Mixing Grain & Grain Free?

Hi everyone!

I've been searching for a while now for an answer to this question and coming up flat so I figured I'd ask you knowledgeable cat parents!

My kittens will be making the switch over to adult food next month, they will both be a year old and I'm searching for food brands. I found a dry & wet food that i would like to give them but one is grain free and one is not. My vet has been insisting I feed them a grain diet which I have no problem with but a lot of high quality wet foods are grain free. So can I give them grain free and then supplement with the dry food? Or is it not healthy to mix the two?

Thanks!

Hi!
I'm not a vet, but mixing the two shouldn't be any kind of problem.

I would try your approach, see how they do, and of course especially if they eat it

Why do they insist on a grain inclusive diet?

It's likely fine; afterall Fancy Feast is grain free and is in the same aisle as the grain laden dry foods at most stores.

Thank you guys for the response! I figured it would be fine but wanted some other opinions. mizzely they say that grain free is being linked to health issues later in life. I've looked up some studies myself and I'm beginning to suspect this mainly pertains to dogs rather than cats, but I figure it can't hurt to throw a few grains in there just in case.

I like your thinking

Yes, it's definitely a dog issue at this time, mostly due to lack of taurine which cat food already includes

I'm not against grains, especially since so many just replace rice etc with lentils, peas, or potatoes. So I elect to go with low carb foods vs "grain free".

I feed my cats a combo of both, their dry food does contain grains, but their wet foods are both with or grain free. No issues yet!

Cats have no use for grains. Grains = more poop, more shedding, a fatter cat, etc.
stick with a grain free meat based food. Some good ones are nature’s variety, dr elseys, young again, tiki cat, and orijen are all good options.
Fancy feast classic are good on a budget. I’m leery of Purina but it’s better than feeding no wet at all.

I am following the issue with my dogs on another site. I am transitioning my dogs from grain free. One of my dogs was showing signs of DCM and had an echocardiogram done. I spoke to our vet about changing both cat and dog food. His recomendation is Purina. They have been around for a long time, they have pet nutritionists on staff, the do feed trials before before releasing their foods, there are no artificial flavorings/colors in their foods, food is processed in the US using ingredients from the US.

Um. I hate to tell you, but Purina doesnt get all their ingredients from the us. Their foods also contain all types of dyes and artificial preservatives and flavors. Most of their foods are not biologically correct for either dogs or cats. Fancy feast classic canned and some of the true nature proplan canned foods are ok but that’s about it... their “feed trials” are mostly incredibly limited and based on whether their test subjects simply “lived” through the trails, they are often short as well, and from my understanding they can omit a certain amount of “failed” test subjects per each trial. Nestle is not a trustworthy company.
Also most vets get less than a semester of nutrition training in school. The vet school in my state gets one class, it’s an elective in the third year so it isn’t even required.
Vets know next to nothing about nutrition besides what Hill’s, Purina, and Royal Canin tell them.

To clarify a little bit further, Purina, RC and Hill's used to be fantastic pet foods. Unfortunately in the past few years, oversized corporations like Nestle and Mars bought them. Since these big businesses are only focused on the bottom line, the quality instantly degraded.

Regulations for nutritional adequacy labeling and feeding trials are set by the AAFCO. Here is an article that explains about AAFCO labeling and the minimum standard for each type of feeding trial (maintenance, growth, reproduction).
AAFCO Pet Food Labeling - Veterinary Partner - VIN

Yes, the minimum standard is rather limited for AAFCO feeding trials. However, for some life stages (growth, and especially reproduction), I do think it's meaningful that a particular pet food formulation has passed a feeding trial. Some of the pet food manufacturers far exceed the minimum standard in their testing, maintaining entire colonies of cats raised on the food, but you can't tell that from looking at the label.

Also, for foods with unusual formulations, even the maintenance feeding trial is important, to show that the food is adequate. Here's an example of a feeding trial done for a novel type of food for cats with severe digestive sensitivities, Royal Canin Ultamino (you can look it up on Chewy if you are curious about the food):
https://cdn1.royalcanin.es/wp-conte...ndepenaamplamentehidrolisadaemgatoadultos.pdf