Home / Cat food / Dr. Elsey's / Pork Recipe Kibble

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Dr. Elsey's Pork Recipe Kibble

Dry food · all cats

A formulated-to-meet, hydrolyzed-first dry food from Dr. Elsey's, denser per cup than 89% of the dry cat foods we've verified. Cat-food pricing isn't in our corpus for this SKU yet, so cost-per-day isn't shown — the composition numbers below are fully verified.

THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference cat 10 lb · updated 2026-07-12

Your catupdates every number on this page
10 lb

Joint, kidney, dental or heart concerns? Labels can't honestly answer those — that's vet territory. Why we don't checkmark them →

The evidence

The Verified Label

Every food on this site gets this exact panel — same fields, same order, sourced from the official label — so brands finally become comparable. Dots show where this food sits among all 283 dry cat foods we've verified.

Verified LabelThe standardized pet-food panel
VPFD № DR-ELS
verified 2026-07-12

Composition — dry-matter basis

why dry matter
Dry food is ~5-10% water, wet food ~75-82%, so as-fed numbers are on two different scales. As-fed values shown small. How the conversion works →
Protein 64.8%label: 57% min higher than 98% of dry cat foods
Fat 19.3%label: 17% min no corpus anchor for fat yet
Fiber 4.5%label: 4% max typical — the median dry cat food is 4.5%
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈2.3%diabetic-check target <10% lower than 97% of dry cat foods
Magnesium as fed: not yet verified
why 0.12% DM
A commonly cited veterinary target for helping manage struvite-crystal (urinary) risk in cats is magnesium under roughly 0.12% on a dry-matter basis. This is a general, label-checkable guideline — not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for your vet, especially for cats with a history of urinary issues.
 Not yet verifiedmagnesium no threshold to check — magnesium not in our verified record
Ash 8% assumed — not disclosed on label 8%as used in carb estimate no corpus anchor for ash yet

Calories & cost — for your 10-lb adult cat

Calorie density 492 kcal/cup3965 kcal/kg denser than 89% of dry cat foods (median 415)
Daily serving½ cups
Cost per day—
Bag lasts—

Cost per 1,000 kcal not available yet — this cat food isn't price-matched to a retail listing in our corpus yet. Serving math uses standard veterinary energy formulas — see the formula.

Standards & ingredients

AAFCO statement
what this means
Two claims exist: formulated to meet a profile, or fed to real cats in an AAFCO trial. Which is stronger, and how rare it is →
 Formulated to meet · all_life_stages
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Hydrolyzed Pork · Pork Plasma · Dried Chicken · Chicken Fat (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols) · Gelatin
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyYes
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)None
BHA / BHT preservativesNone on label
Carrageenan (thickener)None
Ethoxyquin
why unknown
A preservative added by a fish-meal supplier need not appear on the finished label, so no label can prove its absence. Why we show gaps →
 None — no fish meal in this recipe

Safety

FDA recalls — Dr. Elsey's, since 2023None on record
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 10 of 15 standard fields
Green = verified favorable · amber = gap in the record · red = verified unfavorable · gray = not disclosed / neutral fact.
Source: official label source (official) · anchors: 283 verified dry cat foods · how to read this label

The fit

For your cat, specifically

Checked for a 10-lb adult cat with urinary health + a low-carb goal — the same published criteria our finder uses. Change your cat above and these update.

✓
Validated for adult catsAAFCO statement covers adult maintenance.
·
Urinary fit — can't assessMagnesium is not disclosed on this label, so the urinary/struvite check cannot be run — most cat food labels omit it entirely (only a small share of the cat foods we've verified disclose magnesium at all).
·
Fiber 4.5% DMNot selected as a concern for your cat — shown here for reference.
·
Sensitive stomachNot selected for your cat — but shown here for reference.
·
Contains chickenNot selected as a concern for your cat — shown here for reference.
✓
Estimated carbs fit a low-carb target≈2.3% carbohydrate (dry-matter, estimated) is under the ~10% DM target some vets use for diabetic/low-carb cats. Estimate only — not a lab measurement, and ash was assumed rather than disclosed on this label.

The source material

The full ingredient list

Every flag above is computed from this list. Why order is by pre-cooking weight, and how splitting bends it →

Hydrolyzed Pork, Pork Plasma, Dried Chicken, Chicken Fat (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Gelatin, Ground Flaxseed, Natural Flavor, Calcium Carbonate, Salmon Oil, Potassium Citrate, Choline Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Fructooligosaccharides, Vitamins (Niacin, Vitamin A Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Folic Acid, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Vitamin D Supplement, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement), Magnesium Oxide, Taurine, Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Zinc Sulfate, Iron Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, Copper Proteinate, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Proteinate, Manganese Sulfate, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), Mixed Tocopherols (Preservative), Salt, Rosemary Extract, Vitamin E Supplement

6 ingredients in this list are ones we hold sourced evidence on , and none of them is contested in the veterinary literature.

  • Mixed tocopherols (natural vitamin E) · ingredient 4Well supportedA blend of vitamin E forms (alpha-, beta-, gamma-, delta-tocopherol) used as a natural-source antioxidant to slow fat rancidity, commonly chosen as an alternative to synthetic preservatives. EFSA concluded that tocopherol-rich extracts are safe for all animal species and the consumer and are efficacious antioxidants in feed.
  • Fish oil (EPA + DHA omega-3) · ingredient 9Well supportedMarine-source omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) from fish oil. A randomized, double-blinded controlled trial (Roush 2010) found improved weight-bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis, and a 2022 meta-analysis identified clear clinical analgesic efficacy for omega-3-enriched diets and supplements.
  • Rosemary extract · ingredient 38Well supportedA plant-derived natural antioxidant (active compounds carnosic acid and carnosol) used to slow fat oxidation, frequently chosen as an alternative to synthetic preservatives. It is an authorized food antioxidant in the EU (E 392); JECFA established a temporary acceptable daily intake for rosemary extract expressed as carnosic acid plus carnosol.
  • Flaxseed (ALA omega-3) · ingredient 6NeutralA plant source of the short-chain omega-3 ALA. Dogs convert ALA to the long-chain omega-3s inefficiently: a controlled feeding study (Dunbar 2010) found flaxseed raised serum EPA but produced no measurable DHA.
  • Prebiotics (chicory root / inulin, FOS) · ingredient 13NeutralFermentable fibers (chicory-derived inulin and fructooligosaccharides) that feed colonic bacteria and are readily fermented to short-chain fatty acids in dogs. Feeding studies show they shift fecal microbiota composition and are well tolerated at typical inclusion levels, but clear health benefits beyond compositional change are not yet established.
  • Taurine (supplemental) · ingredient 25NeutralA sulfur amino acid that dogs can normally synthesize from methionine and cysteine, so it is not classically essential for them. However, some breeds (e.g., golden retrievers) and some diets are linked to low taurine status and dilated cardiomyopathy: an observational study (Ontiveros 2020) associated non-traditional, largely grain-free diets with taurine deficiency and DCM-consistent echocardiographic changes in golden retrievers, though causation and mechanism remain under investigation.

The maker

Who makes this — and how they back it up

The four questions the WSAVA nutrition guidelines tell you to ask a pet-food company. Every answer is sourced or marked as an undisclosed gap — never guessed. This is the "is it made competently?" axis that star-rating sites skip.

Owns its manufacturing Undisclosed

Where the FOOD is made is not company-confirmed (the Cheyenne WY plant is primarily litter); owned-vs-co-packer undetermined — left undisclosed rather than asserted.

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Undisclosed

Founder Dr. Bruce Elsey is a feline-only veterinarian (DVM) — NOT a board-certified veterinary nutritionist; no named DACVN/PhD found; null per rule.

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Undisclosed

No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 30 labels we’ve verified for this brand, and no company-wide claim was found either. Most pet foods are only "formulated to meet" AAFCO profiles (a paper calculation) rather than fed to real animals in trials — this is common, not necessarily a red flag.

Peer-reviewed research None found

A reproducible PubMed search (author-affiliation field, animal/pet-domain filtered) returns zero indexed papers for this brand name. Not proof no research exists — only that none is PubMed-indexed under this exact name.

source →
Parent company Precious Cat, Inc. (founder-owned; no larger parent) ↗ Founded 1987 ↗ Headquarters / plant Englewood, Colorado, USA ↗ FDA recalls on record None on record

Full company scorecard, sources, and every SKU we've verified for this brand: Dr. Elsey's brand page →