Tip for a great protein boost, per Dr. Lisa Pierson!

Greetings fellow board members!

Wanted to share some valuable advice I just learned from a phone consult with Dr Pierson (specialist on diabetes) regarding my kitty, Henry, and the importance of DIET MANAGEMENT!

For a great and easy boost of protein (to help dilute fats and carbs on a caloric basis)- buy a package of Jenny-O's 99% fat free turkey. Brown the ground turkey in a pan using a small bit of butter (Doc P said water is better) - dont overcook- a very small bit of pink is OK-

Pack the turkey firmly in a covered ice cube tray and freeze. (One cube is roughly one ounce)

Mix in to kitty's food once or twice a day for a nice surge of pure protein --



PS- Henry is very particular about what he eats, so I personally will start with 'sneaking in ' 1/2 "cube" or less, then gradually move up...

Thanks to Dr Lisa for more great info---

Excellent idea - easy to implement and not too expensive.

I don't think Sneakers will wait for it to freeze :lol:

Thanks for sharing the tip :thumbup

Hey everyone,

I promised Taisia that I would stop in if I had some time. The reason why I am posting this is because, as most of you have noticed, the commercial canned foods are quite high in fat (cheap) and skimpy in protein (expensive)....all in the name of profit margin.

Remember...."meat" includes very high fat meat trimmings....leaving us with relatively low protein/high fat diets. So, "95% chicken" is pretty meaningless...and deceptive.

A few quick comments:

1) Keep in mind that the calories from protein + fat + carbs must equal 100%. Think of it as a 3-way teeter totter. Increase one fraction and => one or both of the other factions must decrease. Therefore, when you add a protein boost, the fat and carb caloric contribution automatically decrease.

2) Very important: : Plain meat is unbalanced. There is only a tiny amount of calcium, etc., in the meat. Therefore, cats would die on meat alone. That said, if you add in only ~20% of the total calories as plain meat, that should not result in a dangerous imbalance of the average commercial canned diet.

3) 1 ounce of cooked breast meat (low in fat/high in protein) is ~40 calories. Most cats eat around 200-250 calories per day with diabetic cats often eating >300 calories. 40/200 = 20%......40/300 = 13% of total calories

4) If the cat is eating ~200 calories of food per day, replace 40 calories of the canned food with 1 ounce (~40 calories) of cooked lean poultry meat.

5) Jennie-O Extra Lean Turkey Breast is a convenient choice:

http://www.jennieo.com/products/3-Extra ... key-Breast

Correction to Taisia's post:

Mix in to kitty's food once or twice a day for a nice surge of pure protein --

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Limit it to 20% of total calories/day. So if a cat is only eating 200 calories of food, feed 160 calories of canned food + 40 calories of cooked, lean poultry meat. (40/200 = 20%)

If a cat is eating 300 calories off food, then you can remove ~60 calories of canned food and replace it with 60 calories (1.5 ounces) of plain, cooked meat. (60/300 = 20%)

Again, this will give the diet a high quality protein boost while diluting the fat and carbs in the diet.

Correction to Taisia's post:

Mix in to kitty's food once or twice a day for a nice surge of pure protein --

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Click to expand...

I probably should not have said "correction" to Tasia's post but maybe more of a clarification. You can add this protein boost to just one meal...or divide it up into every meal. I just wanted to clarify that we need to stick with 20% of total calories per day.

However, the "per day" is not etched in stone since we know that diets balance over time. In other words, if all a cat ate for a day or two...or three.... was plain (UNbalanced) meat....no big deal. Just make sure that you understand that the overall diet - over time - should not contain too much UNbalanced meat.

Thank you Dr Lisa! :YMHUG:

This is fantastic information! Thank you Taisia and Dr. Lisa! I've got two kittens in my house and I've read that higher protein is a necessity for growing kitties. (Or is it true for all cats of any age, but they just say it's good for growing kittens?) Either way, higher fat foods (like Evo) spike my diabetic kitten's BG. Plus, Michelangelo is allergic to all red meats (beef, venison, and rabbit have so far proven to end up on the ground instead of in his belly), limiting my low carb, wet food selections even further!

I've become a huge fan of the Tiki cat poultry varieties because of its high protein content, but it's soooooo expensive at almost $17 for a case of 12 2.8oz cans (vs. FF at $13 for 24 3oz cans). I always mix it in with water and Friskies pate (my kitties don't like straight pate or straight chunks for some reason). Using extra-lean turkey breast instead will save me a TON of money. Is the Jenny-O nutritional value of 26g protein, 0 carbs, and 1.5g fat what makes it optimal? Can I use a comparable chicken version since the Friskies I use (SD Turkey & Giblets) already has turkey in it or even a different brand of turkey? Will those also work?

Is the Jenny-O nutritional value of 26g protein, 0 carbs, and 1.5g fat what makes it optimal? Can I use a comparable chicken version since the Friskies I use (SD Turkey & Giblets) already has turkey in it or even a different brand of turkey? Will those also work?

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The bottom line is that we are looking for a pure protein (low fat) source. Turkey or chicken - or even beef for some cats (if they are not intolerant to beef protein).

The problem with just walking up to the meat counter and buying any ground meat is that you don't know how much fat is in it. That said, just ask your butcher for the leanest (lowest fat) ground meat but be sure to cook it. Feeding pre-ground supermarket meat in the raw form is not within my comfort zone.

And, again, be sure to limit to <20% of total calories. Otherwise, an UNbalanced diet will result.

nutritiondata.com is a good place to get calorie information.

Lisa dvm said:

And, again, be sure to limit to <20% of total calories. Otherwise, an UNbalanced diet will result.

nutritiondata.com is a good place to get calorie information.

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Sorry, forgot about the caloric comparison, as well. To make sure I'm understanding you correctly: if I can find a high protein, low-to-zero fat, 0 carb meat with >120 calories/112g, then it should be okay to feed as long as it's less than 20% of their daily intake?

Right now, I have a 5 month old at 5 pounds and 10 month old at 10 pounds who is no longer eating twice as much as an adult 10 pound cat, so they both eat roughly the same amount each day (~200-300 calories with Henry eating a bit more and Michelangelo eating a bit less, respectively). Individually, this equals out to about 1/2 a can of Tiki a day (~68 calories) mixed with less than a full can of Friskies SD (<166 calories) along with an additional 1/2 can of FF Chunky Chicken Feast(~65 calories) (which I'm trying to wean them off since learning that all low carb FF Chicken Feasts contain fish?!?). So, if I substitute the calories from that 1/2 can of Tiki with the Jenny-O instead (less Jenny-O and more Friskies, perhaps), that should still be around the 20%, right (~60 calories/day = 20%)?

Wow! That's a math word problem I had hoped to never encounter in my lifetime.... :lol:

I have a tangential question about metabolism: are there any known feline disorders in which the bo
dy breaks down protein or fat excessively to produce carbohydrates?