Cat Food Guides

Questions about dry cat food, answered with the label data of the foods we list.

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  Cat Food Ingredients to Look For: The 5 Out of 5 List

  We have read the ingredient labels of every dry cat food on Pettings and scored each ingredient from 0 to 5. Of the 324 ingredients in our ingredient dictionary, 55 get the full 5 points. This guide covers the ones you are most likely to find on a real bag, ordered by how many of the 149 dry foods we list include them.

  Nov 4, 2026
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  How Much Wet Food, Dry Food and Water Does a Cat Need Each Day?

  Most feeding questions start with a ratio: half wet and half dry, or a can in the morning and a scoop at night. The veterinary references we rely on do not set a fixed wet to dry ratio for adult cats. They give a way to estimate how many calories a cat needs and a limit on treats, and they say fresh water should always be out. Once the calorie number is in place, the wet and dry split becomes a choice you can make for your own cat and your own routine.

  Nov 4, 2026
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  Kitten Feeding Chart: How Much Dry Food by Age

  Every bag of dry kitten food has a feeding table on the label, and the tables rarely agree. We put the tables from 11 dry kitten foods on Pettings side by side, so you can see the daily amount at 2, 4 and 8 months for each one.

  Nov 1, 2026
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  Preservatives in Cat Food: What the Label Tells You

  Cat food is high in fat, and fat is the part of a food that spoils first once oxygen reaches it. Preservatives slow that spoilage down. Veterinary nutritionists at Tufts University say dry dog and cat foods must contain preservatives, whether synthetic or natural, because rancid fat makes food less tasty and can lower its nutritional quality, since certain vitamins depend on stable fat (Tufts Petfoodology).

  Nov 1, 2026
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  Cheapest Grain-Free Dry Cat Food With an Ingredient Score Above 80

  Taste of the Wild Lowland Creek, the quail and duck recipe, is the cheapest grain-free dry cat food on Pettings with an Ingredient score above 80. It scores 84 out of 100 and 9.8 out of 10 on nutrition, has nothing on the Avoid List, and the 14 lb bag works out to $2.86 per pound at Chewy. For a 10 to 14 lb cat that is about $15 a month.

  Oct 29, 2026
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  How to Read a Cat Food Label: Guaranteed Analysis Explained

  Every bag of cat food sold in the US carries a small box called the guaranteed analysis. It lists at least four numbers: crude protein, crude fat, crude fiber and moisture. Some makers add ash, taurine or other nutrients. Together with the calorie statement, it is where the maker commits to numbers, and it is what our Nutrition score is built from.

  Oct 29, 2026
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  Grain-Free Cat Food Without Chicken

  Of the 53 grain-free dry foods on Pettings, 14 have no chicken anywhere on the label: not as meat, not as meal, not as fat. The highest scoring of them is Acana Highest Protein Wild Atlantic: whiting, haddock, herring, redfish and mackerel meal in the first five, an Ingredient score of 90, nutrition 9.9 out of 10 and nothing on the Avoid List, at $5.60 per pound. It contains no poultry of any kind.

  Oct 29, 2026
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  Taurine for Cats: Why Every Dry Cat Food Contains It

  Taurine is an amino acid that cats cannot make enough of on their own, so it has to come from food. Every cat food labeled complete and balanced must meet a taurine minimum, and 146 of the 149 dry foods on Pettings list taurine as an added ingredient.

  Oct 29, 2026
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  What "Poultry By-Product Meal" Means in Cat Food

  Poultry by-product meal is a rendered, dried mix of bird parts other than the meat itself, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, from birds the label does not name. It appears in 18 of the 149 dry foods on Pettings, and in the first five ingredients of 16. We rate it 2 out of 5, against 5 for chicken meal.

  Oct 29, 2026
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  Is Chicken Meal Bad for Cats? Meal vs. Fresh Chicken on the Label

  Chicken meal is not a lower grade of chicken. It is chicken that has been cooked down so the water and most of the fat are gone, which makes it a concentrated, dry form of the same meat. On Pettings, chicken meal and fresh chicken get the same rating: 5 out of 5.

  Oct 29, 2026
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  Dry Cat Food With Nothing on the Avoid List

  A dry cat food with nothing on the Avoid List is one whose label lists none of the additives Pettings counts, such as BHA, artificial colors or menadione. Of the 149 dry foods on Pettings, 91 have a count of zero, and the ten cheapest of them are in the table below.

  Oct 29, 2026
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  Indoor Cat Food: What Is Actually Different on the Label?

  "Indoor" on a bag of cat food is a name, not a standard. AAFCO, the organization that writes the model rules for US pet food labels, has no indoor category, so what changes from one indoor food to the next is up to the maker. On Pettings, indoor dry foods have fewer calories per cup and more fiber on average, but not every indoor food is different from the same brand's regular recipe.

  Oct 29, 2026
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  Is Grain-Free Cat Food Bad for Cats?

  There is no evidence that grain-free cat food is bad for cats, and no evidence that it is better. "Grain-free" tells you one thing the food leaves out. It says nothing about how much meat is in the bag, what replaced the grain, or what it costs per month.

  Oct 28, 2026