Being a bit of a science-fiction/comedy geek everyone's favourite Jim is a big fan of Red Dwarf. So watching Red Dwarf Smeg Ups on VHS (yes they're still around) Kryten was asked if Craig Charles actually ate dogfood in 'Marooned'. The answer was negative "It was catfood". Ever on the lookout for an excuse for science, JimmerUK set out to see if the right choice was made.

Something I found out during some 'research' for this, all meat is categorised by the quality of the carcasses used. Top grade is A, the worst is E. Pet food sits, somewhat unsurprisingly at D, but get this... McDonalds meat is category E. That could be an article in it's own right.


This was all a bit of a giggle from the start. I I had the idea and it was funny. I told all my buddies, "I'm going to eat petfood" and they laughed. I bought the stuff, laughing like a loon, (the cashier at Sainsbury's gave me a funny look, obviously not knowing I didn't have pets). This was all a big joke... until I opened up the first tin.

Whiskas - with chicken.


Probably the most famous brand of catfood in the country if not the world, so it's got to be the best, but is it the best tasting? A quick look at the label shows a happy, smiley, contented cat. The implication is he's just yummed up a tin of this stuff, labeled as "Supermeat", but quite what that means I don't know.

I look at the ingredients.

Meat and animal derivates (including min 4% chicken), minerals.

Only 4% chicken?! Is this "Supermeat" really hard to get hold of then? 4% of anything does not maketh a meal, how they can get away with saying this has meat in is unbelievable.

So what's the other 96%?

ANALYSIS (%): Protein 9.5 / Oil 3.5 / Ash 2 / Fibre 0.3 / Moisture 83 / Vitamin E 8mg/kg.

Hang on... ash?! There's half as much ash in this catfood as there is meat! Shouldn't they label this "Chicken & Ash Flavour"? And what's this 83% "Moisture" nonsense. If something's 83% water, it should never be described as "moisture" which hints at only a little bit of water. This catfood is a drink with bits in, more Cat-a-Cup-a-Soup than food.


Fuck it, if I read too much into this I'm never going to eat it.


This was my first time eating catfood, so I had nothing to compare it against, other than normal human food, so I have no idea what to expect. On first inspection, it didn't look so bad, but it did have a distinctive smell. It was covered in a tonne of nasty looking jelly though.

Let's eat it.


Holy crap! That's bad. Cat's certainly should know the difference, between this shit and real food.

Actually, on second thoughts it wasn't as bad as I expected. It tasted like watery corned beef only with some little bits of crunchyness that I don't know what the hell they were. Remember though, this was meant to be chicken. I like chicken, and was prepare to give the catfood another try, so I went in for another bite.

Admittedly it didn't get any better, but it didn't get any worse.

So we added the Felix Crisp Crunchy Topping which apparently comes with Tasty Meat.


The ingredients are not much different, 4% meat in each little "nugget" (cunningly shaped letters to spell FELIX), but the analysis shows there's 9.5% ash. That's more than double the meat! This should be labeled "With Disgusting Ash" instead of "with Tasty Meat".


It certainly makes the food look better, adds a bit of colour, but whether it tastes any good is another matter.


Surprisingly, it's better. A lot better. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't eat this for dinner, but it's a lot better than the meat on it's own, and it didn't make me want to retch, (although the same couldn't be said of Missus JimmerUK).

Now it's time for the point of this so called experiment, the comparison... Dog food.

Click 'Next' for dog food eating fun, and a video.