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The short answer: Nulo Freestyle wins by 3 points, scoring B/82 to Orijen Original Cat’s B/79. Orijen leads with five consecutive animal ingredients (chicken, turkey, whole herring, turkey giblets, salmon), with organ meats supplying taurine naturally rather than via synthetic supplementation. Nulo counters with deboned salmon, turkey meal and chicken meal as its first three ingredients. Per the AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profiles, cats are obligate carnivores and require dietary taurine, vitamin A, and arachidonic acid that they cannot synthesize from plant precursors.

The scores

Orijen Original Cat: B/79
Nulo FreeStyle Adult Trim Salmon & Lentils: B/82

A 3-point gap within the B tier. The difference between Orijen and Nulo isn’t about one being good and the other mediocre. It’s about two genuinely premium formulas approaching feline nutrition from different angles.

How the ingredients compare

Here are the first five ingredients side by side:

Orijen: Chicken, Turkey, Whole Herring, Turkey Giblets (liver, heart, gizzard), Salmon

Nulo: Deboned Salmon, Turkey Meal, Chicken Meal, Whole Peas, Lentils

The philosophies are immediately clear. Orijen leads with five consecutive animal ingredients — no carbohydrate appears until well past the fifth position. Nulo places three animal proteins in its top five and reaches legumes (whole peas, lentils) at positions four and five. Orijen also includes organ meat (turkey giblets) in the top five, which is significant for cats: liver is one of the richest natural sources of taurine, the amino acid cats cannot synthesize on their own.

Where Orijen holds its own

Whole-prey ingredient philosophy. Orijen’s formula includes chicken, turkey, whole herring, turkey giblets, salmon, chicken liver, eggs, chicken hearts, and dehydrated versions of its proteins — more than 10 named animal ingredients in total.

Organ meat richness. Chicken liver and turkey liver appear prominently in Orijen’s formula. For cats, this matters more than it does for dogs. Organ meats provide naturally occurring taurine, vitamin A, and B vitamins that cats require in their diet because they can’t produce them internally. Most cat foods add synthetic taurine to meet AAFCO minimums; Orijen delivers it through the food itself.

Botanical inclusions. Orijen includes pumpkin and a range of botanicals that most cat foods skip entirely. These aren’t magic ingredients, but they add micronutrient variety that a simpler formula can’t match. Shop on Amazon →

Where Nulo pulls ahead

Fish and poultry proteins. Nulo’s first three ingredients are deboned salmon, turkey meal and chicken meal, with deboned cod at #6. Shop on Amazon →

The bottom line

Nulo Freestyle earns the win by 3 points, B/82 to Orijen Original Cat’s B/79, and both sit solidly in the B tier.

Read our full reviews of Orijen Original Cat and Nulo Freestyle Cat for the complete ingredient breakdowns.

Corrected 2026-10-19: we removed claims we could not support; we corrected factual errors, and grades and score comparisons that did not match our current scores.