Sweet Potato

Sweet potato is a starchy root vegetable used as a carbohydrate source in many grain-free cat foods. Tufts veterinary nutritionists say cats can digest and metabolize properly cooked carbohydrates, though adult cats have no specific dietary requirement for carbohydrate. In kibble, sweet potato is cooked with the other ingredients. For a cat with a medical condition, ask your veterinarian.

Source: sites.tufts.edu

Sweet potato replaces grain as the starch in many grain-free recipes. Starch helps kibble bind and supplies energy, and sweet potato also adds fiber and beta-carotene. Pettings notes that it is still mostly starch, so a grain-free food built on sweet potato is not automatically low in carbohydrate.

There is none in substance. Some labels use the singular sweet potato and others the plural sweet potatoes for the same ingredient. Pettings tracks both spellings on separate pages so each label matches, and both score 2 out of 5. The plural spelling is more common on the labels we list.

Sweet potato adds fiber along with its starch. Tufts veterinary nutritionists say fiber contained in carbohydrate sources can nourish gut bacteria and improve stool quality. How much a given food helps depends on the whole recipe, and a cat with ongoing diarrhea or constipation should see a veterinarian rather than rely on one ingredient.

Source: sites.tufts.edu

Pettings gives sweet potato 2 out of 5 and lists it as a grain, potato or other carb source. It appears on 5 of the 149 dry cat foods we list. That score rates the ingredient by itself, and each food's page shows how the full recipe scores overall.