A reasonably solid wet cat food from a major manufacturer with real veterinary nutritionists on staff. Named chicken is the primary protein, no unnamed/unspecified animal ingredients, no artificial colors or carcinogenic preservatives. The wheat gluten is the biggest knock — it's there to cheaply inflate protein and create gravy texture, and cats don't need plant protein. Carrageenan and menadione are avoidable ingredients that Purina chooses to use because they're cheap. Sodium selenite is the lazy selenium choice. These are cost-cutting decisions from a multi-billion-dollar company that could easily use better alternatives. Still, compared to the average grocery-store wet cat food, this is above average — no rendering nightmares, no artificial dyes, no unnamed mystery proteins.

Fancy Feast Gourmet Naturals White Meat Chicken is a mid-tier wet cat food that does several things right: named chicken protein, no unnamed rendering ingredients, no artificial colors, no carcinogens, and proper taurine supplementation. It's made by Purina, which — love them or hate them — employs actual board-certified veterinary nutritionists and has decades of feeding trial data. The problems are the cost-cutting corners: wheat gluten inflating protein cheaply, carrageenan as a thickener when safer alternatives exist, menadione instead of natural Vitamin K, and sodium selenite instead of selenium yeast. These are all penny-pinching decisions from a company owned by Nestlé that made $94 billion in revenue last year. They could do better. They choose not to. That said, this scores an A− because the foundation is solid — real meat, named ingredients, complete nutrition, no cancer agents. There are worse things on the shelf. There are also better things if budget allows.