Understanding Cat Food Ingredients and Labels

Updated: May 01, 2026

It can be confusing, trying to decipher all those mysterious cat food ingredients. We all want the best for our pets, including the best cat food.

Taking a few minutes to look at the label yourself can tell you far more than a quick recommendation.

How to Read a Cat Food Label

Picking up a bag and flipping it over can feel like reading a different language. Once you know what to look for, it gets much easier to sort through.

First 3 ingredients rule

The first few items tell you most of what you need to know.

They make up the bulk of what's in the food, so take a close look at what shows up right at the top. If those first ingredients look solid, you're off to a good start. If they don't, the rest of the list won’t make up for it.

Protein first

Cats are built to run on protein.

Look for a named meat or fish source leading the list. Chicken, turkey, salmon - something specific.

When the top of the list leans heavily on grains or plant-based fillers, it usually shows up later in coat condition, digestion, or overall energy.

Watch for ingredient splitting

This one can be easy to miss.

You might see corn listed a few different ways - corn, corn gluten meal, corn flour.

Each one looks like a smaller amount on its own, but together they add up.

It's a way of moving those ingredients down the list so they don't appear as dominant as they really are.

Don’t get distracted by marketing

The front of the bag is designed to catch your eye.

Words like "natural," "premium," or "holistic" sound reassuring, but they don't tell you much about what’s actually inside.

The real information is always on the ingredient panel, not the label on the front.

Look at the whole picture

It's easy to zero in on one ingredient and decide from there, but it helps to take a step back.

A single item doesn't define the quality. What matters more is how everything comes together - where the protein is coming from, how much filler is included, and how the overall list reads from top to bottom.

You'll also start to notice how different foods affect your cat over time, which can be just as helpful as anything on the label.

Cat Food Ingredients To Avoid:

Lower-cost options often rely more heavily on fillers, though price alone doesn’t always tell the full story.

They will contain some cat food ingredients you might not want to think about. Here are a few which have been defined by The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO):

Chicken-By-Products:

Chicken by-products consist of the rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as heads, feet, viscera (also known as innards, or offal).

Chicken-By-Product Meal:

Chicken by-product meal is the dry, ground, parts of the carcass, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines.

You'll want to steer clear from the cat food ingredients above, for obvious reasons. Some are quick to point out that when a cat catches and eats it's prey, he eats the whole thing, not just the "white meat".

Wheat Gluten:

Wheat gluten is the tough, viscid nitrogenous substance remaining when wheat is washed to remove the starch.

Corn and wheat in any form are cheap fillers and are very difficult for a cat to digest. They are highly allergenic, and wheat gluten can stick in the intestines. Cats can develop Irritable Bowel Syndrome as a result, as well as vomiting issues. These two ingredients should be completely avoided.

Good Cat Food Ingredients To Look For:

Chicken:

Real chicken meat - an excellent source of protein and nutrition. 

Chicken Meal:

Chicken meal is the dry, cooked down product from a combination of clean flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, from the parts of whole carcasses of chicken. It does not include feathers, heads, feet, or entrails.

Fish Meal:

Fish meal is the clean, rendered (cooked down), dried ground tissue of un-decomposed whole fish or fish cuttings, either or both, with or without the extraction of part of the oil.

Rice

Rice Flour:

This is essentially milled rice.

Barley

Barley Flour:

Milled barley

These ingredients may be found in higher-quality cat food. Just make sure any carbohydrate source, such as rice or barley, is at least second, if not third or more on the list of ingredients. Protein is most important.

Some high quality organic or holistic cat foods even add fruits and vegetables (cranberries, for instance) as a means of providing antioxidants.

And although it's true that cats in the wild wouldn't go berry-picking, they do eat stomach contents of their prey.

« For more on diet and nutrition, head back up to Maine Coon Food.

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