10 Best Cat Food Bowls (2022) – Reviews & Buyer’s Guide

We buy many accessories for our cats, but few get used as often as its food bowl. However, with hundreds of brands available,  it can be nearly impossible to look at them all to choose the right one for your pet. We’ve chosen ten different brands to review for you to learn a little about the differences between brands. We’ll go over the pros and cons of each one and tell you how they worked out with our cats. We’ve also included a short buyer’s guide where we will look at what makes one bowl better than the next. Join us while we look at the size, material, shape, and more to help you make an educated purchase.

A Glance at Our Winners in 2022

The 10 Best Cat Food Bowls

1. Hepper Nomnom Modern Cat Bowl – Best Overall

The Hepper Nomnom Modern Cat Bowl is our pick for the best overall. It features two large stainless steel food bowls that you can use for food and water or feed two cats. It’s rather large at 16 inches long, and it’s 8 inches wide, and the stand is durable and quite sturdy. The bowls are wide and shallow, so they won’t trigger your cat’s whiskers which can cause them to pull away from their food. It’s easy to clean, and you can remove the dishes to fill them easily.

Our cats loved the Hepper, and it holds plenty of food. The only thing we could put on the cons list is that the food sometimes gets stuck between the food bowls, and the cats can’t get to it.

All in all, though, we think this is the best cat food bowl out there.

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2. Van Ness Non-Skid Cat Food Bowl – Best Value

The Van Ness Non-Skid Cat Food Bowl is our pick as the best cat food bowl for the money. Bamboo plant fiber makes up about 47% of it to cut down the plastics that enter the environment. The remaining plastic is BPA free so it will not leech into your pet’s food. It has an attractive cat design that many pet owners will enjoy, and it has a skin-resistant bottom that will help keep the dish in place while your cat eats. The dish is wide and shallow, so it won’t bother your cat’s whiskers, and it’s easy to wipe clean.

Unfortunately, the Van Ness is not dishwasher safe, so you will need to wash it by hand. It’s also a little small for feeding a larger adult cat.

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3. Ethical Pet Stoneware Cat Food Bowl – Premium Choice

The Ethical Pet Stoneware Cat Food Bowl is our premium choice cat food bowl. It’s a stoneware design with an attractive design. It’s weighty and won’t slide around while your cats are using it. It has a high gloss finish that’s easy to clean and dishwasher safe. You can also get it in multiple sizes to suit any cat. It’s free of heavy metals, and you won’t need to worry about adding plastics to the environment.

We really enjoyed the Ethical Pet Stoneware bowls, and they stayed in place while the cats ate their dinner. The only thing we didn’t like about this brand is that it’s thin and brittle, so it will break easily if accidentally dropped, which is easier to do than you might think.

If you’re looking for premium best cat dishes, this is our pick for premium best cat food bowls of the year.

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4. Loving Pets Stainless Steel Cat Food Bowl

The Loving Pets Stainless Steel Cat Food Bowl is extremely durable and won’t rust or corrode. It’s also resistant to bacteria and is dishwasher safe, so it’s easy to clean. The wide base won’t tip over while your cat is eating, and the skid-resistant bottom won’t slide. It’s whisker-friendly and large-sized. It can hold up to two cups of food which should be more than enough for most cats.

The primary problem that we had while reviewing Loving Pets food bowl was that the bottom often falls off when you pick it up. It also has several stickers on it that are quite difficult to remove, and it would have been much nicer if they weren’t there.

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5. Platinum Pets Stainless Steel Cat Food Bowl

The Platinum Pets Stainless Steel Cat Food Bowl is a durable stainless-steel bowl available in a wide variety of colors and sizes. It’s powder-coated for additional durability, and it has a wide base that will prevent it from sliding or tipping over while your can is eating. It’s wide and shallow, so the whiskers will have plenty of room to move around.

Unfortunately, we could not get the Platinum Pets food bowl’s rubber base to stay on, and every time we picked it up, it would fall off. As it fell off more and more, it wouldn’t stay on at all, and we would try to place the bowl on top of the base as we set down the food, but this created conditions ideal for mold growth. It’s also very thin and feels more like plastic than steel.

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6. Signature Housewares Ceramic Cat Food Bowl

The Signature Housewares Ceramic Cat Food Bowl is extremely attractive and features an eye-catching glaze that’s as attractive as it is useful. The glazing makes it easy to clean, and its dishwasher safe. You can get it in several sizes to suit your cat, and the wide shallow bowl won’t cause whisker fatigue.

The biggest downside to the Signature Housewares food bowl is that there is no rubber on the bottom to prevent it from sliding around on the floor while your cats eat. We found the scraping to make quite a bit of noise, especially if you have more than one cat. Another downside to this bowl is that it is very fragile and can break or chip easily.

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7. PetRageous Designs Cat Food Bowl

The PetRageous Designs Cat Food Bowl is an oven-fried ceramic bowl that is wide, shallow, and whisker-friendly. Its FDA compliant, so you can feel good about using it to feed your pet. It’s easy to clean, dishwasher safe, and you can even place it in a microwave.

The downside we experienced while using the PetRageous Designs bowl was that it was a little small for our cats, and they got a lot of their food on the floor that we had to clean up after each meal. We also found that it chips and scrapes easily, so you will need to be careful when you wash it that it doesn’t bang off other plates.

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8. JW Pet Skid Stop Basic Cat Food Bowl

The JW Pet Skid Stop Basic Cat Food Bowl utilizes stain-resistant plastic to provide you with a lightweight food bowl that you can place in the microwave for easy cleaning. It’s resistant to bacteria and is available in multiple sizes so that you can choose something suitable for your cat. Our cats enjoyed these bowls, and they seemed to be a good size with plenty of room for the whiskers.

We didn’t like that we couldn’t choose the color of the food bowl we received from JW. They only ship random colors, but most other brands allow you to choose the color you want when there are options. This food bowl also slid around the kitchen quite a bit despite its no-skid, rubber base.

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9. Kitty City Raised Cat Food Bowl

The Kitty City Raised Cat Food Bowl is a budget-minded set of dishes that come in a two-pack, so you can feed two cats or have one that is always clean. It uses a durable polypropylene plastic material that creates a durable yet lightweight food bowl that is high off the ground, promoting better posture. It’s dishwasher safe and won’t crack or break.

The downside to the Kitty City Raised Cat Food Bowl is that it slides easily and can be challenging for your cat to use. The height is nice for posture, and we believe our cat prefers it, but it also makes it easier to slide than a bowl that is closer to the ground with the cat hunched over it. It’s smaller than we expected, and the cat’s whiskers are continuously touching the sides. The polypropylene in the bowl also contains harmful BPA that can leech into your pet’s food, especially if it sits in the bowl for a while.

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10. lesotc Cat Food Bowl

The lesotc Cat Food Bowl is another attractive two-pack that features bowls with a cat head shape. One bowl is white while the other is grey, so it is easy to tell which is which from a distance. It uses food-grade melanin, a type of BPA free plastic that is extremely durable and won’t crack, chip, or break. It’s dishwasher safe, and it has four small legs with non-slip pads on them to help keep it in one place.

Unfortunately, there are a few downsides to the lesotc Cat Food Bowl as well. As the cats eat, they push the food toward the ears, which is difficult for them to reach and will force them to place their whiskers on the sides, causing fatigue. These ears are also easy to step on accidentally, which will tip the bowl and empty the contents. One last thing we didn’t like about this model is that due to its odd shape, it’s impossible to stack them with other bowls or even with each other, making them hard to store.

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Buyer’s Guide: Selecting the Best Cat Food Bowls

Let’s take a look at a few things you should consider before you purchase your next cat food bowl.

Size

The size of your food bowl is usually the first thing people look at when choosing a food bowl. It should be large enough to hold the amount of food you intend to feed your pet each night. A bowl you intend to use for dry kibble will be a little larger than a bowl for wet food.

Shape

The shape of your food bowls for cats is more important than the size. It needs to be wide enough that the sides won’t touch the whiskers when it’s eating, or it can cause a condition called whisker fatigue. Whister fatigue may seem silly, but it can result in a change in your cat’s behavior due to overstimulation. It can cause them to refuse to eat from their dishes, and you may also notice them pacing in front of the bowls. Cats will usually try to pull the food out of the bowl with their paws, so they don’t touch the bowl with their whiskers, and if they haven’t figured out how to do that, they might try to guard food given to them outside those dishes from other cats.

Prevent Whisker Fatigue

Using a wide shallow bowl is the best way to prevent whisker fatigue. Watch your cat closely as it eats to see how often the whiskers hit the side. If it seems like a lot, find a wider bowl even if your cat is not showing any symptoms, it will be able to enjoy its meal more if the whiskers aren’t in the way.

Pedestal Bowl

There is a wide variety of shapes, and you can use any you choose as long as it doesn’t interfere with the whiskers. One style that is growing in popularity is the pedestal that raises the bowl off the ground. Most cats aren’t very big, so they usually don’t have trouble eating off the ground, but if you want to raise the food for them, make sure the pedestal bowl is made for a cat and is not too tall for your cat to reach comfortably.

Related Read: 10 Best Cat Feeding Mats (For Food & Water) in 2021 – Reviews & Top Picks

Material

Another important decision you will need to make is what material you want.

Stainless Steel

Stainless steel is a popular material for pet food bowls. It’s nonporous, so it’s resistant to bacteria and is easy to clean and dishwasher safe. It doesn’t rust and is extremely durable. The main downside to stainless steel is that it can be noisy is your pets like to push around its food bowl. You also cannot put it in the microwave.

Glass

Glass is a fantastic choice for a food bowl because, like stainless steel, it’s nonporous and easy to clean, but unlike stainless steel, you can place it in the microwave. The downside to glass is that it’s easy to break, leading to a big mess with tiny shards that can be dangerous n an area the cat frequents.

Porcelain, Ceramics, Stone

Porcelain and ceramics can be your ordinary kitchen ware or any other similar bowl. These materials are extremely hard and resistant to bacteria. You can place them in the dishwasher and the microwave. The downside to porcelain and ceramics is that they are also easy to break though many modern kitchen dishes can take considerable abuse.

Plastic

It can be quite tempting to purchase an inexpensive plastic cat food bowl from the local discount store, but there are a few reasons why you should not.

• Many plastics scratch easily, and while the scratches may look small, they are giant canyons for bacteria to breed in, which can potentially cause health problems for your pet.
• Plastics can leach BPA. BPA is an industrial chemical that is harmful to humans and our pets. It’s a common ingredient in plastic, and you can find it in many containers we use to store food and water.

If you are using a plastic bowl, make sure it uses a formula without the harmful BPA chemical. Companies use non-BPA plastic as a selling point on items like a cat food bowl and print it on the package. We let you know how the plastic bowls fared on our list, but you will need to check the items if you continue shopping. If you have a bowl containing BPA that you need to use, avoid putting it in the dishwasher because the high temperature will change the plastic’s chemical structure, causing the BPA to leech into the food faster.

Wood

Wood is another popular material that people use to make bowls, and while it doesn’t leech BPA into the water, it is quite porous and will allow bacteria to hide and breed on the surface. We know it looks attractive, but you should avoid feeding your pets with a wooden bowl.

Water Fountain

Many people like to provide their pet with a water bowl, especially if they are using a two-bowl set. However, cats usually don’t like to drink standing water, probably because it would be dangerous in the wild. It’s also possible that they have a hard time seeing it. At any rate, it’s quite likely you’ve noticed your cat likes to drink out of the sing and shower where it can have access to running water, which is usually a healthier bet in the wild. A water fountain can dramatically increase your cat’s fluid intake. A properly hydrated cat will have a shiny coat with less shedding and dandruff, and though it may use the litter box more often, it’s less likely to get a urinary tract infection.

We highly recommend picking up a water fountain for your cat to go along with its new food bowl if you don’t already have one.

Conclusion

When choosing your next best cat dishes, we feel it will be hard to beat our pick for the best overall. The Hepper Nomnom Modern Cat Bowl is a two-bowl stainless steel set that lifts the food slightly off the floor to provide your cat with a whisker-friendly meal. Another smart choice is our pick for the best value. The Van Ness Non-Skid Cat Food Bowl is BPA-free and uses 47% biodegradable plant matter in its construction. It’s also easy to clean and won’t bother your cat’s whiskers.

We hope you have enjoyed reading over these reviews and found a few models you would like to try out in your home. If we have helped improve the quality of your cat’s meals, please share this guide to the ten best cat food bowls on Facebook and Twitter.

Looking to compare some luxury options? Try our article on the 7 Best Luxury Modern Cat Bowls in 2021 – Reviews & Top Picks for more great selections!