In Beanietoe’s best cat food review, we find the best the best of the best cat foods. We’re comparing cat foods of all kinds head to head to help pet parents find the top rated foods for their cats. Our process is simple, and our mission is even simpler, we’re looking for the best cat foods. Period.
Our list will span different budgets and types including the best fresh cat foods, the best canned cat foods, the best raw cat foods and the best wet cat foods. You’ve never met a list as comprehensive as this, but you don’t have to take our word for it. We’ll also help you learn to identify good cat foods for yourself, so you can be an informed consumer!
How do you identify a good cat food: Check the label!
Finding a good cat food can be tough. There’s a lot of unscrupulous manufacturers out there who are trying to dupe unknowing pet parents into feeding their cats garbage food. Fortunately though, there are some road blocks in place to prevent this. However, not many pet parents know how to read ingredients labels, and manufacturers are depending on this ignorance to sell you bad products!
Pet food manufacturers are required to list the ingredients in the food you buy in order of their prominence in the food. This means that the first ingredient is what the food is mostly made out of. Have you checked the ingredients labels at your local big box store?
If you have then you’ll likely see that corn or wheat is the first ingredient of nearly every pet food there. That’s because this is a cheap filler item with almost no nutritional value. Pet food companies save money by putting these ingredients in their foods, but they’re not great for your cat.
Cats are obligate carnivores, and they need meat, not carbohydrates to survive. When you look at the label, you should see a high-quality meat protein in the first spot, and preferably in the first few spots.
If you see corn or grains in the first spot, move on, this is a low quality food. If you don’t see a meat item until ingredient number 7, then run away! This manufacturer is trying to trick you into thinking their food is healthy when it isn’t.
Beanietoe’s Best Cat Food Review List and Buyer’s Guide
When making our list we’ve selected only the foods which meat our healthy pet food criteria. This means foods which are grain-free, are low in carbohydrates, are high in quality proteins, use human grade, whole meat ingredients and offer the best possible nutrition for cats.
While fresh and wet foods are the most beneficial to cats, due to the fact that they are at serious risk for struvite crystals, we’ve also included some dry food and budget options that are healthier so pet parents who are on a budget can also feed their cats a great diet.
Best Fresh, Raw and Wet Cat Foods
When it comes to nutrition, fresh, raw and wet diets are the best you can get. They typically feature the highest-quality ingredients with none of the junk. They’re low in carbohydrates and high in quality proteins.
They also tend to have a lot of moisture, which is important for your cat’s health. In many cases, domesticated cats are actually dehydrated, unbeknownst to their owners. This is because cats tend to get most of their liquids through eating, and if they are fed only dry kibble, then they are unlikely to make this up by drinking.
This can lead to a host of health problems, but most pressingly is the formation of struvite crystals which can block their urniary tract. If this happens, cats can die without emergency surgery. The best way to prevent this is to offer a high moisture diet like one of these great items below!
#1 – NomNomNow (Best Fresh Food)
NomNomNow is the cream of the crop when it comes to pet food. If you’re looking to offer your feline friend the best possible nutrition, then this is it. This awesome pet food company uses only high-quality, human grade ingredients to make their foods and they’re all fresh.
Everything is cooked fresh every week and then delivered to your door on a schedule, ensuring that your cat always has the best nutrition available. While you might think that this would be prohibitively expensive, NomNomNow is actually comparable to a high-quality canned food option at around $14 per week. Let’s take a look at one of their recipes to see what makes this food so great.
Above you can see the ingredients and nutritional breakdown for their fish recipe. It includes only five main ingredients, and this limited ingredient profile makes it very easy on your cat’s digestion.
This also means that NomNomNow’s foods are great for cats with food sensitivities or allergies, as there’s little to trigger stomach upset or bad reactions. This recipe in particular is also very low in carbohydrates, making it a great choice for cats who need to shed some pounds.
If this is a concern for you, then you’ll also be glad to know that all of their foods come pre-portioned. This means the work of keeping your cat trim is done for you, and you never have to worry about whether you’re feeding them too much. Interested in treating your cat like a kitty king or queen? Click here to read more about this awesome pet food company that really cares about your cat’s health.
#2 – Wysong Archetype (Best Raw Diet)
If you’ve done your research about pet foods, then it’s likely you’ve at least heard about the benefits of raw diets in passing. Many pet parents love feeding their pets a raw diet.
This is because normally they are more nutritious as these diets focus on a whole prey item approach which incorporates not only whole meats but also healthy organ meats and even ground bones, which can be nutritionally beneficial to pets. Formulating these diets yourself can be problematic though.
Not only is it time consuming, but it’s also difficult to get the right nutritional balance for your cat. Not doing this properly could be very dangerous, but fortunately, Wysong has created a balanced raw diet that is as convenient to feed as a dry kibble food but far more beneficial.
It’s a dry food but with all the benefits of a raw and wet diet. You can feed this food to your cat as is, but we actually recommend you re-hydrate it with water to give your cat added fluids which are beneficial to preserving kidney and urinary function. This will also make the food much more appealing to your pet.
Wysong’s Archetype is a high-quality, non-thermal pet food which is not heated above a certain temperature. This prevents it from losing nutritional value like other heavily processed pet foods do. It’s also unique in that it’s starch free and nearly 95% meat product, making it a great choice for cats on low carb diets.
This allows it to provide your cat with a high nutritional value while featuring no filler items like normal cat foods. This particular product is so nutritionally sound that it’s actually acceptable to be fed to both cats and dogs.
If you’ve ever heard about how cats can’t eat dog food in the past, it’s because commercial dog foods have so many useless fillers that cats won’t get enough nutrition if they eat them! This is not true for Wysong’s products, and that’s why they’re one of our best cat food review items. Click here to learn more about this great product.
#3 – Halo Cat Food (Best Canned Diet)
If you’re looking for a more affordable wet food option, then Halo’s canned offering offers superior nutrition at bargain prices. They’re one of the most affordable foods on the list, but they don’t ever sacrifice quality to save a buck. Halo uses only human grade ingredients, and most of their foods are limited in ingredients, making it an easy choice for pets with stomach issues. Their foods are also highly digestible, and pet parents who have cats with issues with diarrhea or vomiting will likely find this food to be very agreeable to their feline friends.
Their foods are high in quality meats, giving them a superior flavor that cats love, and picky felines are likely to eat these foods. They also come in a wide assortment of flavors, making it easy to choose a food that will fit in with many different sensitivities or issues including grain-free, gluten free, weight reduction, senior and indoor varieties. Click here to read reviews from other pet parents for this quality and affordable food.
Best Dry Cat Foods
While we believe that wet foods are the way to go for cat health, we also understand that sometimes budget concerns can make that choice for pet parents. So, we’ve also compiled a list of the best dry foods that you can feed your cat. This list will mimic our other list in that we’ve only chosen foods that use high-quality, whole food ingredients, are low in carbohydrates and high in quality meat proteins.
#1 – Halo Cat Food (Most Affordable)
Halo makes our list again with their excellent selection of food offerings. Much like their wet foods, they also offer a high-quality selection of dry foods which are great for cats. Their foods are superiority digestible, and they’ve even tested this in a lab to prove it! That means there’s no worries for cats that are prone to vomiting or diarrhea, these kibbles go down smoothly, and they have very small pieces, making it easier for your cat to chew and digest them.
Unlike other lower quality kibble foods, Halo’s products are made using only human-grade ingredients, and they use only whole meats. Other manufacturers fill their cat foods with meat meals, but Halo does not. While meat meals aren’t inherently bad, they are heavily processed for preservation purposes, and this inevitably cooks out a lot of the nutrition, making whole food items the superior choice when it comes to nutrition.
Halo’s kibble foods are also deceptively inexpensive for a food of this caliber, and it’s a great option for pet parents on a budget! If you can’t afford to feed your cat a wet food diet all the time, then you can at least offer it to them as a supplement. Halo offers dry and wet foods in the same flavor profiles, so it’s easy to offer part of their food as wet and part dry if you need to for cost reasons. Click here to see reviews for this product.
#2 – Orijen Cat Food (Highest Protein Percentage)
Orijen offers an excellent dry food that contains only whole meat products like Halo’s kibble. However, they focus on a healthier whole prey approach, and your cat will have the added benefit of having high-quality whole meats, organ meats and even bones, which are important to cat health. Orijen practices what they call “biologically appropriate” cat nutrition, where their diets mimic what cats would eat if they were wild. This means a meat mixture of whole meats, whole fish and dehydrated meat bits, which are extra tasty, making this an attractive options for cats who are picky eaters.
The only downside to Orijen’s diets is that they can be pretty expensive for kibble, and that gives Halo an edge in this department. However, Orijen’s foods also offer a higher percentage of meat, and all of their recipes are completely grain and starch free. Instead of fillers like grains and potatoes, they focuses on healthier fruit and veggie inclusions, like pumpkin, which is very good for the digestive tract and can help cats with troubles in that area to stay regular or settle their stomachs. Orijen offers several different varieties for you to try, and you can learn more about their great pet foods here.
#3 – Farmina Cat Food (Balanced Approach)
This little known cat food brand offers excellent nutrition for your cat. They use high-quality whole meat proteins, and their recipes are grain-free and the protein comes from over 98% animal products. This is a important distinction, because many cat food manufacturers advertise that their cat diets are high protein, but in many cases the protein source is actually made almost entirely of vegetables. This is no good for cats, and meat protein sources, like the ones found here, are the way to go.
Their foods are free from anything artificial, but pet parents should be aware that this food features potatoes. They’re not too high up the ingredient list, so it’s not a big concern, but some pet parents don’t like them in their food. If that’s the case for you, then Orijen would likely be a better choice. If that’s not an issue for you though, Farmina is a little more affordable than Orijen, and it offers similar protein and meat offerings. While this is a much lesser known food brand, it’s rated very highly by pet parents who say their cats love it. Click here to learn more about this food.
How to save money on cat food without skimping on quality
Pet parents shopping for dry foods are usually very budget conscious, and that’s understandable. However, there’s a lot of very bad dry cat foods out there that you should avoid. A quality dry food will cost a little more, but you should think of it as an investment in your cat’s health. It’s also important that you stick to one kind of cat food. If you jump around a lot to whatever is on sale that week, then you could be giving your cat sever intestinal distress that could lead to vomiting or diarrhea. Instead, choose one food that’s affordable and stick with it.
An affordable and high-quality dry food like Halo will always be available at a good price, but you can save even more buy purchasing it online. Most online stores offer prices that are significantly cheaper than brick and mortar stores due to their reduced operating costs. In addition to this, most of them also have auto-ship programs. If you find a food that your cat likes and commit to getting it every month auto-delivered to your door, then that retailer will normally knock 10-15% off the cost of your delivery every month. This is a great deal, and in the long run, it’s likely you’ll save much more than with coupons, and your cat will thank you for it. You can get this deal from Wysong’s website or even most of the cat foods on Amazon allow you to take advantage of this savings. This means that you should be able to continually save on almost all of the foods on our best cat food review list.
