Just like people, cats can have allergies and sensitivities to certain foods. Grains are common culprits, and grain-free cat foods are designed to address this problem. As obligate carnivores, cats don’t need grain in their food to stay healthy. In most cases, grains are added to provide extra fiber rather than nutrition.
If grains give your cat an upset tummy, don’t fret! Here are reviews of the best grain-free cat foods in Canada, so you can find the best one for your cat.
A Quick Look at Our Favorites in 2024
| Image | Product | Details | ||
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Best Overall
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Blue Buffalo Wilderness Grain Free Cat Food |
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Best Value
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Purina Beyond Grain-Free Cat Food |
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Premium Choice
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Taste of the Wild Rocky Mountain Cat Food |
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| Best for Kittens |
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Blue Buffalo Wilderness High Protein Kitten Food |
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Purina Pro Plan True Nature Grain-Free Formula |
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The 10 Best Grain-Free Cat Foods in Canada
1. Blue Buffalo Wilderness Grain Free Cat Food — Best Overall
| First Ingredient: | Deboned chicken |
| Flavor: | Chicken |
| Life Stage: | Adult |
| Calories: | 443 kcal/cup |
We recommend Blue Buffalo Wilderness High Protein Grain Free Cat Food as the best overall grain-free cat food in Canada. This dry food is both grain and gluten free and uses sweet potatoes to meet your cat’s carbohydrate needs. Blue Buffalo Wilderness recipes are based on the premise of replicating what your cat’s natural diet would look like in the wild. Then, supplements are added to ensure that the food is nutritionally complete.
The carefully balanced fat, protein, and calorie ratio will help your cat maintain a healthy weight well into their senior years. While it is labeled as adult cat food, it is safe to feed to senior cats. The only population that this food is inappropriate for is cats with kidney problems. It is a high-protein food, which can complicate pre-existing kidney conditions.
2. Purina Beyond Grain-Free Natural Cat Food — Best Value
| First Ingredient: | Hake |
| Flavor: | Ocean whitefish and egg |
| Life Stage: | Adult |
| Calories: | 392 kcal/cup |
Purina Beyond Grain-Free Natural cat food is the best grain-free cat food in Canada for the money. With fish as the first ingredient and egg included, it is full of high-quality protein to give your cat all the energy that they need. Purina Beyond offers a nutritionally complete dry food that includes all essential vitamins and nutrients, so there’s no need to add anything to your cat’s diet.
It is important to note that if your cat has an allergy to chicken, this food is not chicken free. It is poultry by-product free, but it does have whole chicken listed in the ingredient list.
3. Taste of the Wild Rocky Mountain — Premium Choice
| First Ingredient: | Chicken meal |
| Flavor: | Roasted venison and smoked salmon |
| Life Stage: | All life stages |
| Calories: | 425 kcal/cup |
Taste of the Wild Rocky Mountain Recipe is our premium recommendation for grain-free cat food. While this food is more expensive than many other brands, it includes all-natural ingredients and easily digested proteins to prevent digestive upset. Antioxidants and probiotics are added to promote immune health and digestive health. This cat food is also made for all life stages, so you can use it for cats of any age, from kittens to seniors. This can provide a huge advantage in not having to change foods as your cat grows.
Taste of the Wild is a high-protein food and not appropriate for cats with kidney disease.
4. Blue Buffalo Wilderness High Protein Kitten Food — Best for Kittens
| First Ingredient: | Deboned chicken |
| Flavor: | Chicken |
| Life Stage: | Kitten |
| Calories: | 457 kcal/cup |
If you are searching for quality, grain-free kitten food for your tiny feline, look no further than Blue Buffalo Wilderness High Protein Kitten Food. This recipe is designed to encourage healthy muscle growth and development. It includes DHA, taurine, and ARA to support cognitive and eye health. Blue Buffalo’s LifeSource Bits are full of vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals to support your kitten’s whole health.
5. Purina Pro Plan True Nature Grain-Free Canned Cat Food
| First Ingredient: | Ocean whitefish |
| Flavor: | Ocean whitefish and salmon |
| Life Stage: | Adult |
| Calories: | 107 kcal/can |
Purina ProPlan True Nature offers a grain-free wet food option that is made with all-natural ingredients and is both grain and gluten free. The ocean-whitefish-and-salmon recipe is chicken free for cats that are sensitive to chicken but remains high in quality animal protein.
Purina’s food recipes are designed in consultation with over 400 vets and animal nutritionists. This food is appropriate for cats that are overweight and those diagnosed with diabetes. It also provides complete nutrition, so you don’t have to mix it with dry food if you don’t want to. The biggest downside to this is cost, but it may be worth it if your cat has trouble chewing or tolerating dry kibble.
6. Wellness Core Grain-Free Original Formula Cat Food
| First Ingredient: | Chicken |
| Flavor: | Turkey and chicken |
| Life Stage: | Adult/Senior |
| Calories: | 445 kcal/cup |
Wellness Core promotes its cat food recipes as mimicking a wild cat’s diet. It also includes dried kelp in its recipes, which offers extra fiber. This helps overweight cats feel full for longer and prevents overeating. This particular recipe contains cranberries to promote urinary tract health. This is unique among grain-free cat foods and makes Wellness Core one of the few options for cats with kidney problems.
This food contains added glucosamine and chondroitin to help maintain joint mobility for older cats. It may also reduce stiffness in cats with arthritis.
The biggest complaint about Wellness Core cat food is the flavor. Unfortunately, picky cats don’t seem to like it. If your cat won’t eat it, this negates any health benefits that they would gain from a regular diet of this food.
7. Blue Buffalo Freedom Grain Free Natural Indoor Cat Food
| First Ingredient: | Whitefish |
| Flavor: | Fish |
| Life Stage: | Adult |
| Calories: | 391 kcal/cup |
Blue Buffalo Freedom is specifically designed for indoor cats to help them maintain healthy body weight. It is lower calorie than other cat foods but still nutritionally balanced to ensure that your pet gets all the nutrition that they need to stay healthy. Blue’s trademark LifeSource Bits are full of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants to maintain the health of your cat’s digestive, immune, and skeletal system. This food will also keep their skin and coat looking their best.
With fish as the primary ingredient, Blue Buffalo Freedom has a strong odor to it. This is likely to appeal to your cat, but it is a huge turn-off for many owners. If your cat eats freely and grazes throughout the day, you may not want your home smelling of fish.
8. Merrick Purrfect Bistro Grain-Free Adult Cat Food
| First Ingredient: | Deboned salmon |
| Flavor: | Salmon, chicken, and turkey |
| Life Stage: | Adult |
| Calories: | 412 kcal/cup |
Merrick Purrfect Bistro offers a grain-free cat food with an extremely high protein/fat-to-carbohydrate ratio of 74% to 26%. This food has the lowest amount of carbohydrates of any food on this list. This can help promote weight loss or prevent weight gain from excess carbs in cats that need it. Another unique quality of Merrick Grain-Free food is that it helps prevent hairballs. If you’re tired of cleaning up gooey balls of hair, this may be the food for you.
If you have a cat that may be prone to developing urinary tract crystals or bladder stones, we don’t recommend this food due to it being high in protein. With fish as the first ingredient, this food also smells “fishy,” which is unpleasant for some owners. As with any food, some picky cats don’t like this flavor.
9. Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet Grain-Free Dry Cat Food
| First Ingredient: | Rabbit meal |
| Flavor: | Rabbit |
| Life Stage: | Adult |
| Calories: | 457 kcal/cup |
Cats that need grain-free food but also suffer from food allergies may benefit from eating Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet Recipe food. This food has a limited-ingredient list to prevent allergic reactions and uses rabbit as its primary protein. Instinct guarantees that its food is 100% free from chicken, beef, fish, dairy, eggs, grains, potato, corn, wheat, soy, sweet potato, chickpeas, and any artificial colors or preservatives.
The biggest downside to this food is the price. It is an above-average cost for grain-free cat food as a freeze-dried raw food with a novel protein. But it is one of the few foods that meet these criteria and is necessary to keep certain cats healthy.
10. Kirkland Signature Nature’s Domain Formula for Cats
| First Ingredient: | Salmon meal |
| Flavor: | Salmon meal and potato |
| Life Stage: | Adult |
| Calories: | 333 kcal/cup |
Kirkland Signature offers one of the most economical brands of grain-free cat food on the market. Previously, this food was only available to Costco members, but it is now available on Amazon, making it much easier to buy. This particular recipe contains a high volume of fish proteins and has a guaranteed level of probiotics to support gut health.
The biggest downside of Kirkland Signature food is the carbohydrate content. It does contain carbs from several different sources but maintains its grain-free status. This doesn’t seem to cause any obvious digestion issues for healthy cats. Online reviews show that most cats love this food and that it is even tolerated by cats that have GI difficulties with other cat foods.
Buyer’s Guide: Choosing the Best Grain-Free Cat Food in Canada
Buyer’s Guide: Choosing the Best Grain-Free Cat Food in CanadaIf you feel overwhelmed by the available options for grain-free cat food, you’re not alone. Grain-free diets are necessary for some cats, but you shouldn’t change your cat’s diet without first speaking to your vet. Not all cats need a grain-free diet, so make sure the switch is beneficial for your cat’s health first. If your vet has recommended that your cat avoid grains, here’s what to look for in grain-free cat food.
Does Your Cat Need a Grain-Free Diet?
Grain allergies in cats are rare, but they do happen. Grain allergy signs include:
If you suspect that your cat has an allergy, it’s best to see your vet to do testing and to determine if their diet is the cause. It is also possible for cats to have a sensitivity or intolerance to grains, and some owners find that their cat has decreased vomiting episodes when fed a grain-free diet.
Pros and Cons of Grain-Free Cat Food
There are advantages to feeding your cat a grain-free diet, including:
Disadvantages of feeding a grain-free diet:
Myths and Misconceptions About Grain-Free Diets
Theoretically, there is nothing wrong with feeding your cat a grain-free diet. While grain-free cat food used to be reserved for cats with allergies and food intolerances, they have seen increased popularity in recent years. This popularity has coincided with the popularity of grain-free and low-carbohydrate diets for humans.
Do most cats need a grain-free diet? No, most don’t, but it is true that cats are obligate carnivores. What they need most in their diet is meat. As long as a cat food meets their requirements for protein, vitamins, minerals, and calories in a nutritionally complete recipe, there’s nothing wrong with it.
Do Grain-Free Diets Cause Heart Disease?
While there has been a link between grain-free dog food and canine heart disease, it has not yet been suggested that there is any risk to cats. The FDA launched an investigation into grain-free pet diets in 2018, which found that grain-free diets do not pose a health risk to cats.
Conclusion
If you are shopping for grain-free cat food, it can be hard to determine which foods are the best. Hopefully, these reviews and buyer’s guide have given you a good idea of what to look for. To recap, we recommend Blue Buffalo Wilderness High Protein Grain-Free Cat Food as the best overall grain-free cat food in Canada. This recipe closely replicates the food that your cat would eat in the wild and provides them with complete nutrition. The best value for the money is Purina Beyond Grain Free Natural. This dry food still has all the nutrition that your cat needs but is available at a lower price point than many other grain-free recipes. For kittens, we recommend Blue Buffalo Wilderness High Protein Kitten Food. This recipe contains all the nutrition that Blue Buffalo Wilderness is known for but with added supplements to support healthy growth and development.
Featured Image Credit: Nataliia Dvukhimenna, Shutterstock
