Purina Beyond Grain Free Indoor Cat Food
Real Fish or Meat is Always The First Ingredient in Purina Beyond Grain Free Cat Food
Purina Beyond Grain Free Indoor cat food is a pleasant surprise. Salmon is the first ingredient. That is shocking since generally only the highest priced pet foods have real meat or fish as the first ingredient. Most cat and dog foods have some form of meat by-product meal as the first ingredient or even a flour or starch filler. Many cat and dog foods don’t have any whole meat or fish at all. Real meat or fish is much better for your pet but also more expensive to obtain. It is great to have an accessible brand of cat food made with real protein. There are Purina Beyond Grain Free Indoor varieties with real salmon, chicken, tuna, char and whitefish as the first ingredient.
Purina Beyond is High Fiber Cat Food For Digestive Health
A cat’s natural diet would have a high amount of fiber since they munch on grass and plants outside and eat whole animals including the fur. This fiber helps cats prevent constipation and fiber is also critical for the support of healthy bacteria in the gut. This is true for people and animals. We need good bacteria to survive and that bacteria needs fiber to survive. These are some of the reasons a high fiber diet may be healthy for your cat. There are some specific health problems that can make a lower fiber diet necessary so it is always to good to check with your vet.
One of my cats has always had digestive problems. He is prone to both constipation and vomiting. Purina Beyond Salmon Cat Food has made a huge difference for him. He is not throwing up every day now! It is wonderful. I am so happy with this food I can recommend it wholeheartedly. I previously fed my cats a more expensive brand of grain free cat food but I found out it could have high levels of heavy metals. My boy was throwing up every day as well. It is hard to find food that works for all 4 of my cats with different needs but Purina Beyond Salmon Cat Food works well for all of them.
Purina Beyond Grain Free Indoor is High Protein and Balanced for Cat’s Special Diet Needs
Cats don’t need carbs, they need protein. A natural cat diet is mostly whole animals and birds with a few fresh plants. A cat’s natural diet should have high protein. This can’t be confused with all protein however. You can’t just feed your cat meat like you would eat. People eat mostly muscle meat which is high in protein but does not have all the fat, fur, and nutrients found in whole animals. Making a raw cat diet is not as easy as giving cats meat that you would eat. They also need organ meats, and added nutrients like taurine. Dogs do not have this same need for taurine and so it is easier for dogs to eat human food scraps. Dogs are able to eat a wider range of foods and are not obligate carnivores like cats.
Indoor Cats are Totally Dependent on the Diet You Provide For Their Health
Outside cats can eat plants, rodents, birds, insects and whatever they can find. Living outside is dangerous for our pets in modern society but living inside means their diet is very restricted and unnatural. You can give your cat the best of both worlds with a safe, indoor life and high quality food with real ingredients. Cheap cat foods usually have corn or meat by-product meal as the first ingredient. Many cat foods are full of cheap fillers such as grain that cat’s don’t need and that can cause serious health problems. Their bodies are just not made to digest grain. Purina Beyond Grain Free Indoor cat foods have real meat or fish as the first ingredient which means there is more of that ingredient in the food than anything else.
Some plant ingredients can be potentially beneficial for cats such as cranberry which is in the Salmon, Egg and Sweet Potato variety of Purina Beyond. Cranberry is especially useful for for preventing urinary tract infections (UTI’s). UTI’s are especially dangerous for male cats as they can cause bladder stones (crystals in the urine). A friend of mine just lost her young male cat to a UTI and crystals in the urine a few days after emergency surgery was performed to fix it. If cats get a blockage of crystals caused by a UTI it can become deadly in just hours. There are different theories if cranberry is useful or not for preventing UTI’s however. Cranberry helps with potential UTI’s caused by e-coli but there are other causes of UTI’s in cats including stress.
Cats now live almost twice as long as they did just a generation ago in the 1980’s when the average cat only lived to be 7 years old. That is due to improved nutrition and health care. Don’t cut your cat’s life short with cheap cat food. Give your cat the best you can and assure they will have a healthier, longer and happier life.
What Are the Ingredients in Purina Beyond Grain Free Cat Food?
Here are some varieties of Purina Beyond Grain Free cat foods. All of them have real meat or fish as the first ingredient. They have a fish or meat meal as well but never contain by-product meal which should be avoided as it can contain dead or sick animals. You don’t have to worry about by-product meal with any of the Purina Beyond varieties of food. These foods also have pea starch, pea protein and some other plant based ingredients such as cassava root flour and pea fiber. There are many theories about whether plant based ingredients are good for cats. Some claim cats should only eat meat based ingredients. Note: please don’t feed your cat straight meat a their only source of food. In the wild cats would eat whole animals that include organs, fur, bone and stomach contents that contain plant matter. Cat also eat insects and some plants. Straight meat that people eat is generally muscle meat. Muscle eat alone will not support a cat’s nutritional needs. They need extra supplements such as taurine which are added to cat food. They also need extra vitamins that would be contained in organ meats such as brain and liver. Raw food diets are great for cats but do not attempt them on your own without proper training.
- Purina Beyond Indoor Grain Free with Salmon, Egg and Sweet Potato Recipe. This food has real salmon as the first ingredient and also includes sweet potato, egg and cranberry.
Try Purina Beyond Indoor Grain Free with Salmon, Egg and Sweet Potato here
- Purina Beyond Grain Free White Meat Chicken and Egg Recipe. This food has real chicken as the first ingredient and also includes egg and carrot.
Try Purina Beyond Grain Free White Meat Chicken and Egg here
- Purina Beyond Grain Free Ocean Whitefish and Egg Recipe. This food has real ocean whitefish as the first ingredient and also includes egg and sweet potato.
Try Purina Beyond Grain Free Ocean Whitefish and Egg here
Pros and Cons of Purina Beyond Grain Free Cat Foods
Pros:
Availability: Easy to find this brand in stores even grocery stores carry it now. It is important to find a food that you can feed consistently. I recommend ordering it online since it is cheaper that way but if you run out you can buy it locally (in the U.S. at least, I am not sure about other countries).
Good for many cats with allergies: This food is gluten free, grain free, artificial color and flavor free. This variety of Purina Beyond has no poultry. Many cats are allergic to chicken. My boy is allergic to many foods and Purina Beyond is a food that works for him. It is interesting to note my boy is sensitive to tuna but does great on this salmon based food. All fish is not the same.
High Fiber: This helps with digestion and can help avoid constipation. Note that wet cat food is better than dry for digestion and preventing UTI’s which are common and can be deadly for male cats especially. I feed my cats both wet and dry food to help them get the best of both.
High Protein: The protein in this variety is 33%.
Good Taste: My cats at least love the taste of this food.
Smaller, softer bits: My oldest cat swallows her dry food whole. She has good teeth but that is just how she does it. I wanted a dry food with smaller and softer pieces for this reason. This food is probably softer because it has a higher moisture content than most dry food.
Free of many allergens and low quality ingredients: No corn, wheat, soy, gluten, poultry by products, artificial colors, flavors or preservatives.
Multiple varieties in the Purina Beyond Line including:
Purina Beyond Simply
Purina Beyond Grain Free Indoor
Purina Beyond Wild
Bags are not paper so they are not subject to getting wet or getting ripped open by kitties or other pets.
Cons:
The bags are not resealable. This is a bit disappointing but we are paying for the food not the package I guess.
This is not the cheapest food but you get what you pay for.
This is dry cat food and wet food is generally healthier for cats if you have to choose one or the other. Wet food is expensive however. I feed my cats both dry and wet food so they can get the benefits of both I can afford a much higher quality dry food than wet so a compromise of both is the best option. The dry food has more nutrition but wet food has more moisture which is vital to prevent UTI’s and potentially dangerous crystal build up and blockages.
The best mineral content for cat food includes a mix of calcium, potassium and magnesium. Magnesium used to be considered a cause of urinary crystals but now it is understood it is good when in the proper balance with the other minerals. Purina Beyond does not show any magnesium listed in the ingredients. It does show potassium and calcium amounts in the ingredients.
Nature’s Variety Instinct Grain Free Cat Food, an Alternative to Purina Beyond
There is another food that contains a balance of all three minerals mentioned above (magnesium, potassium and calcium) as well as real meat as the first ingredient, no grains or gluten and is available at a similar price per pound as Purina Beyond. It is Nature’s Variety brand Instinct food in Grain Free Real Chicken, Grain Free Real Duck and Grain Free Real Rabbit flavors.
Nature’s Variety Instinct Grain Free food all have real meat as the first ingredient. They contain great ingredients including carrots, apples, cranberries, menhaden fish meal, white fish meal containing Pacific sole and Pacific rockfish.
This food is also higher in protein than Purina Beyond foods. Nature’s Variety Instinct has 43% protein compared to the highest protein Beyond foods which have 38% protein and the other varieties of Beyond which have about 35% protein. Nature’s Variety also has an Ultimate Protein version with 47% protein.
I will be trying this brand next in my search for the perfect cat food. Since it is a similar cost per pound as Purina Beyond, there is no reason not to try it except that all my cats are doing well on Purina Beyond Grain Free Salmon, Egg and Sweet Potato.
So far Nature’s Variety looks like the best balance of good ingredients and fair price that I have found. It also contains no grain, gluten, corn, soy, artificial flavors or by-product meals. I will have to see how well my cats like it and how healthy they are on it however.
If you want to check out Instinct Grain Free, here it is on PetCo.
Try Instinct Grain Free with Real Chicken here
Is Wet Cat Food Healthier Than Dry?
There are some important reasons wet cat food may be healthier for cats than dry. These include:
Dry used to be considered better for cat’s teeth but now it is understood that the starchy bits just get stuck in cat’s teeth and contribute to tooth and gum disease anyway.
Dry food can contribute to UTI’s in cats which can be deadly. This is because a natural diet for cats would always be wet. Cats eating dry food only often don’t consume enough water. Lack of water and more concentrated minerals and certain elements of dry food can lead to crystals forming in urine. Blockages of crystals can be deadly especially for male cats who are neutered. You can help reduce the risk of UTI’s and crystals by feeding wet as well as dry food and making sure your cat drinks plenty of water. For ideas how to get your cat to drink more check out my post here.
An all wet diet is great but wet food is often more expensive and also less practical since the food cannot be left out the way dry can. With an all wet food diet you need to put it out multiple times per day and wash the food bowls out as well.
That is why I feed both wet and dry. My cats can get a higher quality dry food that can be left out so they always have food available and also a wet food.
Any wet food is better than none but the very cheap brands have tons of wheat flour and other fillers.
Purina Beyond Grain Free Canned Cat Food in 19 Different Meat and Fish Flavors!
Purina Beyond Grain Free Canned Cat Food comes in Duck, Quail, Beef, Chicken, Turkey, Salmon, Herring, Tuna, Whitefish, Char, Shrimp, Catfish, Trout and more! The range of proteins is very impressive! Whatever meat or fish your cat can have (or needs to avoid) you should be able to find a Purina Beyond canned food that works. Real meat or fish is always the first ingredient. Like their dry food, these have no gluten, no grain, no soy, no fish or meat by-product meal and no artificial flavors.
I have not seen such a lineup of grain free options in canned foods before. This first one is the turkey and sweet potato variety. This is a food that my sensitive boy can eat without getting sick which is great and hard to find!
Purina Beyond Grain Free Turkey, Sweet Potato and Spinach Wet Cat Food
Purina Beyond Grain Free Wild Salmon Pate Wet Cat Food
Let Me Know What You Think!
I hope you can try Purina Beyond Grain Free or Nature’s Variety Instinct Cat foods. Please let me know what you think of them and what your cats think too.
Leave any thoughts or questions in a comment below.
Please note: I am not a veterinarian. Nothing in this post constitutes medical advice. Always see a veterinarian before starting a new diet or attempting to diagnose any medical condition.
Jessica
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Amazing! Thank you for sharing this article of Purina Beyond Grain Free Indoor Cat Food as it is really cool for me and I am sure it will be of help to many cat owners.
Purina has the customers real satisfaction at heart. I love the fact that there is real meat or fish as the first ingredient, this is superb.
Thanks Shifts,
Yes, real meat or fish as the first ingredient is an easy way to tell this is a higher quality food. Even “healthy” cat foods often have wheat gluten as the first ingredient listed! I read the labels myself to make sure real meat or fish really was the first ingredient on these foods.
Jessica
So many things to be happy about regarding Purina beyond grain free indoor cat food. Unlike other cat food, Purina is truly beyond grain as real meat or fish as the first ingredient (for God’s sake, our cats love meat and fish but we have been limiting their access to it due to the cost attached). Purina to the rescue.
So many options to choose from.
Thank you Techie. Yes, when you think about it, it seems so elementary that real protein should be the first ingredient in a carnivore’s diet! I am glad there are so many options now and we don’t have to feed our cats food that has wheat as the first ingredient!
Jessica
Hi,
Thanks for this article on Purina Beyond Grain. I had a large male cat that had been neutered. This was years ago, back in the ’90s. He was solid black and huge. Unfortunately, back then I knew nothing about cats needing a specialized diet. He did get those crystals. We came home from a long weekend and he was laying at the foot of the stairs just miserable. I could feel his stomach was just bloated. Anyway, we took him to the vet and they kept him for a few days, put a tube up there. He came home, but we had to send him right back to the vet because he was bleeding. They put a tube in again, but somehow he pulled it out over the weekend which caused him to get toxic and he passed.
I felt so bad that I had not provided him the right kind of food.
I say all of this just let you know that I think your article will really help other cat owners realize that these little guys need specialized diets.
Thanks,
Michael
Hi Michael,
I am so sorry you lost your boy that way! A friend of mine just lost her male cat to crystals last week. They took him to the vet for emergency surgery that we contributed to. The surgery seemed successful. He went home and was getting better but ended up passing away within a week. It was so sad.
I hope to get the word out that this is a serious danger for male cats especially and get people to understand how important a good diet is. Making sure your cat gets enough water is the most important point so wet food or a combination of wet and healthy dry is a start.
Thank you for your thoughts here,
Jessica
Hello Jessica,
That is quite an extensive list of choices to choose from.
I will be visiting a friend who owns cats over the holiday and I think these
Purina offerings will make a great gift set.
Which Top 3 would you recommend if i had to start somewhere ?
Great Job putting this article together for All Cats Lovers.
I really can’t recommend a top three without knowing the cat. Keep in mind that cats should not have their food switched suddenly. Their food should be switched slowly a little at a time to prevent digestive problems.
Any of these foods are good but some cats may be allergic to different proteins such as chicken or fish. Sometimes different foods need to be tried to find one that works well for a specific cat.
My cats all currently eat the Salmon, Egg and Sweet Potato food.
Thanks for stopping by,
Jessica
Hi, I learned some interesting things here. I didn’t know that cat food was made from fish or actual meat as the first ingredient. I also noticed that is is made from pea protein and pea starch. Those are some of the main ingredients in my vegetable protein powder.
Very fascinating that cat’s life expectancy is twice as long in just a generation, all due to nutrition improvements.
No wonder humans are living to 80 right now, with the life expectancy continually getting higher.
Thanks
Hello Jake,
Yes, I was surprised at such a massive increase in longevity in cats in a few decades as well! I am glad such understanding can help us take better care of our pets.
Thanks for your comments,
Jessica
I had a small white cat about five years ago,he died just because I was not able to get her the best foods she needed,so she ended up eating the rodents in the house,which this later led to her death,but am happy for seeing this post because am get4ing a new cat soon,with the analysis you made I think purina beyond grain food,will be the best for her thanks so much
I am sorry your cat died. Eating rodents is very healthy for cats unless people poison the rodents. That is appalling in my opinion because it leads to poisoning cats and dogs as well.
I hope your next cat has wonderful care and healthy food as well.
Hi Jessica,
Wow! That was certainly every thing anyone would want to know about Purina. As well written and with all all the facts you presented it is almost like you worked for them. LOL
You did a great job of research and presentation. I not only found it interesting but also very informative. I actually learned quite a lot more than I knew about cats.
Do you feed your cats Purina and if so how long have you been feeding it to them? I’m sorry to say my cat usually eats what’s on sale but now that I know more, her diet will get a little better. Good thing she’s not picky but I’m sure she’ll enjoy the Purina more than some of the stuff she’s been eating.
I thank you very much for bringing this to light and once my wife reads this article I’m sure Purina will be on the shopping list. By the way I think my cat will be thanking you when she gets bumped up to a Purina diet.
Hello Don,
I fed my cats Purina Beyond for a short time about 8 or 9 years ago but there were not so many choices back then. We ended up feeding them Solid Gold brand foods which we really liked. I was so happy with it but then my cats seemed to be getting sick from it every day (especially my sensitive boy). No matter how great it seems if your cat is throwing up every day then it isn’t good. I learned that there was a lawsuit against the company due to high levels of heavy metals in the some varieties of the food. I know a fish based food could end up with heavy metals just due to the fact that fish accumulate heavy metal in the ocean. That is why people are warned not to eat much tuna now and cats should not either. I don’t want to say the company is doing something bad if the heavy metal is just naturally occurring in the fish. I can’t find a lot of information about the lawsuit so I have not updated my posts yet regarding that food. In the meantime we had to find a different food however so we switched back to Purina Beyond Grain Free late this summer. I was pleased at the options available now and remembered that it was one of the few foods that worked for my boy.
Thanks for stopping by and for your thoughts here. I hope you can try Purina Beyond food for your girl.
Jessica
I have been trying to feed my cat wholesome grain-free food, but he doesn’t like it. Cats love food that has a strong smell. He also only occasionally likes wet food. I do notice he drinks a lot of water, which is good. He usually has a decent amount of clumps and bumps in his litter and he looks and acts healthy. You’ll probably faint, but my little buddy loves Friskies. I feed that to him and Krave, which I get from the local pet-sympathetic food pantry. Thank you for covering these brands and bringing it out that dry foods aren’t the best.
Hello Cathy,
Cats love cheap foods unfortunately it is the same as potato chips or cookies for us. They taste great but don’t give us nutrients we need. My senior girl was used to a cheaper Purina variety but she is happy with Purina Beyond now.
I am glad your cat drinks water.
Thanks for stopping by,
Jessica
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful article, personally I do have a cat as my pet, and I do use the Purina beyond grain and I can testify the truth in in your article, thank you for sharing this information as it will impact more knowledge, on the cat owners on the in choosing the right diet for their cats, I am sure to subscribe to your newsfeed to learn more about this and other related articles.
Thank you.
Thank you Joy. I am glad you appreciated this information. Please visit again.
Jessica
What a great article. I learned a great deal about feeding cats correctly and what they need in order to be healthy.
I appreciate how you go into the details of the ingredients in your article and defining how your cat would benefit from them. I also didn’t realize that Purina had such a great product. Very good to know.
Hello Michelle, I was pleasantly surprised that Purina has a higher quality food. It is nice to have a recognizable brand that is easily accessible and we can feel good about feeding our cats.
Thanks for stopping by and for your comments here,
Jessica
Having real meat or fish as the first basic ingredient alone has already won me over to this purina grain free indoor cat food. Not very many cat food includes this and for a truth, getting this would surely be more satisfying for our little fur friends. Hence, I really found this post to be of high quality and worthy of every minute spent reading it. The variety of flavors too is a big thumbs up from me.
Hello Rodarrick,
I agree. You can’t go wrong with a single source meat or fish as the first ingredient. I like the wide range of protein types as well since protein allergies such as chicken etc. can be common in cats (and dogs).
Thanks for stopping by,
Jessica
I don’t have cats that I can feed but recently my ever surprising daughter asked for one for her birthday. It’s nice that you shared this article about Purina beyond grain free indoor cat food, I think with the way you’ve explained the ingredients, it’s very clear what a cat food should contain and shouldn’t. Please is Purina for all ages of cats?
Hello,
Purina Beyond cat food is for adult cats, not kittens.
Thanks for stopping by,
Jessica
My Sno Sno loves the canned food so I mix the dry food and canned food for him. It is so hard to find the dry food that my Sno Sno likes. I will give Purina Beyond Wild Grain Free Turkey and Lentil Recipe High Protein a try, hopefully Sno Sno likes it 🙂
Hello Nuttanee. I hope your boy likes Purina Beyond Grain Free. Thanks for stopping by,
Jessica
Hi Jessica,
A very informative site. I enjoyed the article on pet dangers over the holidays. I wasn’t aware that mistletoe and poinsettia plants were toxic to cats. We’ve had dogs and cats around for years and haven’t had an incident yet. I guess we’ve been lucky. Keep the articles coming as I’ve bookmarked your site for future reference.
Larry
Hi Larry,
Thank you very much. I stopped getting poinsettias after I learned this since one of my cats will eat just about any plant. I just discovered a few days ago she likes lettuce! She is a chronic flower eater and will try any flower petals she can find.
Some of the warnings of toxic plants are a bit cautious (they would have to eat a whole lot to get sick) but others are serious. If in doubt then we just have to keep them out of the house or out of reach.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you visit again,
Jessica
Cats are very lovely and they are one of the most easy animals to keep, they don’t demand to much stress and they understands things easily to get extent that they can do them without directions. Feeding a cat is one major aspect to be monitored even though I don’t know much about it, I think I’ll prefer to go with the dey food as it makes things really easy like washing of bowls and preserving the food.
Hello,
If you feed your cat dry food it is very important to choose a high quality food and also make sure they drink lots of water every day. Dry food can cause problems because it is not a cat’s natural diet.
Thank you for stopping by,
Jessica
Awesome info. You really do your homework:)? Purina have been creating excellent products for so long. I really respect that they continue to deliver such great stuff for our Cats.
My Ninja really loves his Beyond Grain Food I had to come back and say “thanks” Jessica.
I appreciate your work.
Regards Ropata
Thank you Ropata. I am glad your Ninja likes Purina Beyond Grain Free cat food.
Jessica
Hallo there Jessica,
I just wanted to say thanks for the detailed and easy to understand post on this cat food. A good friend of mine mentioned it in a discussion we had about cats and what they love and I decided to learn more about it. I am glad I took it seriously as it has all the ingredients and features I know my cat will love. I am getting Purina beyond grain immediately after this. Your post was really helpful in helping me understand well about it. Thanks heaps for that.
I was reading in your review that wet cat food is generally better for cats than dry food. That is something I did not know. What are your thoughts about having a mixture of say half and half? Maybe half wet, half dry? Is that a smart idea since the price is so much higher for wet? I mean maybe the cat would even enjoy that. Could you do something like that every other day even? I don’t know, I’m not a vet and I’ve never asked, but it my be a good question for some cat lovers out there.
I feed my cats both wet and dry food but I don’t mix them together in the same bowl. Dry food is handy because it does not spoil quickly like wet food. Many people feed dry so they can leave the food all day and not worry about it. If you mixed them together and it sat there the dry food would get wet and you would not have the benefit of dry food anymore.
Feeding wet and dry separately is smart however. Yes, wet is much more expensive than dry so it is more affordable to feed half and half. You can afford to buy a higher quality dry but have the health benefits of some wet too.
Hi Jessica
Thank you for the deep-down information for cat food. I was thinking that there is no difference between the food we eat and cats eat. Because I have seen several times that people feed their cats with the food they, to be honest, I also did it once. Now, I have learned that it is unhealthy for cats that way. And it seems that the cat food you recommend is quite compatible. I would definitely try it. Thank you again.
Hello,
Human food (meat especially) is fine to feed cats occasionally. It will not hurt them unless it is chocolate or certain other things they should not have like onions.
It should not be their sole source of food however since they need specific nutrients we do not. This cat food gives them those nutrients.
Jessica