How a Bland Diet Can Improve Your Cat’s Digestion

Kirsten McCarthy / Cats.com

Has your cat developed vomiting, diarrhea, or both? An upset tummy is a common complaint in pet cats, and in most cases will resolve itself quickly, but many veterinarians recommend a temporary bland diet to aid recovery. But what exactly is a bland diet for cats, and when should you use one?

What Is a Bland Diet for Cats?

While a strict definition of the word “bland” may bring to mind words like “dull”, “uninteresting”, and “unremarkable”, we really don’t want a bland diet for cats to be any of these things.

The purpose of a bland diet is as a temporary therapeutic tool to help a cat with an upset gastrointestinal tract. For cats with vomiting, diarrhea, or both, we want something that can help settle things down and make it easy for nutrients to be absorbed.

While you might think of bland as having low palatability or lack of taste, this is never a good quality of any diet choice for pets. After all, if your cat isn’t going to eat a particular diet, the diet won’t help accomplish any therapeutic diet goals.

So if we think of what it means for a diet to be “bland”, we’re really thinking about the following characteristics:

• Limited ingredients
• Highly digestible
• Palatable
• Low in insoluble fiber
• Low to moderate fat

A bland diet may commonly be prepared at home with a couple of simple ingredients. Boiled chicken breast and white rice is the most traditional choice, though there are other ingredients that we’ll review later on. Alternatively, you could use a commercial diet designed specifically to address gastrointestinal upset.

When Should I Feed My Cat a Bland Diet?

Digestive upset, like diarrhea, is one category where a bland diet is beneficial. Shannon Perry / Cats.com

A bland diet is best used on a short-term basis, to help a cat recover from limited bouts of vomiting and/or diarrhea or another short-term period with a foreseeable end. If your cat has an upset tummy, your veterinarian may recommend some testing to determine the cause.

There can be many causes of vomiting and diarrhea, but here are some of the most common causes of less complicated gastrointestinal upset:

• Intestinal parasites
• Dietary indiscretion (table food, rancid or rotting food, foreign material)
• Stress
• New treats
• Change in a primary diet

In many cases, we may not ever find out why a cat developed GI upset but our goal is always to get it resolved as quickly as possible. With minor GI upsets, our hope is to get things settled and back on track in just a few days, usually a week or less. Next to other medical therapies, your vet may recommend a bland diet.

There are some other scenarios where a bland diet may be useful. Emma Passman, a pet nutritionist and food formulator with nearly 20 years of experience in the industry, provides some other examples:

• Following surgical procedures
• During elimination diets to identify food sensitivities
• To use as a transition diet when transitioning from one food or diet type to another

How Long Can I Feed a Bland Diet?

A bland diet is only intended to be used for a short-term period. This is because while a bland diet can be helpful, there are some drawbacks that make it only a short-term solution. Some include:

• Homemade bland diets are usually not nutritionally balanced
• Your cat may start to prefer other human foods
• Proper portions may be difficult to measure consistently
• Calorie content may vary widely depending on ingredients

Traditionally, a bland diet may be fed for 3-5 days. Nutritionist Emma Passman considers 7 days to be the maximum recommended period. Assuming signs of GI upset have resolved, you should then begin to transition over a similar time period back to your cat’s primary balanced diet. If your cat’s symptoms have not improved, visit your veterinarian for further advice and treatment.

A commercial diet designed to address GI upset, especially some prescription diets, can be fed for much longer if needed. These diets are nutritionally balanced and their calorie content can be portioned out more consistently.

What Are Some Examples of a Bland Diet?

A bland diet can be divided into commercially prepared diets and homemade diets, each offering gentle, easily digestible food options for cats with sensitive stomachs. Commercial diets are often pre-formulated by veterinarians for specific digestive needs, while homemade diets allow for controlled ingredients and preparation methods tailored to individual cats.

Commercial Diets

Nutritionist Emma Passman is more in favor of commercial diets because of their consistent nutrient profile, something that can vary highly with home-prepared meals. She also points out that many commercial diets designed for digestive upset also include beneficial ingredients like prebiotics, probiotics, omega 3 fatty acids, and easily digestible proteins.

Another point Passman makes is that cats require certain nutrients like taurine, arachidonic acid, and vitamin A. These ingredients are found in animal tissues, but taurine especially may leach out of meat when kept or prepared at home. Commercial diets are more likely to have properly consistent levels of these types of nutrients included in the right amounts.

Prescription diets, especially canned or wet food diets, are commonly recommended by veterinarians. Unlike over the counter diets, prescription diets are guaranteed to be properly formulated for a particular purpose and have to demonstrate that they can meet those needs in feeding trials.

Examples for prescription GI diets include Royal Canin Gastrointestinal, Hill’s i/d, Purina EN, and Blue Gastrointestinal Support.

Homemade Bland Diets

Homemade bland diets are also a common choice. Advantages are that they can be very simple and cost-effective.

Passman points out that homemade diets provide closer control over ingredients, especially protein sources. But this comes at the cost of full nutritional balance and a diet with a varied nutrient make-up. This is typically okay for a short-term period of just a couple days if this is what your kitty’s tummy needs to get back on track. But you should contact your vet for further advice if GI signs are continuing beyond a 5-7 day period.

Boiled chicken breast and white rice is the most traditional combination. Passman suggests focusing more on highly digestible protein sources and limiting (but not eliminating) carbohydrates in the form of cooked rice or sweet potato.

Here are some common ingredients used for a bland diet in cats:

• White chicken breast (165 kcal/100g or about 4oz breast)
• Turkey breast (146 kcal/100g or 3.5oz breast)
• Plained cooked white fish (tilapia) (218 kcal/170 grams/ 6oz filet)
• Plain scrambled eggs (91 kcal/ 61grams or one large egg)
• White grain rice (210 kcal/158 grams or 1 cup)
• Brown rice (218 kcal/196 grams or 1 cup)
• Sweet potato (100 kcal/114 grams or about 1 medium sweet potato)
• Low sodium bone broth (40 kcal/ 253 grams or 1 cup)

How Much of a Bland Diet Should I Feed My Cat? How Often?

If your veterinarian recommends a bland diet, make sure to clarify what ingredients are best to feed for your cat’s specific situation, as well as how much to feed. If you don’t have specific feeding recommendations or are unable to get in touch with your vet, you can use this cat calorie calculator to help get you started.

An average 10 lb cat will need about 200 kilocalories per day. The best way to feed any bland diet is to know the calorie content of what you’re feeding and make sure it adds up to your cat’s needs per day. Nutritionist Emma Passman always recommends working with a veterinarian to determine feeding amounts based on your particular cat’s needs.

Fat and protein levels may vary more widely in homemade diets, which affects the calorie content and feeding amounts needed. However, starting with 100-250 grams (about 3.5-9 ounces) of wet home food is reasonable.

How often to feed a bland diet during the day may also vary depending on your schedule and your vet’s recommendations. Generally, we recognize that feeding small amounts of food more frequently is better than feeding larger amounts less frequently. I typically advise dividing the daily feeding amount into at least 3-4 smaller meals and feeding a small meal every 4-6 hours.

Whether or not to fast your cat also depends on your vet’s recommendations and usually only applies to an acute onset of vomiting. In dogs, I may recommend fasting after the most recent vomiting episode for 8-12 hours. But in cats, long periods of fasting may not be as beneficial. I still consider fasting for at least 4-6 hours after vomiting as reintroducing food too quickly may only lead to immediate repeat vomiting.

Is a Bland Diet Always the Best Choice?

There can be many underlying causes of digestive upset. Bland diets are best for more self-limiting, less complicated causes that may resolve within a few days. Typically in these cases, a cat has limited or no past history of GI upset. Keep in mind that while hairballs may be normal to a degree in cats, chronic vomiting of hairballs more than once or twice a month may also be a sign of a chronic underlying condition.

There are other conditions causing vomiting and diarrhea that can be more complicated. Cats may have signs of either or both for many days, weeks, or months. In some cases signs may be intermittent but chronically come and go. Weight loss may also be seen.

Some other more concerning underlying causes of vomiting and/or diarrhea may include:

• Inflammatory bowel disease (also called chronic enteropathy)
• Dietary intolerance
• Cancer
• Kidney disease
• Hepatobiliary (liver and gallbladder) disease
• Chronic pancreatitis (while most cats may have more of a reduced appetite with pancreatitis, vomiting and diarrhea may also be seen)

Dietary therapy is often also indicated for these conditions, but will require a properly balanced diet – often, this is a prescription food formulated specifically to treat a medical condition. If you know or suspect your cat has a chronic or recurrent condition, make sure to discuss dietary therapy options with your vet. For example, approaches to IBD or chronic enteropathy may be to address an underlying dietary protein allergy with a novel protein diet or hydrolyzed protein diet.

A home prepared diet in these cases is much more tricky as formulating a truly nutritionally balanced diet at home can be very complicated for cats. As many homemade diet recipes for cats have demonstrated nutritional deficiencies, the best solution is to consult with a board-certified veterinary nutritionist.

Signs That a Bland Diet Is Helping Your Cat

A bland diet is successful if you are able to transition back to your cat’s primary diet. Kirsten McCarthy / Cats.com

With any bland diet, the expectation is that we’re treating a limited vomiting or diarrhea condition that will resolve within 7 days or less.

Our first expectation is that if vomiting is present, this should cease entirely. If a cat is suffering from an acute bout of diarrhea, this should slow significantly and gradually return to normal. However, it’s not uncommon to see bowel movements cease for up to 3-4 days.

If your kitty is eating normally and no vomiting is occurring, bowel movements will return. However, if you have not seen a bowel movement after 4 days or if your cat develops vomiting or a decreased appetite, make sure to contact your vet.

A bland diet has truly done its job if you are able to successfully transition back to your cat’s primary diet without further return of vomiting or diarrhea.

How To Reintroduce Less Bland Foods

Our goal with a bland diet is always to be able to get back to a long-term diet. Even though your cat may be used to their primary diet (and assuming the primary diet is not part of the cause for the GI upset), your cat’s GI tract will still need some time to adjust.

Any diet transition should occur over a minimum of 3-4 days following this basic schedule:

• Day 1: ¼ primary diet, ¾ bland diet
• Day 2: ½ primary diet, ½ bland diet
• Day 3: ¾ primary diet, ¼ bland diet
• Day 4: full primary diet

In the case where a transition may need closer to a week, you may do each stage of transition for 2 days instead of only one.

For portions when mixing, make sure to follow the appropriate ones for the specific diets. In other words, make sure that ¼ of your cat’s primary diet is ¼ of what you would typically feed for the day. For the bland diet, make sure it is ¾ of what you had been feeding daily. This will help ensure that your cat is still meeting calorie needs during the transition.

What if My Cat Stops Eating?

Changing a diet around can always be a risk for cats, given their sometimes picky nature. But a loss of appetite may also indicate a new development with your cat’s primary illness. If your cat loses their appetite for 24 hours or more, the risk for developing hepatic lipidosis as a complication increases. Make sure not to delay in getting in touch with your veterinarian.