What are potato protein, pea fiber, tomato pomace in cat food? Are they safe?

I recommend keeping table foods to 10% or less of the diet. All the foods you listed are not toxic and could be offered: onion, garlic, and fatty foods would be the main ones to avoid. I don’t think supplementing with KMR would be necessary for your other cat - you would be better off offering canned cat food mixed with water as it is nutritionally complete for an adult. While petroleum jelly would be okay you may have difficulty getting your cats to eat it.

In order to make a dry food, the manufacturer has to put in some type of carbohydrate. That used to be grains, but now people want grain free, so they will use potato or sweet potato or pea most commonly. Cats cannot use carbohydrates well and they contribute to obesity, but carbohydrates are necessary to make a dry food. If you are concerned about carbohydrates in dry food, I would recommend a canned food diet for Burrikh. My cats eat canned food only and are doing well, but make sure you do a slow transition to any new food. I have included more information on cat diets below for you. http://catinfo.org Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using PetCoach.

In my opinion (and most veterinary nutritionists who have years of additional training), there is nothing to be concerned about with these ingredients unless your cats have been diagnosed with a food allergy or intolerance. Corn, wheat and soy can provide important nutrients for cats. Royal Canin makes quality adult cat food as well, so you could transition to this. I also think Purina ProPlan dry is a good quality food as well. If you would prefer a food without wheat, corn or soy I would recommend talking to your veterinarian to see what food they would recommend.

There are no toxicity concerns with sweet potatoes in cats, With any new food, some animals that may have a sensitive digestive tract may have GI upset including diarrhea and vomiting. With this small of an ingestion I think it unlikely but would monitor for these signs and if they persist seek veterinary care.

As long as your cat is eating a diet that has undergone feeding trials or is formulated to meet AAFCO standards and is eating an amount of food in the range recommended in the feeding directions on the label for his weight, then he is likely getting enough protein. As long as he does not have any underlying liver and/or kidney problems it does not matter how much protein you feed him. Please know that feeding a diet that is higher in protein than cats need does not result in any health benefits. For a healthy cat, excess protein is unlikely to be harmful, either. The extra protein will just be broken down by the body and eliminated in the urine.

Again, there is no known problem with these ingredients. The stigma about byproducts is especially annoying, because byproducts like liver, kidney and other organs have great nutritional value compared with meat. The reason behind the stigma is not easy to understand. It really has to do with a series of non- professionals speculating on unsupported theories and then spreading the information as if it's truth. The same happens with people...just look at all the fad diets that come and go. While there may be some shred of evidence that these ingredients may have potential to cause harm, there is not nearly enough for a professional to say that they are bad and other ingredients are good. You can see that the pet food industry has responded to the unsupported claims of grains, natural ingredients, byproducts and even raw food, but please don't take that as confirmation that these ingredients are bad or good. It's nothing more than sales strategy and responding to consumer demands. This is a huge topic that I cannot begin to cover here, so I'll give you a couple links to some helpful articles: https://www.petcoach.co/article/what-to-look-for-when-choosing-your-pet-s-food https://www2.vet.cornell.edu/news/20130205/what-pet-food-should-i-feed

No, there aren't any bad effects from the high protein, although cats with kidney problems should be fed low protein diets. Cats actually need higher amounts of protein in their food than dogs because they are obligate carnivores (meaning they cannot survive without meat). There are reports, however, that Orijen can cause stinky poop in cats.