Should You Be Using Cat Litter Made of Tofu?

Gone are the days of staring blankly at packages of tofu, wondering how on earth you’re going to make bean curd tickle the taste buds. Tofu’s versatility as a protein-rich ingredient that you can incorporate into dishes as diverse as scrambled eggs and tacos has helped it level up to grocery staple status for many home cooks. But don’t just take our word for it—ask your cat. 

It may sound like a novelty item, but tofu cat litter isn’t all that unusual in terms of the natural cat litter market, according to Galaxy, a YouTuber and host of the television show “My Cat From Hell.” Galaxy endorses a natural cat litter called Sustainably Yours, which is made from corn and cassava, not tofu. “There’s a lot of litters that are made of everything from corn to wheat to grass and coconut husks,” Galaxy says. “But I think the tofu litter is, to my knowledge, just another one of those natural litters, which all have different claims that go with them.”

Pidan tofu cat litter, which CR’s market analyst says is the top-searched tofu cat litter brand on Amazon, says it is made with food grade soy bean dregs and bentonite, a type of clay made from altered volcanic ash that the brand claims helps with clumping. Frisco Tofu Clumping Cat Litter lists just one ingredient: tofu. Amazon lists the ingredients in Zen Kitty Clumping Tofu Cat Litter as soy fiber, guar gum, corn starch, and corn flour, with a “green tea scent.” 

The most noticeable observation you might make when opening your first bag of tofu cat litter is that it comes in pellet form, whereas clay-based and crystal litters have a softer texture. All the tofu cat litter brands mentioned above claim their litters are “low dust.” This is a selling point because concerns have been raised that cats can be harmed when they inhale clay dust or ingest inorganic clay-based litters. Another claim they make is that your cat will track less pellet litter around the house. If true, your robotic vacuum cleaner can finally take a much-needed break from running—everyone wins.

Sounds intriguing so far, but hold on to your wallet because tofu cat litter is more expensive than clay and silica-based litter. To give you some idea of what you can expect to pay: an 18-pound box of clay-based Arm & Hammer Forever Fresh Clumping Litter costs about $15, while a 5.5-pound bag of Zen Kitty Clumping Tofu Cat Litter costs $16, and a two-pack with 7.9 pounds each of Pidan Composite Cat Litter costs $32. Tofu cat litter is also more susceptible to moisture and direct sunlight and should be stored in a dry area, according to Pidan.

Is Tofu Cat Litter Better for the Environment?
If everything was perfect in the world of clay-based cat litter, there might not be a market of natural litters trying to shake things up, but this isn’t the case. 

Shanika Whitehurst, CR’s associate director of product sustainability, research, and testing, says clay-based cat litters are not a very good sustainable choice and that people tend to choose them because of cost, absorbency of the material, and availability for purchase. “The fact that clay-based litters are not biodegradable is what adds to it not being a sustainable option,” Whitehurst says. “If they are sent to landfills, they do not break down, and they contribute to issues already seen with solid waste disposal. When you couple non-biodegradability with the amount of resources used to mine the clay and also the energy used to dry it out during a process called ‘firing,’ it makes its environmental impact much higher.”

Brands like Pidan also claim that their tofu cat litters are compostable and that you can repurpose their litter as a garden fertilizer. But there are a few things to keep in mind. For starters, neither cat nor dog feces can be composted in backyard or commercial composting facilities and should be landfilled, says Linda Norris Waldt, deputy director at the US Composting Council. “This is both a permitting issue and a health issue,” Norris Waldt says. “Most states do not allow for this in their permits. There are pathogens in these feces that cannot be destroyed at operating temperatures that are recommended for composting facilities (131° F).”

The Environmental Protection Agency also warns that you should not compost pet waste (or traditional cat litter), and Whitehurst says waste would not be sanitary for application to growing vegetables. The EPA states on its website that it doesn’t recommend composting cat litter, but its guidelines do not specify whether it is referring to clay-based litter, natural litter, or both. CR reached out to soil experts in the Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) for clarification on this point but did not hear back by publication date.

Should You Flush Tofu Cat Litter?
According to a 2004 article published in Chemical & Engineering News, 60 percent of cat litters sold in the U.S. consist of clumping clay that does not decompose and should not be flushed in sewer or septic systems. “In contrast to clay litters, tofu litters appear to be a more sustainable choice,” Whitehurst says. “For one, they can break down, naturally giving more options for disposal, such as flushing. Secondly, they are made with a byproduct of soybean products and tofu waste, which gives life to a waste stream that would otherwise be lost.” It’s important to note that it is unclear where each tofu cat litter brand sourced its soybean dregs, so while we can say with confidence that these litters are biodegradable, we want to pause before calling them all “sustainable” until brands provide more clarity about their sourcing methods. 

Plant-based alternatives to clumping clay litter have been commercially available since the 1980s and include sawdust, wheat, alfalfa, oat hulls, corn cobs, peanut hulls, recycled newspaper, and, yes, tofu. Their “flushability” is a big marketing point and you’ll notice the word “flushable” appears on several tofu cat litter packages, including prominently on the packaging for Nourse Chowsing Tofu Cat Litter. 

Who can blame any cat owner for daydreaming about the day they can just go to town flushing all that litter down the toilet and be done with it? But hold that thought. For starters, flushed cat fecal matter has been implicated in infecting southern sea otters along the California coast with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii and infecting humans with T. gondii, an infection caused by the Toxoplasma gondii parasite that usually does not trigger symptoms but can be harmful during pregnancy and in individuals with compromised immune systems. Symptoms of the Toxoplasma gondii infection can include flulike muscle aches and pains, swollen lymph glands, and signs of ocular toxoplasma, such as “reduced vision, blurred vision, pain (often with bright light), redness of the eye, and sometimes tearing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger even signed a bill in 2006 that required all cat litter sold in California to contain a statement that would notify customers of the water quality benefits of disposing cat feces in the trash and not in toilets or drains. 

Read the fine print and you’ll find some cat tofu litter brands do not condone flushing their litter or use cryptic language when it comes to their flushability claim. Frisco Tofu Clumping Cat Litter instructs on its box not to flush its litter, and Zen Kitty states on its bag that to “maintain good water quality do not flush cat feces in toilets or dispose of contents through toilet or septic system” because it will “clog pipes.” Nourse’s Amazon product page maintains that you can pour agglomerated cat litter into the toilet, let it dissolve in water, and then flush it. 

As for Pidan, the brand doesn’t provide flushing instructions on its website, but its Amazon product page gives this advice: “Flushing into a toilet is allowed. Due to the solubility in water, the garbage processing is more convenient. (Do NOT flush too much into a toilet in a time.)” There is no additional instruction on how much litter is “too much” to safely flush. 

How do cat experts handle this? Galaxy says he tries not to flush natural cat litter. “There are always going to be potential issues and whether those are septic systems or not,” Galaxy says. “Even if the toilet can handle it, I tend to not, but that’s a personal choice.” He adds: “I mean, most of them will say that they’re flushable. It’s just I think with the vagaries of septic systems, a lot of times I don’t think any of the companies want to be on the hook for that.”

In other words: Flush at your own risk.