Medi-cal is owned by Royal Canin. We've tried their allergy foods and my cat got hypercalcemic from the Vitamin D overdose in the RC Venison and rice in 2006 so they are not on my good list. Both Medi-cal and RC have been involved in the current recall but I know someone whos pets were tested and RC paid the bill no questions asked. You can visit Royal Canin's website to see what they are doing to prevent further problems.
There are many good websites on CRF. My cat Gwenie died from severe CRF after a teeth cleaning a few years ago and she would not eat the vet recommended CRF foods at all. On the advice of a holistic vet we started giving her purified water with no minerals, lead, iron, etc. and fed her one of the Walthams selected protein canned cat foods (with a little pumpkin mixed in to help with constipation) which had very few ingredients and was very good until Walthams was bought by Royal Canin and they changed the formula. We found that while Gwenie ate much less of the high quality food, it seemed she got more nutrition in smaller doses of food and it strained her kidneys less. However she was very sick and could not be saved but at least she ate well and never became too skinny for the last six months of her life. I'm not sure what you should do for long term feeding but there are many good websites where you can research food for your cats.
Good diet info here
http://www.onlynaturalpet.eu/newsletter-nierenversagen.php?&language=enResources here
http://www.felinecrf.org/http://www.felinecrf.com/what0.htm
