Vegetable Oil

It does not say which plant the oil comes from, which makes its quality hard to judge.

Vegetable oil on a cat food label is oil from one or more plants that the label does not name. It supplies energy and linoleic acid. A 1984 study in cats found that dietary linoleic acid prevented most signs of essential fatty acid deficiency, while arachidonic acid, which plant oils lack, was still needed for some functions. For a cat with a medical condition, ask your veterinarian.

Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Vegetable oil adds calories and linoleic acid to dry cat food. Tufts veterinary nutritionists note that fat provides more than twice the calories of protein or carbohydrate, so even small amounts of oil raise a food's energy. Pettings notes that vegetable oil works next to an animal fat in a cat food, since plant oils lack arachidonic acid.

Source: sites.tufts.edu

Not as such. Cats need linoleic acid, which vegetable oils supply, but animal fats such as chicken fat also contain it. A 1984 study in cats found that dietary linoleic acid prevented most signs of essential fatty acid deficiency. So a food can meet that need with or without vegetable oil, as long as the overall recipe provides enough.

Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Not always. Canola oil is one kind of vegetable oil, and a label that names canola tells you the source. A label that says only vegetable oil could mean canola, soybean, corn, sunflower or a blend. Pettings has separate pages for named plant oils such as canola, sunflower and sesame oil, which show how each one scores.

Pettings gives vegetable oil 2 out of 5 and files it as a general cat food ingredient. It appears on 15 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.