What Kinds Of Ingredients Does Blue Buffalo Use
Blue Buffalo uses lean cuts of meat in all of their foods. Usually, these meats come from sources like chicken, turkey, fish, or beef, but it has exotic options as well.
Like Wellness, though, Blue Buffalo often doesnt have as much protein or fat as cats need, especially in their wet foods. You might need to combine it with another food for the best results.
None of its foods use ingredients like corn, wheat, or soy, and its grain-free foods use peas, potatoes, and the like in their place. They also have quality fruits and veggies like cranberries, lentils, and kelp.
Many of their foods have added probiotics, which makes them gentle on your pups digestive tract. When they do use grains, its usually something like rice, which is easy for dogs to process.
Wellness Vs Blue Buffalo Cat Food: Our 2022 In
If youve spent time wandering around your pet food store, you mightve noticed two brands that are a bit higher-end than normal: Wellness and Blue Buffalo.
Each of these brands was started fairly recently, and both have cashed in on the natural pet food craze. They offer consumers the opportunity to feed their cat a kibble thats a step up in quality from the usual commercial stuff youll see on shelves, while still keeping prices reasonable.
While the two foods have much in common, we feel that one has the edge over the other. Read on to find out which one earned the nod in this head-to-head battle.
About Blue Buffalo Cat Food
- Some recipes have less than ideal fat and protein levels
- On the pricey side
Blue Buffalo started as a dog food manufacturer in 2003, and the company quickly found so much success that it branched out into cat food as well. Like Wellness, each of its recipes starts with real meat and places an emphasis on using natural ingredients whenever possible.
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Who Is Wellnesss Target Audience
Wellness is aimed at consumers who are willing to pay a little more to give their cat better nutrition than theyd find from bargain-basement cat foods. However, Wellness also tries to stay more accessible than some premium foods, so you can find it in most pet stores.
Ultimately, the type of person who buys Wellness is someone who gives some thought to their cats diet but doesnt want to spend a ton of time researching the best possible foods.
There are certainly better foods out there, but they may not be on the shelves of your local chain pet food store.
Recall History Of Blue Buffalo & Wellness Cat Food
Both Wellness and Blue Buffalo have complicated recall histories, although Blue Buffalos is definitely worse.
Wellness only has two major recall incidents affecting its cat food. The first happened in 2011, when it recalled over 20 million cans of cat food due to low thiamine levels. This can lead to heart problems, so its not something to be ignored.
The second major recall occurred in 2017. They recalled a variety of canned foods because trace amounts of metal were found in a different brands food that used the same manufacturing plant. No metal was found in any Wellness food, but it should be a concern that it shares a facility with other companies that might not take safety as seriously as they do.
Blue Buffalo was part of the Great Melamine Recall of 2007. More than 100 dog and cat foods were recalled due to the presence of a lethal chemical called melamine that entered the food at a Chinese processing plant, and thousands of pets died as a result of eating the tainted food .
It also recalled some treats in 2015 due to levels of propylene glycol, and in 2019, they were listed by the FDA as one of 16 pet brands that could be linked to heart disease in dogs and cats. Nothing has been proven so far, but its obviously not a list that they want to find themselves on.
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Almost All Of Its Cat Food Is Grain
Grains are a controversial ingredient in cat food. The fact is, your cat doesnt need them at all, but some people argue that they offer important nutrients not found elsewhere.
What they can also do is trigger food allergies. Certain grains, like corn, can be extremely hard for a cat to digest, leading to vomiting, diarrhea, and other gastrointestinal concerns.
Blue Buffalos cat foods are almost all grain-free . It works in some veggies, usually potatoes or peas, so your cat still gets those elusive plant nutrients, but its formulas are heavily meat-based.
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Blue Buffalo Cat Food
Blue Buffalo is a pet food company that makes dried and canned food as well as healthy treats. They are comprised of protein including chicken, lamb, and salmon. Additionally, they also have other natural ingredients like kelp and barley grass.
How much Blue Buffalo cat food does your cat need?
How much you feed your cat depends on what kind of Blue Buffalo product you use, the size of your cat, and the general amount of activity your cat does. A very general guideline would be that an indoor, relatively sedentary cat should eat 20 calories every day for each pound they weigh. A cat that is more active and spends time outdoors should aim for 35 calories for each pound they weigh. Keep in mind, dried and canned foods have different requirements. Also, kittens have different needs. Make sure you ask your vet how much food your kitten needs to make sure she is healthy and thriving.
Is Blue Buffalo cat food grain-free?
Blue Buffalo cat food includes grain-free brands such as the Freedom Natural Grain-Free Food, which doesn’t contain gluten. BLUE Wilderness also includes no grains or gluten. BLUE Basics is composed of limited ingredients, and most versions also don’t contain grain. The products also contain no corn, wheat, or soy.
What are the ingredients in Blue Buffalo cat food?What Blue Buffalo cat food special formulas are there?
- Weight Management
- High Protein, containing no chicken or poultry by-products
- Hairball Control
What kinds of Blue Buffalo cat foods are there?
Blue Buffalo Tastefuls Solved All Of My Picky Cats’ Eating Habits
As POPSUGAR editors, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you’ll like too. If you buy a product we have recommended, we may receive affiliate commission, which in turn supports our work.
My cats are super cute, and also super picky about absolutely everything. They don’t like to sleep in pet beds, hate going underneath covers, need to have a very specific kind of litter, and will have a meltdown if you leave them home alone without the television on. Thankfully, though, through the years I have been able to figure out their little quirks and personalities pretty well. The area, however, that I still struggled with, until recently, involved wet food the food cats absolutely love, but only if you can find them a brand they will actually eat.
My cats’ relationship with wet food is a very complex one that kind of goes like this: I go to the pet store and see a wet food brand we haven’t tried yet, I bring it home and integrate this new food into their diet, they sniff at it confused, they take a few bites, and then they walk away. This pattern keeps happening until I finally give up and default into just giving them more of their dry food, which they like.
The cats patiently waiting for their Tastefuls.
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Which Types Of Cats Is Blue Buffalo Best Suited For
Its certainly not the most expensive food on the market, but Blue Buffalo finds itself on the higher end of the mass-market pet foods.
It can charge more money because it targets owners who care about their pets nutrition, even if it means paying more to do so.
That being said, there are definitely better foods out there they just happen to be harder to find and more expensive. As a result, Blue Buffalo offers a good mix of high-end nutrition and convenience for pet owners who want the best for their cat but are unwilling or unable to spend too much time giving it to them.
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Blue Buffalo Releases Wet Cat Food Portfolio To Replace Healthy Gourmet Line
WILTON, CONN. Blue Buffalo announced March 16 the official release of its latest wet cat food portfolio, BLUE Tastefuls. The company had teased the launch back in December 2020 in its second quarter earnings call.
BLUE Tastefuls will replace the premium pet food and treat brands Healthy Gourmet products, becoming Blue Buffalos new go-to wet cat food offering. The line currently includes three formats: BLUE Tastefuls Patés, Flaked Entrées and Tender Morsels.
The paté formats feature five protein options beef, chicken, salmon, turkey or whitefish with the chicken recipe available in three life-stage specific formulas. These include a Kitten formula with added DHA to support brain development, an Adult formula, and a Mature formula delivering energy from high-quality proteins and complex carbohydrates.
BLUE Tastefuls Flaked Entrées include chicken, fish, salmon and tuna protein options, each supplemented with brown rice and sweet potatoes in a gravy. The Tender Morsels are offered in chicken or tuna formats with brown rice and sweet potatoes in a sauce.
In each format and formula, real meat is the first ingredient, and all other ingredients are all-natural. The formulas do not contain chicken or poultry byproduct meals, corn, wheat, soy or artificial ingredients. BLUE Tastefuls are also fortified with vitamins, minerals and other key nutrients, and offer high moisture content to promote hydration, the company shared.
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How Much Does Blue Buffalo Cat Food Cost
Compared to other brands positioned as super-premium and natural, Blue Buffalo is relatively inexpensive. For example, if you have a 10-lb cat who needs about 200 calories per day, Blue Buffalo Freedom canned food will cost you around $1.40/day.
That makes it just a little bit more expensive than budget brands like Friskies and Fancy Feast.
Why We Love It
- DELICIOUS CHICKEN FIRST: The first ingredient in this BLUE Tastefuls cat food recipe is protein-rich chicken to support healthy muscle maintenance
- BLUE Buffalo’s True Blue promise is the pillar of their business, straight to every customer the finest natural ingredients, and no chicken/poultry by-product meals, corn, wheat, soy, artificial preservatives, colors or flavors. BLUE Buffalo is the only food made with unique Lifesource Bits a precise blend of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants created by veterinarians and animal nutritionists. With recipes for all tastes and diets, including limited ingredient diets, high protein, grain-free, wholesome grains, and exotic proteins, BLUE Buffalo always starts with real meat, and ends with good health.
- WET CAT FOOD: BLUE canned cat food has high moisture content, which can help cats get their daily hydration
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Blue Buffalo Sensitive Stomach Chicken Recipe
Designed for cats that have trouble processing other foods, Blue Buffalo Sensitive Stomach Recipe has heavy amounts of rice and oatmeal, both of which are easy for most animals to tolerate.
It boasts a nice variety of animal sources too, as the ingredients list shows chicken, chicken meal, fish meal, and fish oil.
Despite that, it only has 32% protein, which is likely due to the rice and oatmeal pushing out the opportunity to add more meat. Its fairly high in salt as well.
You can feed your cat something different every night with the Blue Buffalo Healthy Gourmet Variety Pack. It has three different flavors inside, and regardless of which you choose, youll get a pâté thats soaked in gravy.
This makes it irresistible to most cats, while also adding plenty of moisture to their diets. In addition to the variety of meats, it includes high-quality plant options, like sweet potatoes.
However, it has a meager 10% protein, and it uses cassia and guar gum. These are added to the food to make it easier to eat, but they can interfere with protein synthesis.
- Gums interfere with protein synthesis
Overall Is Blue Buffalo A Good Choice
Blue Buffalo cat food is popular and well-loved, but its far from perfect nutritionally or in terms of quality. Where they really excel is in price and variety.
Most Blue Buffalo cat foods contain considerable amounts of plant matter. Worse than the brands reliance on plant-heavy recipes, Blue Buffalo has been recalled multiple times during the last decade. These incidents suggest deficits in quality control and transparency from Blues suppliers and manufacturing partners.
Blue Buffalo, therefore, isnt one of our favorite cat food brands to recommend to pet owners. If youre going to feed your cat Blue Buffalo, we recommend choosing a canned food formula that is rich in animal protein and moisture with limited added carbohydrate content.
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The Were All About Cats Standardrating Blue Buffalo On What Matters
Weve rated the brand on six key criteria for quality. Heres how it rates in each of these six crucial areas.
- Recall History 3/10
Overall Score: 6.17/10
Overall, we give Blue Buffalo a C grade. It receives high marks for affordability and offers decent product variety, but many of the recipes arent species-appropriate and customer experience varies greatly. The brand has also had a significant number of recalls.
Blue Buffalo Wilderness Chicken Recipe
The Wilderness Chicken Recipe is one of Blue Buffalos flagship kibbles. Its inspired by the kinds of diets that wild cats eat, with the idea being that the closer you stay to what nature intended, the healthier your cat will be.
The first two ingredients are chicken and chicken meal, which help contribute to the high protein levels in this kibble. Chicken meal includes a variety of internal organs, so your cat will get all the important amino acids that they need without having to hunt down a bird themselves.
It also includes chicken fat and fish meal, both of which will boost the protein levels while adding important omega fatty acids.
The recipe is grain-free, so instead of ingredients like corn, youll see peas, potatoes, and tapioca starch. There are more carbs than wed like to see, but more troubling than that is the fact that it only has 18% fat. Thats a hair below what most vets recommend.
It has many ingredients that are nice to have but not necessary, like blueberries, kelp, and carrots. These add plenty of vitamins and minerals, but the most important thing is the amount of protein, which Wilderness Chicken Recipe has in spades.
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Discussion Of The Primary Ingredients
Every Blue Buffalo recipe starts with real meat. Its a simple thing, but its something that so many other manufacturers get wrong. Regardless of what else is in the bag or can, you know that your cat will at least have a solid foundation of protein to build on.
Theres usually a variety of protein sources in each food as well, so you can give your cat a wide array of important amino acids. That also ensures that your cat will get all the protein that they need to stay lean and healthy.
Carbs are always a tricky subject in cat food, and most Blue Buffalo foods are grain-free. Instead of problematic fillers like corn, youll find foods like sweet potatoes or peas.
It has a special kibble line that includes something called LifeSource Bits. These are the companys proprietary chunks of antioxidants and other nutrients that are mixed in with the regular kibble, giving your cat even more nutrition than theyd normally get.
Most of its foods have plenty of protein, but theyre a little light in the fat department. Many of its kibbles have somewhere between 15-20% fat, when many nutritionists recommend at least 24% fat content.
That could make your cat hungrier more often, which could be a problem if you let them free-feed. You might want to pick up the kibble and only serve them portion-controlled meals on a regular schedule.