Can Cats Eat Rice and Fish?

Let's be honest: rice and fish sounds like a perfectly reasonable meal for a cat. It's simple, it's protein and carbs, and plenty of cultures feed cats rice and fish. But here's what most people don't realize—cats are obligate carnivores, and rice and fish together don't provide complete nutrition. A meal of plain rice and plain fish won't poison your cat, but it shouldn't be their regular diet. This combination lacks taurine, an essential amino acid that cats must get from their food. Without taurine, cats develop serious health problems including heart disease and blindness.

Rice and fish are safe as an occasional meal or treat, but not as a daily diet. Plain cooked fish provides protein that cats can digest. Plain cooked rice is a source of carbohydrates that cats can tolerate in small amounts. Together, they make a bland meal that's sometimes used for cats with upset stomachs. But this combination is missing crucial nutrients. Fish doesn't provide enough taurine. Rice provides no nutritional value cats actually need—cats don't require carbohydrates at all. So while a meal of rice and fish won't hurt your cat once in a while, it can't replace proper cat food.

In many cultures, rice and fish is considered normal cat food. It's inexpensive, easy to prepare, and cats usually eat it readily. Some owners cook rice and fish for a sick cat with an upset stomach—it's bland and easy to digest. Others use it as a budget-friendly alternative to commercial cat food. The problem is that what seems like adequate food to humans isn't adequate for cats. We can survive on rice and fish because our bodies can synthesize certain nutrients. Cats can't. They need nutrients that only come from specific animal tissues, and fish muscle plus rice doesn't provide the complete package.

How you prepare rice and fish determines whether it's safe or problematic.

Cats are obligate carnivores, which means they must eat meat to survive. But not just any meat—they need specific animal tissues that provide taurine, vitamin A in its active form, arachidonic acid, and other essential nutrients. Fish muscle provides some of these, but not all. Rice provides essentially nothing cats need—it's just filler that gives calories without nutrition. When you feed a cat rice and fish regularly, you're creating multiple deficiencies. Taurine deficiency leads to dilated cardiomyopathy (heart disease) and retinal degeneration (blindness). Vitamin A deficiency causes vision problems and skin issues. The list goes on. Commercial cat food is formulated to provide complete nutrition. Rice and fish is not.

The risks increase dramatically with regular or long-term feeding.

There are a few situations where rice and fish can be useful as temporary food. If your cat has severe diarrhea or vomiting, a bland meal of plain rice and plain boiled fish can help settle their stomach while you get them to the vet. If you've completely run out of cat food and stores are closed, rice and fish can get you through one or two meals until you can buy proper food. If you're traveling in a place where cat food isn't available, rice and fish is better than your cat not eating at all. But these are emergency situations, not long-term solutions. A few days won't cause permanent harm. Weeks or months will.

If you're feeding rice and fish because of cost, look for budget-friendly commercial cat food—even the cheapest cat food is nutritionally superior to homemade rice and fish. If you want to supplement your cat's diet with fish, give small amounts alongside regular cat food, not instead of it. If your cat has a sensitive stomach and needs bland food, talk to your vet about prescription digestive diets. If you're interested in home-cooked cat food, work with a veterinary nutritionist to create a properly balanced recipe that includes all essential nutrients, not just rice and fish.

Absolutely not as a primary diet. Kittens have even more demanding nutritional needs than adult cats. Their bodies are growing rapidly and need precise amounts of protein, taurine, calcium, and other nutrients.

If your cat has been eating primarily rice and fish, switch to proper cat food immediately and schedule a vet visit.

No. Daily rice and fish will cause serious nutritional deficiencies within weeks to months. Taurine deficiency can develop in as little as a few weeks on a taurine-deficient diet. Early symptoms might be subtle—slightly less energy, not quite as playful. But the damage is happening internally. The heart muscle weakens. The retinas begin to deteriorate. By the time you notice obvious symptoms like labored breathing or vision loss, significant damage has already occurred. Some of this damage is irreversible. Cats fed rice and fish exclusively have died from heart failure or gone blind. This isn't a hypothetical risk—it's documented in veterinary literature. If you've been feeding rice and fish daily, switch to cat food now.

Rice and fish can be used as temporary bland food for a cat with digestive upset, but it's not a long-term solution. The combination is easy to digest and unlikely to further irritate an already upset stomach. Veterinarians sometimes recommend plain boiled chicken and rice for dogs with diarrhea, and the same principle applies to cats with fish instead of chicken. But this is a 1-2 day intervention while you figure out what's wrong, not a treatment. If your cat has ongoing digestive issues, they need a vet and possibly prescription food—not homemade rice and fish.

You can't make rice and fish nutritionally complete just by adding more rice or more fish. You need to add organ meats (for vitamin A and other nutrients), bone meal or calcium supplements (for calcium and phosphorus), taurine supplements, vitamin E, B vitamins, and more. At that point, you're essentially trying to recreate commercial cat food from scratch, which is complicated and risky if you get the ratios wrong. If you want to feed homemade food, work with a veterinary nutritionist who can create a balanced recipe. Don't try to wing it with rice and fish plus random supplements. The consequences of getting it wrong are too serious.