Best Dry Cat Food Reviews: 10 Most-Scanned Foods Compared
We took the 10 dry cat foods Americans scan most on Leo, ignored the fancy packaging and five-star reviews, and ranked what was actually inside.
Best Dry Cat Food Reviews: 10 Most-Scanned Foods Compared
There are hundreds of dry cat foods on U.S. shelves, but for the purpose of this article I decided to look at the 10 most scanned dry cat foods in our app cat food scanner leo.
In order to rank them, I compared each food's nutrition, ingredient list, to see which labels stood out, and which ones fell behind.
To point the obvious: I didn’t use Amazon ratings, because a five-star review from someone whose cat “seems to love it” doesn’t tell me much about the formula. And I didn’t give extra points because the bag is colorful, says “premium,” or has a picture of a chicken on it.
#1 ORIJEN Original Cat
ORIJEN was the biggest outlier of the 10 foods I reviewed.
Its first five ingredients are: Chicken, turkey, whole herring, turkey giblets, salmon.
All five are named animal ingredients. It also had one of the highest protein levels at 40%, and the highest fat level at 20%.
Tho, you should note that it was also the most calorie-dense food checked: 515 calories per cup.
What I liked: Five named animal ingredients at the top of the recipe and 40% guaranteed protein.
What stood out: The same rich formulation that pushes protein and fat higher also makes this the most calorie-dense food in our ranking.
Verdict: The strongest ingredient list of the 10 foods reviewed, but also one of the richest formulas overall.
#2 Open Farm Homestead Turkey & Chicken
Open Farm starts with: turkey, chicken, ocean whitefish meal, herring meal, chickpeas.
That means four identified animal ingredients appear before the first plant ingredient.
What I liked: Four animal ingredients first, 37% protein, and unusually strong sourcing transparency.
What stood out: Open Farm gives you more information about where its ingredients come from than almost any other food in this comparison.
Verdict: One of the most transparent and animal-forward formulas among this list.
#3 Tiki Cat Born Carnivore Indoor Health Chicken & Turkey
Tiki Cat’s recipe begins: chicken, chicken meal, peas, turkey meal, chickpeas.
Chicken and chicken meal occupy the first two positions, and the food contains more guaranteed protein than every mainstream formula in our group. It is also grain-free ; tho remember that grain-free doesn’t mean plant-free: peas and chickpeas still appear within the first five ingredients.
What I liked: Chicken and chicken meal first, with 36% guaranteed protein.
What stood out: Tiki replaces many of the grains found in mainstream foods with legumes instead.
Verdict: One of the stronger high-protein labels reviewed, although the formula still includes a significant plant component.
#4 BLUE Tastefuls Indoor Chicken & Brown Rice
BLUE doesn’t have the huge protein number of ORIJEN or Tiki Cat.
What makes it interesting is the ingredient list: deboned chicken, chicken meal, fish meal, brown rice, barley.
The first three ingredients are animal protein sources. This recipe also contains no chicken or poultry by-product meal and no corn, wheat, or soy.
What I liked: Three animal ingredients first and a relatively straightforward ingredient list.
What stood out: Its 32% protein looks average until you compare the formula with another 32%-protein food such as IAMS.
Verdict: Not the highest-protein food in the ranking, but one of the cleaner-looking mainstream ingredient lists reviewed.
#5 Purina ONE Tender Selects With Real Chicken
Purina ONE makes a major claim on the front of the bag: Real chicken is the #1 ingredient.
Finally something that's not marketing and that is correct.
The recipe begins: chicken, rice, chicken by-product meal, corn protein meal, beef fat.
But and that is important: the formula also includes soybean meal, whole grain corn, soy protein isolate and soy protein concentrate.
What I liked: Chicken first and 34% guaranteed protein.
What stood out: The first ingredient looks strong, but then you read more of it and formula ends up involving by-product meal, corn and several soy ingredients.
Verdict: One of the stronger "mainstream" options in this group, but not as animal-forward throughout the ingredient list as the foods above it.
#6 Hill’s Science Diet Adult Chicken Recipe
Hill’s starts with chicken, which is followed by: whole grain wheat, corn protein meal, whole grain corn, chicken fat.
Well, at least animal ingredient comes first, but three grain or corn-derived ingredients appear immediately after it. Also the food is high calorie with 483 calories per cup, it was one of the most calorie-dense foods we reviewed despite having only 30% guaranteed protein.
What I liked: Chicken first and unusually detailed nutritional disclosure from the manufacturer.
What stood out: Relatively high calories despite a moderate protein guarantee.
Verdict: A very different type of formula from the high-protein foods above it, with strong manufacturer transparency but a grain-heavy top of the ingredient list.
#7 IAMS ProActive Health Healthy Adult With Chicken
IAMS starts with chicken, but look at what comes next: chicken by-product meal, whole grain corn, corn grits, corn protein meal.
What I liked: Chicken is genuinely the first ingredient.
What stood out: Four of the next five ingredients are either chicken by-product meal or corn-based ingredients.
Verdict: Decent headline nutrition, but the ingredient structure puts it below BLUE despite identical protein and fat numbers.
#8 Purina Cat Chow Complete
Cat Chow still reaches a 32% protein guarantee, but unlike Purina ONE, the recipe does not start with fresh chicken.
Its first five ingredients are: chicken by-product meal, ground yellow corn, corn protein meal, whole grain wheat, rice.
Another red flag: the current formula also lists Red 40, Yellow 5 and Blue 2.
What I liked: 32% guaranteed protein despite being one of the more mass-market foods in the group.
What stood out: Chicken by-product meal rather than chicken comes first, followed immediately by several grain ingredients.
Verdict: The headline protein number is respectable, but the ingredient list and added colors pulled it lower in our ranking.
#9 Meow Mix Original Choice
Meow Mix was one of only two foods in the entire Top 10 that didn’t begin with an animal ingredient.
Its recipe starts: ground corn, chicken by-product meal, soybean meal, corn protein meal, beef tallow.
And yet again, the label also lists four added colors: Yellow 6, Red 40, Yellow 5 and Blue 2. I'm not done yet: its ocean fish meal is listed as being preserved with ethoxyquin.
What I liked (I guess I should like something about it): 30% protein still places it above the lowest-protein food in our group.
What stood out: Corn comes first, with both soybean meal and corn protein meal appearing near the top.
Verdict: A much more plant-heavy top of the ingredient list than most of the foods ranked above it, with several added colors as well.
#10 9Lives Daily Essentials
9Lives finished last in this sample. It had both the lowest guaranteed protein and lowest guaranteed fat of the 10 most-scanned dry foods. On top of that this is one of the food that didn't begin with an animal ingredient.
The first five ingredients are: whole ground corn, chicken by-product meal, soybean meal, corn protein meal, whole wheat.
The label also lists multiple added colors and BHA used as a preservative.
What I liked: I didn't find anything I liked about that one I guess.
What stood out: Lowest protein and fat in the group, corn first, multiple added colors, and BHA listed as a preservative.
Verdict: the worst of this 10 list.
What We Learned From the 10 Most-Scanned Dry Cat Foods
1. The higher-ranked foods generally contained more protein, but that wasn't the whole story
Protein ranged from: 28% in 9Lives to: 40% in ORIJEN
The three foods we could consider premium in this list such as Tiki Cat, Open Farm and ORIJEN, averaged more protein than many of the "mainstream" foods.
But they weren’t necessarily lighter foods.
Take ORIJEN. It had the highest protein at 40%, but it also had the most fat and the most calories, at about 515 kcal per cup.
So more protein can be a good thing, but it’s not the only thing you should look at.
2. Two foods can have the same nutrition numbers and still be very different
The clearest example was BLUE Tastefuls and IAMS.
Both list: 32% protein, 15% fat
If you only looked at the Guaranteed Analysis, you might assume the foods were extremely similar. But their first five ingredients tell a different story.
BLUE: Deboned chicken, chicken meal, fish meal, brown rice, barley.
IAMS: Chicken, chicken by-product meal, whole grain corn, corn grits, corn protein meal.
That’s one of the biggest reasons cat food scanner Leo looks at nutrition and ingredients together instead of reducing a food to one number.
3. “Chicken is the first ingredient” doesn't tell you everything
Seven of the 10 foods we just reviewed begin with a named meat such as chicken, turkey or deboned chicken. But remember, what happens after the first ingredient varies enormously.
Purina ONE starts with chicken, then quickly moves into rice, chicken by-product meal and corn protein meal.
IAMS starts with chicken, followed by chicken by-product meal and three corn ingredients.
ORIJEN starts with chicken and then continues with turkey, herring, turkey giblets and salmon.
The first ingredients matters. Obviously the rest of the label does too.
Want to see how your cat’s food compares? Scan it with cat food scanner Leo to see its score, nutrition and ingredients in seconds.