When deciding how to feed our pets, food marketing and branding can sometimes confuse choices about what is truly best for each individual animal.
Even reputable brands can cause unexpected reactions if some parts of the formula don’t suit your pet’s constitution, as one Target customer found out when she bought Kindful wet cat food from the store.
Content creator Emma Purdy (@eepardy on TikTok) said in a video she posted to TikTok that her cat ate it once and then urinated blood and vomited.
“This is a PSA: If you have a cat right now, do not buy Target brand Kindful wet food,” she says in the video. “Yes, I denounce the name of that cat food. I don’t care, just don’t buy it. I just took my cat to the vet because he was urinating blood. My sister’s cat is throwing up after eating it and I’ve never had this happen to a cat before with any food.”
She says she chose Kindful’s particular type of food for her cat because it’s designed for indoor cats, it’s free of carrageenan, a thickening agent that’s been linked to colon cancer, and it’s made with “real” chicken. But the TikTok user says she doesn’t believe it’s chicken. Before she started feeding her cat Kindful wet food, she says it didn’t matter what food it ate, and that was the only change she made to its diet.
She said wet food wasn’t even part of the cats’ regular diet — they always ate dry food from Costco — and Kindful food was for special occasions, and the cats only ate it once.
“My cat should be fine,” she says. “He’s only had blood in his urine twice, so we caught it early. And don’t feed him this brand, especially if you have a male cat, as urinary blockages in male cats can often be fatal. But if you do try a new brand, always keep an eye on your cat’s reaction, because you only have a limited time if he does develop a urinary blockage.”
@eepardy Response to comment: This video is not about hating on wet food. I just want to give a shout out to KINDFULL because it has hurt not only my cat but many other cats. There is an obvious connection. One cat vomited immediately and the other cat urinated blood. There was no blockage, by the way. The dry food and pumpkin diet is totally fine for her (me and my vet know my cats better than you!). I have researched before and Billy has eaten wet food before. We love wet food! Again, I never said wet food is bad so I don’t know why you guys are getting upset in the comments. I only talked about their diet to show that they have had a consistent diet with no issues ever before. As soon as I added this one new thing, I immediately started having problems. I have tried several other wet food brands and this is the only one that has ever caused problems for my cat. And please, do your research because the exact same thing is happening to other people’s cats who have eaten Kindfull. My cat went viral a few days ago and now there are a ton of cat lovers on my page. So all I wanted to do was spread the message about how bad this brand is. #greenscreen #cats #catsoftiktok #catlover #cattok #petsoftiktok #catfood ♬ Original Sound – Emma Pardy
The Daily Dot reached out to Emma through comments on the video and direct messages on TikTok, and also reached out to Target via email about the video.
In a subsequent video, Emma showed the cat safely home from the vet and recovering with the help of painkillers.
Viewers’ opinions
Some viewers said they had tried feeding their pets Kindfull brand food with varying degrees of success.
“My cats hate Kindful Cat treats and will eat everything,” one commenter wrote.
“But my cat has been eating dry food for about three years and is fine,” says another. “It’s scary.”
“Okay, but the dry food has made my cat better,” one user said. “No issues, hope it’s just a wet food issue.”
Others suggested that the problems her cat experienced could be due to a dry food diet, which can cause urinary tract problems if not supplemented with additional moisture and vitamins, but the poster stated that she regularly adds pumpkin puree to her cat’s dry food to add moisture and vitamins back into her cat’s diet.
“On a separate note, UT is common in cats that only eat dry food, so it’s really important to introduce fluids into their diet,” one commenter wrote.
“Find the right wet food for your cat,” advised another. “I know this experience was scary but Tiki Cat is great! Cats need the extra moisture and protein.”
“I’m not a vet, but I found myself in a similar situation where I bought my cat a ‘special’ can of wet food,” one commenter wrote. “He normally eats wet food, but I bought him a different brand and he developed a UTI. My theory is that it wasn’t necessarily the brand of food that caused the UTI, but rather the sudden change in his usual diet. Cats are sensitive, so you can’t just give them random ‘fun’ treats like we can.”
The Internet is a mess, but we’re here to break it down for you with one email per day. Sign up here for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter and get the best (and worst) of the Internet delivered straight to your inbox.
Brooke Sjoberg
Brooke Sjoberg is a freelance writer for The Daily Dot. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 2020.
