Sometimes, you have to wonder if the pet food manufacturers make up a market for their "specially formulated" pet foods on their own. For instance, what is with all the hypoallergenic cat food that's all over the place now.
They first sell you cheap, mass-produced pet food that's full of all the ingredients that cats are not supposed to eat. Then the food produces all these undesirable allergies and intolerances in your cat. Finally, they tell you that your cat seems to be oversensitive to its food, and they try to sell you hypoallergenic cat food. That's what they call making money hand over fist.
But what are we talking about here? What do they put into hypoallergenic cat food (or dog food) that's supposed to not aggravate anything in your cat?
Well, if it's hypoallergenic pet food, they claim that since animal proteins are the main culprits, they take that completely out. Instead, they use a lot of hydrolyzed chicken, soybean oil, cellulose and starch.
The advertise their products as having no intact animal proteins, in fact; the hydrolyzed chicken is supposed to make sure that no proteins in there is intact and in their natural form.