2026-11-03
Two cats sick. One in hospital. And two lots of raw chicken cat food the FDA says tested positive for Salmonella, with no adequate recall behind them.
On 26 October the FDA told owners not to feed two lots of Darwin's Natural Selections Chicken Recipe for Cats. The agency did not mince words: "To date, the firm has not initiated an adequate recall of the affected products."
Go to your freezer. Now.
The lots are 12731, made on 8 July 2026, and 12493, made on 2 April 2026. Both were sold frozen, in 2-lb packages.
It started with one owner's complaint. Two cats came down with gastrointestinal illness, meaning stomach and gut trouble, after eating the food. One got so sick it was hospitalised. Both recovered once they stopped eating it.
Read that again. They got better when the bowl changed.
And Darwin's? Not backing down an inch. Owner Gary Tashjian called the FDA's zero-tolerance Salmonella policy for raw pet food "an arbitrary standard". The company says it notifies affected customers directly rather than issuing public recalls.
Directly. So, a question for every cat owner with a pack of that chicken sitting in the freezer tonight: did anyone call you?
This is not a first offence in the regulators' eyes. It is at least the eighth FDA advisory on Darwin's since 2018. And about 11 weeks before this one, the US Department of Justice sued the company and Tashjian, in a complaint that seeks to bar the firm from making adulterated pet food, the law's word for contaminated. Darwin's disputes the allegations.
Now the fight everyone saw coming.
Raw feeders have heard every lecture going, and this week they will hear them all again. But look at who actually reads lot numbers. Nobody feeds raw because it's easy. They thaw, they portion, they scrub chopping boards at midnight, because they believe a cat is a hunter built for meat and a bag of dry biscuits is a compromise. That isn't laziness. That's devotion with a cleaver.
Which is exactly why this stings them hardest. The raw feeder is the owner who would have seen a public recall first and cleared her freezer in ten minutes flat. A brand that skips the public recall doesn't let the kibble crowd down. It lets down the most careful customers it has.
And their best argument is a simple one: two bad lots from one brand are not a verdict on raw feeding. One company's batches are not a whole way of life.
Then there's the kibble camp. This week they don't even need to say "told you so". One hospitalised cat says it for them.
But give them their due, too. The kibble owner is the woman who chooses the boring bowl on purpose, so her cat never pays the price for her ideals. No thawing, no chopping boards, no lot numbers to hunt down on a Sunday night. Boring, she'd tell you, is the whole point.
Both camps love their cats ferociously. Neither wants a cat on a drip.
But love doesn't test for Salmonella. Labs do. And the lab results here came back positive, while the people who make the food call the rulebook the problem.
Check those two lot numbers first: 12731 and 12493.
Then tell us, and don't hold back: after this week, raw or kibble, whose side are you on?