Best Cat Food for Sensitive Stomachs: What Should You Look For?

Noticed a change in your cat’s poos, wind, or even a slight change in their attitude? It might be an indication that your furry friend’s stomach might be a bit sensitive to their diet. So your first instinctual question: what is the best cat food for sensitive stomachs?

If you, like an estimated 46% of cat owners, are concerned about their digestion or having a sensitive stomach affecting your cat’s mood, understanding that their diet might be a factor, is the first step to looking after their long-term wellbeing.

We've put together this guide to help you understand what's causing the upset, and what to look for when choosing a diet that actually agrees with your cat.

What Causes a Sensitive Stomach in Cats?

Digestive upset can come from a number of places, and it's always consulting with your vet first to rule out anything serious. Common causes of sensitive stomachs can include:

• Food intolerances: many cats struggle to digest certain proteins, or the fillers and additives found in some commercial foods.
• Sudden diet changes: if you’ve made the switch between cat food brands too quickly, without a proper transition, it can easily upset a cat's gut.
• Poor quality ingredients: cheap fillers like grains and low-grade meat derivatives are harder for an obligate carnivore's body to break down.
• Underlying conditions: this can be anything from IBD, pancreatitis, to food allergies which can all present as an ongoing sensitive stomach.

Why Choose Purrform’s Raw Cat Food for Sensitive Stomachs

Our range of raw cat food is made with premium cuts of human grade meat, minced with bone and offal, and available in a variety of single protein options, from chicken and turkey to rabbit and venison. 

This makes it straightforward to find a flavour that suits your cat's individual needs, without any of the ingredients known to cause sensitivity.

Why Cats Develop Sensitivities to Commercial Food

Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning their digestive systems are built to process natural meat that has been hunted, not to break down complex carbohydrates or added fillers. Many commercial cat foods are bulked out with grains, starches, and processed by-products that a cat's gut simply isn't designed to handle. 

With so many extra artificial preservatives, colourings, and flavourings makes it easy to see why so many cats end up with an upset stomach as a result of what's actually in their bowl, rather than how much of it they're eating.

Why Raw Feeding is the Preferred Diet for Sensitive Stomachs

1. Raw Feeding is Close to Natural Cat Diets

A raw diet is as close as you can get to what a cat would naturally eat in the wild: real meat, bone, and offal, with nothing added that doesn't need to be there. Making it naturally free of grains, fillers, and additives that can irritate the gut, and instead is made up of single, recognisable ingredients that a cat's digestive system is designed to process.

2. Highly Digestible

It's highly digestible. Raw meat retains its natural enzymes and nutrients, which are often lost through the high-heat processing used to make kibble, some tinned foods, and ambient

pouches. This makes it far easier for sensitive stomachs to break down and absorb.

It supports a healthy gut microbiome. The high protein, low carbohydrate nature of raw food helps maintain the right balance of bacteria in the gut, which plays a huge role in reducing bloating, sickness, and irregular stools.

3. Great for Intolerances

It allows for simple, single-protein diets. If your cat has a specific intolerance, raw feeding makes it far easier to isolate one protein source, such as rabbit or turkey, and rule out exactly what's causing the reaction.

How to Transition Your Cat onto Raw Food

If you’re looking to transition your cat from their current diet to raw adult cat food, it’s always better to start with a gradual transition along with their existing food. Over 8 to 10 days, slowly increasing the portion of raw food served at room temperature and decreasing the

amount of their current food is the preferred method of moving them to raw.

We have a full, in-depth guide on transitioning your cat’s diet with more thorough instructions, as well as extra feeding tips and tricks to get your cat to engage with the raw food more.

If your cat's sensitive stomach has been an ongoing struggle, moving to a simple, natural raw diet is often the change that finally settles things. Browse our range of human-grade raw cat food that’s perfect for giving them the proteins and amino acids they need for a healthy diet. We also offer ranges of kitten and senior cat food so you can make the switch safely no matter their age.