Grain / Wheat Free Cat Food

Hey there!

I had a lady who adopted one of my fosters and she is a nutritionist.  She said she wasn't going to feed Rachel any grains or wheat.  Is this really better for their health?  I feed my cats MaxCat dry food and Sheba wet (because the Sheba has meat listed as the first ingredient).  I've been looking at some of the brands that are grain-free?  Does anyone else buy grain-free cat food?

I would say most of us feed grain free if the budget permits!

I feed as much grain-free as I can afford.  You can find some low-cost wet foods without grains but they'll have by-products in them.  I read a few articles that say by-products are the lesser evil of the two so that's why I look for though I prefer real meat as a first ingredient.

I have noticed that my kittens eat more of the lower-quality wet foods so I wonder how much money I'm actually saving by buying both.  It's a Catch-22.  I know I can't afford to pay $2+ for every can but then the kittens eat more of the cheaper stuff.   It's forcing me to kind of starve them into eating kibble.  I don't leave food out overnight and then feed them 1/4 to 3/8 cup of grain-free kibble in the morning.

bonepicker said:

I would say most of us feed grain free if the budget permits!

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I agree. And I agree with what @PicklesPepper says about byproducts being the lesser evil, too.

And a lot of us feed foods that are not only grain-free but also low-carb or moderately low-carb. For example, I only feed wet foods that don't have potato or peas, either, because those ingredients add carbohydrate calories. Other ingredients can, too, like tapioca. The catinfo.org site has information about cat diet and carbs, plus there are charts that show the carb levels of lots of foods. It's a great resource!