Potatoes

Potatoes on a cat food label are cooked, usually dried, potatoes used as a starch source, often in grain-free foods. Tufts veterinary nutritionists say cats can digest and metabolize properly cooked carbohydrates, though adult cats have no specific dietary requirement for carbohydrate. If your cat has heart disease, diabetes or another condition, ask your veterinarian about its food.

Source: sites.tufts.edu

Potatoes replace grains as the starch in many grain-free foods. Starch helps kibble bind and hold its shape, and it supplies energy. Pettings notes that potatoes are starch-heavy, so a grain-free food built on potatoes can still be high in carbohydrate. They add some potassium and fiber as well.

Cat food uses cooked potato, not raw. Raw potatoes, potato skins that have turned green, and the leaves and stems of the plant contain solanine, a natural compound found in nightshade plants. Cooking also makes potato starch digestible. If your cat has eaten raw potato or chewed on potato plants, call your veterinarian for advice.

FDA has not established that. Starting in 2018, FDA investigated reports of dilated cardiomyopathy, mostly in dogs, many of which ate grain-free diets with peas, lentils or potatoes. It received 9 reports involving cats and called the issue complex, possibly involving multiple factors. FDA also notes that cats are more prone to a different heart disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Source: fda.gov

Potatoes gets 2 out of 5 from Pettings, which lists it as a grain, potato or other carb source. It shows up on 19 of the 149 dry cat foods we list. Each food's page shows how the whole recipe scores, so one ingredient score is only part of the picture.