Cat food for sensitive stomachs

Digestive sensitivity in cats is often down to food intolerance rather than a true allergy, and limited-ingredient or novel-protein diets tend to be the most reliable fix. With a Ragdoll who's also carrying a little extra weight and living fully indoors, the food choice gets a bit more layered — you need to support digestion without adding calories. To point you in the right direction: what symptoms are you seeing — vomiting, loose stools, something else? How long has it been going on, and what are you currently feeding?

That pattern — daily loose stools plus occasional vomiting over two months — points strongly to a dietary trigger rather than a passing bug. Supermarket own-brand foods often use multiple protein sources and higher grain content, which is a common culprit for exactly this. The weight issue adds a useful constraint: she needs fewer calories per day, which actually makes wet food a smarter base than dry, since it's more filling with less caloric density. What protein has she been eating most consistently? I want to check whether a novel protein is worth trying, or whether a highly digestible single-protein formula makes more sense here.

Good to know — since she's been exposed to chicken, turkey and beef regularly, a novel protein like duck or venison could be worth considering long-term, but the more practical first move for most cats in her situation is a highly digestible, controlled-ingredient formula rather than chasing a new protein entirely. Given she needs digestive support and calorie management, my recommendation is Royal Canin Digestive Care wet food in gravy pouches. It's formulated specifically to support gut motility and stool consistency, uses a highly digestible protein profile, and the wet format means you can portion it accurately to help with the weight. It's not a novel protein diet, but for cats where the issue is likely ingredient quality and digestibility rather than a specific allergy, it tends to work well and quickly. You'd typically see improvement in stool consistency within two to three weeks.

I'd drop the dry food for now, at least for the first month. Mixing complicates two things: it makes it harder to identify whether the new food is actually working, and dry food is calorie-dense in a way that will undermine the weight management side. Once her digestion has settled and she's heading in the right direction on weight, you could reintroduce a small amount of a better-quality dry food if you want — but right now, clean wet-only is the cleaner experiment. Stick to the Royal Canin Digestive Care pouches, follow the feeding guide on pack adjusted slightly downward given the weight goal, and check back with your vet in a month.

Transition over seven to ten days — start with about 25% new food mixed in, then increase gradually. Even though you're moving away from dry, you can mix the new wet food with the old wet food in increasing proportions to ease the switch. Watch for any increase in vomiting in the first week, which would be unusual but worth noting if it happens. If her stools don't firm up at all after three weeks on the new food, that's worth flagging to your vet — it could point to something like IBD that needs investigation. But for most cats presenting the way she is, the food change alone makes a clear difference.