’m sure there are lots of other examples like this of Purina brand foods in your listings. But I think you see my point. When comparing foods, Purina Cat Chow with a D score is a very different food than Purina Beyond with a B- score. To the layperson that would be obvious from the price difference alone, but especially when reading the ingredients.

So then the Diamond Naturals Active Cat dry food, and the wet food recieved B- ratings. Yet the overall score given to Diamond is C+. Simply because Diamond Maintanence, a far lesser quality product, was included in the evaluation with a D score. I find the ratings of each individual food to be fair, and accurate. But why does Diamond only get one listing, while Purina Cat Chow and Purina Beyond get their own listings? Because it is about the equavalence in differences between 2 food lines made by the same company.

Furthermore, there are probably TLDR researchers out there, that may or may not even be aware of there being 2 different Diamond name food lines. Say they feed a Diamond Naturals food, and want to know the rating. They click on the Diamond listing, see the photo at the top which is only Diamond Naturals products, scroll down to see the overall C+ grade, and call it a day. Assuming that Diamond Naturals isn’t as good of a food as they thought. When if there was a listing including just Diamond Naturals foods, the overall score would likely be more like a B or B-. Perhaps not a huge difference. But when people are comparing foods by grade, and looking at prices, they’ll quickly realize they are better off with Diamond Naturals than some other similar foods.

Examples with current price on Chewy, cost per pound, amount of crude protein, and the rating you’ve given these individual foods:

Purina Beyond Whitemeat Chicken & Egg
-$52.68 for a 16lb bag
-$3.30/lb
-35% crude protein
-B rating

Crave Chicken formula
-$37.98 for a 10lb bag
-$3.80/lb
-40% crude protein
-C rating

Taste of the Wild Rocky Mountain
-$39.99 for a 14lb bag
-$2.86/lb
-42% crude protein
-C+ rating

Diamond Naturals Active Cat
-$33.99 for 18lb bag
-$1.89/lb
-40% crude protein
-B- rating

My point in listing these out in this manner is to elaborate that higher cost doesn’t always equal higher quality. And while your rating system is good, and quite helpful in finding a cat food, it is lacking a bit. I do understand how tedious this kind of research is. But please consider being more fair to Diamond Naturals and removing Diamond Maintanence from the same listing. It would be a far more accurate assessment to have a Diamond Naturals only listing where the products tested are the Active cat kibble, Indoor Cat kibble, and one or more of their canned wet foods. I’m actually not a fan of the indoor kibble as it isn’t high enough protein. And the wet food is a mixed bag. But that is a whole different story and this post is long enough as is.

I feed my cats Diamond Naturals Active kibble(mixed with whatever decent quality wet food I can buy for the best price), I would never feed them Diamond Maintanence. Because I understand that Diamond Maintanence is low cost, low quality food, same as Purina Cat Chow. Whereas Diamond Naturals Active Cat is one of the most affordable, moderate quality, 40% or more protein dry foods I can find. As laid out in the above comparison. And I’ve included Purina Beyond only because I’ve used it as an example in the differences between food lines from the same brand. Even if it were cheaper, I still wouldn’t feed it to my cats because it doesn’t have enough protein. The minimum recommended protein for cats is 40%. I wish I could afford to feed my cats a food with higher protein content, but anything higher than 40%, with the exception of Taste of the Wild’s 42%, gets incredibly more expensive, not just a little more expensive.

Objectively, which seems a better option for those of us feeding multiple cats, wanting to give them higher protein they should have, having limited funds, and not wanting to feed them trash food?

Purina Beyond is nearly twice the cost per pound as Diamond Naturals Active, has far less crude protein, and barely received a better rating. Crave is the same amount of crude protein as Diamond Naturals Active, but it costs over twice as much per pound, and received a lower rating. Taste of the Wild is almost $1 more per pound than Diamond Naturals Active, not as much as the others but still a considerable difference when feeding 4 cats. It has slightly more crude protein, and received a much lower rating.

All of this is only for dry foods. It doesn’t even touch on the wildly varying price of canned foods. And how insanely difficult it is to find an affordable one that doesn’t contain carrageenan. There are wet foods that cost 2, 3, sometimes more than the brands I buy, and the quality of the food is worse. That is the real kick in the wallet. Because I feed far more wet food than dry food per day. I pretty much only include dry food with the wet to supplement calories so I don’t have to spend even more money on wet food than I already do. Also it is likely good for their teeth, though dental treats would also accomplish this.

Ok I’m getting off topic now, so I’ll wrap this up. I hope this suggestion about the Diamond listing is heard, understood, and taken into account with an updated listing. I took an hour or so out of my Saturday morning to write this up. I really hope it wasn’t wasted. But it should show you I take this seriously, and this response was not written hastily, but with thought and purpose.

You’re welcome.

Thanks for solving that question for us, Mrs. Barnett!

Kate, the values you have are actually correct for the specific variety of the food you listed, which is the Active version of Diamond Naturals. Diamond Naturals has 2 varieties, Indoor and Active. The values Dae is providing are for the Indoor variety, which you do not list on here. I am guessing Dae did not realize there is more than one variety of Diamond Naturals dry kibble for cats.