I admit it. Matilda is a very special cat. Really!! She is intolerant to cereals AND diabetic. This means that she can only eat grain-free wet food. In Sweden, this is not a problem at all. The Mjau cat food that the vet recommended us can be bought at the supermarket in large cans (almost 700 gr) is grain free, wet and cheap. Plus, she loves it.
From my initial internet research, I anticipated that it was not going to be this easy in Costa Rica. So, we brought 4 large cans of Mjau with us for the first week and to help with the transition to the new food.
The quest to find a similar food (grain free and wet) in Costa Rica has not been easy. Most of the pet shops and veterinaries sell dry food or very special wet food (like the hills line for cats with kidney problems or recovering from a surgery) which costs A LOT. Supermarkets, on the other hand, distribute almost exclusively Nestle’s “Felix” which contains tons of crap and grain.
After three days of visiting shops in Heredia and Alajuela, we ended up in La Vete, a very large animal food shop and veterinary with a fair amount of canned food for cats, including grain-free. We had two options: Taste of the Wild and Instinct. Taste of the Wild cans contained 85 grams and were almost 2000 colones (4 US$ or 3,2 €). Instinct cans are 156 grams and cost about 1600 colones (3$ or 2,56€). As Frank would say: No brainer right
According to the vet at La Vete, Mati should eat 1 can of Instict per day (about 75 euros per month). Not cheap but doable. The alternative is to cook her food ourselves, which might become the only possible alternative when we reach the remote Osa peninsula. But, for the time being and for convenience, we chose canned food.
We have now started the shift to the new food, which according to all vets need to be gradual. So, first two days has been 75% old food and 25% new food. Today we will increase to 50-50 and soon (we hope) she can go 100% on the new food. We just need to make sure that we stock up on cans before we head for the beach…and far away from the place that we know sells Instinct. 😉
THE FLIP FLOP LIFE 