How can I tell if my cat food is spoiled?

Question

I ordered wet cat food from Chewy - Sheba brand Perfect Portions paté. When I opened the container, the consistency was different than usual. Instead of sort of solid wet it was more watery with some consistency so not watery, like liquid. The expiration date is good and the smell was good too. It seems like it was stored in a humid environment, I guess. Anyway, I fed Ali (my cat) some. He licked it and seemed to like it, but I am still concerned there is something wrong with the food. So my question is - is it okay if I feed this to my cat? And is it spoiled or not, or should I be aware of something? I don't know. I just never had this happened before so I'm confused.

Answer 1

I smell cat food every time I feed my cats. A good smell and undamaged container are enough for me to accept the food. It happened once that the food looked different than usual, and I gave the food to my cats cautiously. They ate it without any doubt, so I was happy that their instinct told them that the food is good.

I hope this is a sufficient procedure. If not - what else we can do? You can throw the cans away or give them back to the seller.

Unfortunately there might be some kind of poisons developing in the food, especially some with no smell or taste (like botulinum toxin in food for humans) but I'm not aware of any in cat food.

Answer 2

The human nose is well developed to detect spoiled food, so if the food smells fresh you can safely give it to your cat.

Your cat's nose is a lot better than the human nose, so if your cat eats the food you can trust the food to be good. A cat trusts only itself when it comes to what to eat, so if the food is spoiled your cat will not eat it (unless the cat is really starving).