Food Forum, Anyone?

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Brilliant idea especially for those of us in the UK as our list of recommended food seems to be very out of date.
 
If one of you UK folk would start up a Google Sheets listing, label it, and select others in the UK to have permission to add on to it, and those with general link to view it, that'd be a start.
I've set one up as a draft. See post below.
 
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Cat belled.
Here's the read-only version.
I'll need specific e-mail addresses to add others to the "may edit" list. Send them to me in a conversation, not a post, so you don't get spammed!
It is a draft, so if you want other details added, list them, or once added to the editor list, add them yourself.
 
I'm happy to do an initial batch of carb calculations. :)
And am also happy to enter data on the sheet as long as it doesn't require any clever technical stuff...:nailbiting:

Thanks, BJ. You're a star.
(Will PM you my details.)

Eliz
 
BJM & Elizabeth,you are BOTH stars,I can still evoke the panic I felt when Bailey was first diagnosed,so much research to do,and not knowing where to begin,these easily accessible links on food for each country,along with data on individual illnesses that can run concurrently alongside FD will be invaluable to us all,especially the newly diagnosed members.I had my doubts about the new format on the forum,but with all this comprehensive info that is being suggested and put into place by dedicated members like yourselves it is turning out to be awesome.well done,I only wish I was more computer savvy to help you out.
 
Thanks, BJ, for kicking this off. I'll PM you my email address.

Could we have a column for as-fed moisture content, please? In addition to making it easier to follow the carb calculations, having an at-a-glance reference to moisture content(s) helps when using secondary monitoring (so that one can calculate the approximate amount of water a cat is getting from its food). Columns for calcium and phosphorus info would be a valuable addition, too.

I'd also like to see a "Source" column, so that members can see where to buy the foods.

I'd like to suggest adding a wide column at the very last position in the table for ingredients and additives. People contributing to the list could simply copy and paste ingredient/additive info from the product web pages into the cells. It is invaluable information to have available at a glance for those of us whose cats have specific dietary requirements, food intolerances, and/or allergies.
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Critter Mom said:
Could we have a column for as-fed moisture content, please?....
.... Columns for calcium and phosphorus info would be a valuable addition, too.
Click to expand...
What I'm pondering is: What amendments are we able to make on our own, and what can BJ @BJM do that we can't do (given that she is 'smarter than the average bear'...)

And I'm actually wondering if we can jettison some columns that we don't need in order to make space for some additional ones...?

And, and , and.... I'm wondering if this format would also suit our Antipodean chums...? 'Two birds, one stone', and all that....
 
An afterthought. I think it's a good approach to actually discuss which columns are the most beneficial to a broad audience before adding more to the spreadsheet. If columns can be added 'willy-nilly' the resulting sheet might become a bit too cumbersome to be useful.
 
Critter Mom said:
An afterthought. I think it's a good approach to actually discuss which columns are the most beneficial to a broad audience before adding more to the spreadsheet. If columns can be added 'willy-nilly' the resulting sheet might become a bit too cumbersome to be useful.
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Yes, absolutely agree with all of the above! :)

I'm also thinking that it would be good if this could be set up a resource that isn't only useful to us (who are currently posting on the forum) but also could be easily updated/amended/adapted by those who join the forum after us, so that the info is always current and relevant to those who need it.
 
Moggers has taken the plunge and is playing with the Google sheet for the UK food list. :D (Thank you, BJ, for setting up access!)

It is very much work in progress. I've rejigged the column order, and I've put a suggested colour-coding scheme for the kcal from carbs% cells so that it's easier to see at a glance which carb range a food falls into. I'd appreciate it if someone could give me definitive upper and lower range boundaries for the medium carb % range so that I can set conditional formats on the cells (similar to the colour coding in the BG spreadsheets).

I've entered a sample record in the table (partial) to show two ways of including ingredient info. The obvious one is the column on the far right of the table. I've also used the note function in the product name cell. If you move the mouse pointer onto the product name (Chicken & Turkey Pouch in the sample record), you should see a pop-up box appear to the right of the cell containing the ingredient and additive info for the product. What do people think of recording the ingredient info? If you want to include it, which presentation do you think will work better: pop-up note or separate column?

What other info would you like to see?
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Experiment as needed.
You might duplicate a page (right-click the tab at the bottom and Duplicate, then change the duplicate page name), then edit the copy to see if you like the changes or not. If not, delete the copy. And of course, you can save a copy to your own Drive account, too.
Be brave and experiment!
 
Aine, that's great work! Wowsy!

I didn't understand some of what you wrote in your post though because it sounded a bit clever and I haven't had enough coffee for that yet...(only half way through the first cup of the day...:coffee:;))

But my first thoughts are that the coloured column for carbs is an excellent idea! The most needed info should be the easiest to spot. (And that splash of colours does add a nice touch of interest to an otherwise monochrome design...:D)

Regarding the carb column: Is that data the number of calories in 100g of food, or the percentage of calories from carbs?
And, are we actually planning to list some med and high carb foods as well as those with less than 10% cals from carbs? Is this so that folks have options for raising blood glucose...? (And if so, can anyone suggest some foods...?)

A column for dry matter phosphorous could be good, since a lot of older kitties do have kidney disease. It's a very simple calculation as long as the phos content and moisture content are listed on the label (or obtainable from the manufacturer).

Are you suggesting we list ingredients of all foods also?

Back later after Friday morning torture class (Barre Concept....:nailbiting:)

Eliz
 
Hi Eliz,

I'm doing a little bit more on the spreadsheet design. I've decided to go with putting the ingredients into a note attached to the food variety name for now. I'm going to work on this sheet exclusively for now to get the guts of the information into a (hopefully) logical layout ready for discussion. We can always add/delete/reorder the columns afterwards but trying to do that across multiple sheets at this stage would create a lot of unnecessary (and confusing) work: Google sheets is a tad on the clunky side when it comes to editing. I hope that's OK with everyone. If not, please shout! :)

I'm trying to set up the spreadsheet so that there will be minimal data entry and the spreadsheet will do the rest of the work.

Eliz, I'm using the following multipliers to calculate the kcal percentages:

Protein: 3.5 kcal/g
Fat: 8.5 kcal/g
Carbs: 3.5 kcal/g

If you put your mouse pointer onto the relevant column headings, you'll see that I've added notes to show the multipliers for easy reference. If these values are not correct, please let me know.

I'm setting the low carb range as less than 10% of calories from carbohydrates. Is that correct? Or should it be 6% or less? Also, can somebody please tell me what is the MAXIMUM calories from carbs % that would qualify a food to be placed in the 'medium carb' range. I need this info for the colour coding.

Once the spreadsheet design's finalised, I think it would be very helpful to include a User Guide on a separate tab to help people to understand/navigate/add to the sheet. Thoughts?

All feedback and comments are very, very welcome. :)
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Critter Mom said:
I think it's a good approach to actually discuss which columns are the most beneficial to a broad audience before adding more to the spreadsheet. If columns can be added 'willy-nilly' the resulting sheet might become a bit too cumbersome to be useful.
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Emphasis mine

Hi Aine,

Yes, would be super-duper to get some kind of consensus from current UK folks on 'what info is most useful?'; and to try to balance those wishes with 'ease of ongoing maintenance'.
If our document is too complicated it won't be easy to keep up to date, and it's important that it is kept up to date.

For me (given that this is a diabetic cat forum) the most important thing is the name of the food and the percentage of calories from carbohydrates; pure and simple.

The next most useful thing would be to know where I can buy that food.
Then, it may also be that Fluffy also has kidney disease (very common), so it would be good to know the phosphorous content if possible (and it isn't always possible...).
Then, I might also be interested in specific comments about that food such as; 'contains soya', 'contains carrageenan', 'very low fat', etc in case Fluffy has food intolerances or specific dietary requirements.

I would not assume that the food document contains everything I might want to know about a particular food, but that's OK; I can look up any further info online. What I really want to know from this document is what isn't easy to find out online or by looking at a food label.

Documents take time to maintain. I think we need make sure it is simple and quick to maintain, not only for us, but also for those who join this forum further down the line.

Also, Juliet (Dr Schrodinger) @Dr Schrodinger has done a heck of a lot of work on her own UK food document (and has listed, I think, 143 UK foods). She's not been on the forum for a number of months but I think she should be contacted. (Her document has been incredibly useful for a lot of people.)

Let's try to get some other UK points of view also; @LynRich , @KleineMue , @phlika29 , @BaileyUK , @anna and bailey.uk england

Eliz
 
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Re ingredients:

When it comes to trying to find suitable foods for cats with pancreatitis or digestive system / underlying health issues (e.g. allergies/intolerances, IBD, CKD) where the actual make-up of the diet is just as important as dietary carbs, having ingredient information readily available alongside carb information is invaluable. I really believe that adding the ingredient information will help many people. We all know how even the simplest of things can be overwhelming to contend with when our little ones aren't well and we are so beset with worry. I certainly found trying to research foods on top of trying to learn about diabetes and pancreatitis made things much more of a struggle. If we can create a food reference library that's an information 'one stop shop', I think it could alleviate a lot of stress for caregivers of newly-diagnosed cats, and be an incredibly useful resource on an ongoing basis.
 
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I recognise that this is primarily a forum for diabetic cats, but there are a significant number of cats with comorbid conditions - notably pancreatitis - and I really believe there is merit in bringing this information together in one place. My vision of the amount of maintenance required would be to:

1. Enter the food brand/name/source.

2. If available, copy the ingredient & additive list from a product website and paste it into a note against the food variety (with instructions in the User Guide - it's a very easy thing to do).

3. Enter the as-fed typical analysis percentages.

4. If available, enter the calcium and phosphate values.

The spreadsheet should then calculate everything else (with the option to add a remark if desired).

I agree that Juliet's spreadsheet is fantastic for carb info, etc., but I for one would like to see a little more nutritional information in a central spreadsheet. Maybe others disagree. Maybe Juliet's spreadsheet might be the better one to use as a base. Or maybe we should just stick with it altogether? If the latter, is Juliet the only person that maintains it?
 
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Critter Mom said:
..is Juliet the only person that maintains it?
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Yes, but that wasn't the intention.
Juliet asked for help. But I couldn't help at that time (when the document was set up) because I was weighed down with family problems. So she had to cope with it on her own; and it sort of 'stuck' that way. (Because I knew she had coped, I let it ride. 'Mea culpa'...:oops: )

Very often there are only a handful of Brits on the forum at any given time, and the degree to which people want to be (or are able to be) actively involved varies a lot.

I'm all for the UK food document containing more info as long it can be maintained easily.
If we could set up a document that was useful and could be easily updated then that could be a fine legacy to leave for those who come here after us.

Eliz
 
What are your views on the suggestion I made above about what might need to be manually entered into the sheet, Eliz?

As a bit of background, the proposal is based on quite a lot of trial and error on my part to find a really easy way to record the most pertinent food info without the additional hassle of having to go off to websites to find out more information. Because of my cognitive difficulties, I actually need to make all aspects of my life extremely simple to manage/maintain. The suggestions I'm making give maximum info return for minimum input effort (takes only a couple of minutes to add details for a new food to the list). Maybe other people might not find it that way, hence my request for feedback.
 
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Critter Mom said:
What are your views on the suggestion I made above about what might need to be manually entered into the sheet, Eliz?
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Okey dokey, Aine,
These are just my own views (in blue); hopefully others which chime in soon.

1. Enter the food brand/name/source.
Yep, very important.

Edited to add:
'Percentage of calories from carbs' also vital.

2. If available, copy the ingredient & additive list from a product website and paste it into a note against the food variety (with instructions in the User Guide - it's a very easy thing to do).
Can see that this is potentially useful. But even if this is included I still think it would need specific comments on things that may not seem relevant from just a cursory reading of the ingredients list. One example is that some foods appear low carb but contain 'vegetable protein extract' which can cause some cats' blood glucose to skyrocket.

3. Enter the as-fed typical analysis percentages.
Not sure of the usefulness of this. (Although I do understand that you'd find it helpful to see the moisture content?)

4. If available, enter the calcium and phosphate values.
Yep, very important for some folks.
.
 
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Critter Mom said:
Eliz, I'm using the following multipliers to calculate the kcal percentages:

Protein: 3.5 kcal/g
Fat: 8.5 kcal/g
Carbs: 3.5 kcal/g

If you put your mouse pointer onto the relevant column headings, you'll see that I've added notes to show the multipliers for easy reference. If these values are not correct, please let me know.
Click to expand...

These multipliers will enable us to calculate the total calories in 100g of food, and to calculate the amount of calories in that 100g of food that come from carbs etc; but that isn't necessarily the same thing as the percentage of calories from carbs. And when comparing foods that's what we need to be showing. :)
 
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Hi Eliz,

Thanks for the feedback. Cognitive problems are making it difficult to reply right now. (Been trying for hours but I can't get my thoughts into a coherent form. Will try again over the weekend.)

BTW, the carb kcal % value is already in the sheet: it's the colour-coded value.
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Elizabeth and Bertie said:
I'm happy to do an initial batch of carb calculations. :)
And am also happy to enter data on the sheet as long as it doesn't require any clever technical stuff...:nailbiting:
Click to expand...

This is where I think we are at cross purposes, Eliz. The format that I've proposed only needs you to enter the as-fed analysis values into the sheet (hence the need to have the columns). The spreadsheet itself will do all the calculations. That way anyone with editing privileges can just enter product name, where to buy, and as-fed analysis values from the food label/product web page. (Ingredient info is an optional extra, but very, very valuable.) All the "technical stuff" will be built into the spreadsheet. They won't need to worry about how to calculate the calories from carbs, etc., because it will be done automatically (a bit like the way the World BG template automatically calculates the US BG values using the mmol values that we enter). It doesn't get any easier to expand/maintain than that.

With regard to the ingredient info, trying to include comments about all the potential irritants in foods is, in my considered opinion, way beyond the scope of this food list. For example, every common protein is a potential irritant (to cats with allergies, for example). Trying to add comments about all of the potentially problematic ingredients could result in a very cluttered 'Remarks' section (and a very long spreadsheet). For example, to ensure that caregivers with cats who have chicken allergies are adequately alerted to irritants, it require a note to be included against every food that contains chicken. I think that the onus is on the caregiver to use home monitoring, etc., to identify which foods cause problems for their cat. That said, having a 'one stop shop' where caregivers can view ingredient lists side-by-side with the carb range of a food, it would save many people an awful lot of time and confusion when selecting foods for their cats by sparing them the time and aggravation of having to go schlepping all around the internet to visit the website pages with the ingredient info. As a cat with food issues, I can assure you that anything which cuts down the time required for food research is a godsend. That there is no commentary on the 'iffiness' of various ingredients in each food does not invalidate the benefit of having the ingredient information 'as is' readily and easily accessible for reference. If there are a few 'outstanding' characteristics of a food, (e.g. 'contains carrageenan', 'high fat', 'grain-free', 'non-GMO' etc.) I think highlighting such distinguishing characteristics in the 'Remarks' column could work well.

When it comes to educating members and sharing information about food irritants, it might be a better idea to maybe have some sort of primer on common 'iffy' ingredients (e.g. soy, carrageenan) in a separate thread in the proposed food forum and maybe some advice for newcomers on how to run food trials to establish which foods may cause their cats' blood glucose to spike. Such an approach would also save on a lot of potential repetition.
 
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Critter Mom said:
This is where I think we are at cross purposes, Eliz. The format that I've proposed only needs you to enter the as-fed analysis values into the sheet (hence the need to have the columns). The spreadsheet itself will do all the calculations. That way anyone with editing privileges can just enter product name, where to buy, and as-fed analysis values from the food label/product web page. (Ingredient info is an optional extra, but very, very valuable.) All the "technical stuff" will be built into the spreadsheet.
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Hi Aine,

You're quite right. I hadn't realised that some of those columns are there because the sheet is actually doing the calculation. (I just saw a row of numbers, and I've not had time to play with the sheet yet, so haven't even begun to work out what it can do.) You are way ahead of me.

Are these multipliers the full extent of the current calculation?
Protein: 3.5 kcal/g
Fat: 8.5 kcal/g
Carbs: 3.5 kcal/g
Or is the sheet also doing the last part of calculation that works out the percentage of calories from carbs. If it's not doing the latter then you will need another column for that.

Critter Mom said:
If there are a few 'outstanding' characteristics of a food, (e.g. 'contains carrageenan', 'high fat', 'grain-free', 'non-GMO' etc.) I think highlighting such distinguishing characteristics in the 'Remarks' column could work well.
Click to expand...
Critter Mom said:
When it comes to educating members and sharing information about food irritants, it might be a better idea to maybe have some sort of primer on common 'iffy' ingredients (e.g. soy, carrageenan) in a separate thread in the proposed food forum and maybe some advice for newcomers on how to run food trials to establish which foods may cause their cats' blood glucose to spike.
Click to expand...
It was my mistake to list carrageenan as a candidate for the comments sections, as it's presence should be evident from the ingredients list.
I'm proposing that the comments section be used for potential 'really need to know' stuff that isn't obvious from the ingredients list.
For example, soya is often not listed in the ingredients. And if a known food has a track record of raising cats' blood glucose levels despite it being very low carb, it would be prudent to note that in the comments section also.

Eliz
 
It would be really helpful to hear views from other UK folks also, so don't be shy, and please DO get involved in the discussion.
We need that the UK food list works for everyone who makes use of it. :)
 
Hi everyone

Okay I haven't had time to go over this thread in a lot of detail but if I want to look at a new food this is the information I ideally want to find

Name/brand
% of calories from carbs, fat and protein
Where i can buy it
Size of can
Calories per can
Phosphate levels,etc
Any ingredients of potential concern
Any extra bonuses ie single source protein

I understand that you want need the other info to make the calculations but in all honesty if that could somehow sit behind the headline info that would make it clearer, ie there is a more detailed page/list that you can click on to bring it up.

I am more than happy to try to help keep it up to date as long as there is no maths involved.:)
 
This is a very good idea . Squiggles so far is eating Natures Menu Chicken & Natures Menu Fish, plus Lily's Kitchen Chicken/ Fish / Turkey. I'll try & add what's in the food.
Don't all shout at me, but she does have a few Hills M/D diabetic & weight loss biscuits !

I agree about getting the balance right between info & ease of maintainance , & knowing the percentage of calories from carbohydrates .
 
I think Philkas list of recommendations is excellent,very comprehensive,the only input I can add is it would be handy to have suggestions of (let's say hypo situations) of what higher carb foods could be kept in to steer up the bg levels.Also a list of treats would be handy.
I also think we should keep the maintenance side of this as simple as possible,so future members whatever their level of computer skills will be able to keep this invaluable source of info up to date.
Aine & Elizabeth,you are doing a wonderful job, many many thanks. X
 
phlika29 said:
Name/brand
% of calories from carbs, fat and protein
Where i can buy it
Size of can
Calories per can
Phosphate levels,etc
Any ingredients of potential concern
Any extra bonuses ie single source protein

I understand that you want need the other info to make the calculations but in all honesty if that could somehow sit behind the headline info that would make it clearer, ie there is a more detailed page/list that you can click on to bring it up.
Click to expand...
Emphasis mine.

I'm wondering, after seeing Sarah's post @phlika29 whether it would be helpful to have some general info that is quick and easy to access, and some more detailed info (including calculations etc) separately.

On the second page of the sheet, 'draft B', I've experimented with putting most of Sarah's column suggestions together.
I've not included the calories per can, but have included calories per 100g and the size of the can/pouch.
And I've not included %calories from fat and protein but could do that (or that info could be with the 'more detailed info' elsewhere on the same sheet, or on a separate sheet?
BJM said:
Here's the read-only version.
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Is this kind of thing likely to be useful?

Once we do find a working model that seems promising, it would be good if all/most current UK members could have a go at entering data. That will give us a better idea of how to balance the amount of information on the sheet with the ease of maintaining/updating it: The 'proof of the pudding is in the eating'...

If anyone wants access to the 'live' sheet then do let BJ have your email address.

Eliz
 
Just wanted to say, a food forum would be extremely helpful! I've done some digging for available food in Southern California, but knowing where to get specific brands would be awesome.
 
Oh, forgot to say...

If, in the meantime, anyone would like my Excel spreadsheet carb calculator just let me have your email address and I'll send it to you.
It does what the Scheyderweb calculator does except it also goes a stage further and calculates the percentage of calories.
It has my cat food calculations in it but you can just write over the top of those. :rolleyes:
You just enter the analysis %'s for protein, fat etc in the blue box, and, as you go down the column adding the %'s the sheet does the calculations for you. No maths involved! :)

Eliz
 
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I've been following this thread... sort of... and am just full of admiration for those of you who have the technical know-how to do this. It really is the most brilliant idea and will be a wonderful legacy for the current group of UKers (and others?) to hand down to those still to come.

I wish I could offer to make some contribution but I honestly am the world's worst at this kind of thing (honest - not just being lazy). For that reason I do support Elizabeth's suggestion for some quick, easy to access, general information in one section as well as a more detailed breakdown elsewhere. I could also if you like offer to be a 'lowest common denominator' guinea pig, as it were, and road-test a document to see if it is helpful for people like me who find anything to do with numbers and data extremely difficult.

Sorry I can't offer much more input but I heartily salute all of you who are doing this.

Diana
 
Having a hard time not jumping into this with some concerns.

First, how are you deciding who is going to get access to this to enter information? The right information for doing these calculations (regardless if the spreadsheet is doing them) can sometimes be hard to come by and a lot of people don't understand what that information is - and sometimes don't even realize it's not the correct information. Every company is different and may present it in different ways. I'm sorry, but from my experience, having someone just go down the page entering numbers and letting the spreadsheet do the rest is an over-simplication -- I've seen far too many people post information, thinking they're doing the right thing, and it's not.

I'm not trying to be discouraging - just saying to be careful if people are going to be counting on this information. In fact, some companies are loathe to even give out this information because they're scared someone will post it online, mess it up, and then people will be upset that the information is not correct. I have such a spreadsheet and there's not many people I'd trust to be entering anything into it. (Well, maybe ingredients or where it can bought and such, but not numbers.)

As to CRF cats, there's far more to it than just worrying about phosphorus levels - I ran a CRF group for a few years and people want to know protein, phosphorus, calcium, even sodium, magnesium, etc. (In fact, only worrying about phosphorus is an over-simplification of treating a CRF cat.) That said, if you get the information from the company in the correct way, it's not really that much harder to add these numbers. i.e. the equations for figuring all these out as a percent of dry matter is exactly the same, so it doesn't really matter how many of them you add. (Nearly everyone on the internet besides this site wants numbers as a percent of dry matter. Given people here are used to having carbs, protein and fat as a percent of calories, that's perfectly fine, but you need the other numbers as a % of DM.)

Another suggestion - I know it's not final - put the information people want to see to the left and leave the raw data off to the right. I'd just be leary leaving the raw data as the first thing you see - people could confuse that. If someone is truly looking for just carbs as a % of calories (and they know it's the colored section) that might be OK. But you also have a percent of carbs that's actually a percent of weight. Will people get that? A lot of people assume if it says "as fed," that's what they want. (It's not labeled as % of weight, and even if it was, a lot of people wouldn't get it, especially math-phobes.)

I'm also a bit leary of putting those labels on the carb levels. Someone is going to take that as advice and that is not a good idea, especially as a catch-all for any cat in any situation. Are you really saying any food above 16% carbs is appropriate in any emergency situation??

Again, my point is not to be discouraging. I'm just offering some stuff you need to think about. I've spent a lot of time messing with food charts, and talking to manufacturers (who can be a real PITA), and watching other people post numbers that aren't the right ones, etc. Seriously, just be careful if you want this to be useful.

I like the idea of a food forum. I really came here entirely for something else, but this caught my attention.
 
I've done a bit more on provisional design - see the tab labelled Draft A2.

I've also added comments to Draft A2 and Eliz's Draft B version. If you click on the black square at the beginning of the tab names, the comments will show up. Just move the mouse pointer to the cells with the comments and the text will appear in a pop-up. (I don't know whether or not they will appear for people who currently only have read-only access to the spreadsheet at the moment. I'd be grateful if someone could let me know.

I''ve been experimenting with using web links to the ingredient information but Google Sheets is very clunky with how they work. Can someone with read-only access try clicking on the links and letting me know whether they see an option to "Change/Remove Link" please?

@Elizabeth and Bertie -

Eliz, did you use dummy data in the kcal from carbs % column in your Draft B sheet? If not, then one of us is calculating the carbs incorrectly. Have a look at our different values for Nature's Menu Chicken & Turkey and also Ropocat Sensitive Venison to see what I mean.

Sometimes the way that nutrition data is presented on product web pages can be ambiguous and if the wrong information is included in the calculations it can throw them out badly (e.g. Crude Ash % and Ca/P percentages in Zooplus nutritional analysis tables. My understanding is that the calcium and phosphorus compounds are part of what makes up 'Crude Ash' (inorganic matter). If my understanding is incorrect, can someone please advise on how these values should be handled in carbohydrate calculations. It's an issue that needs discussion and a standard approach agreed (and ideally included in a sheet User Guide).

Sheet Ownership - Backup and Housekeeping

Someone needs to 'own' this list. The more people that have editor access, the greater the chance of the sheet getting mucked up (especially as Google Sheets saves changes straight away and - to the best of my limited knowledge - doesn't have a major 'rollback' to last good version feature). Regular backups should be maintained. (Easy job - use the "Make a Copy" function). I have serious misgivings about allowing global editing access to all members. I don't think it's a good idea. One advantage of limiting the number of editors is that it would be possible to hide the "as fed" percentage information most of the time, with editors "unhiding" the columns upon which the calculations are besed once the new foods have been added.

Additions to the list are likely to be random and that will eventually make untidy at best, and harder to use at worst. I recommend that the list is re-sorted into brand/food variety order periodically (maybe once a week when it's being built, and then maybe monthly / ad hoc thereafter? )

Thoughts?


Edited to add:

@Erimess & Sammy (GA) - I share all of your concerns and your thinking about what data should be presented. In particular, I agree that there is a lot of room for confusion because of the inconsistencies in the way that different manufacturers and food suppliers present nutrition data (ref. comments on crude ash, calcium and phosphorus above). This is very much not a case of just plugging in numbers and away we go. The base data needs to be understood by editors so that correct information is input for the calculations in the first instance. Any columns that are only needed for data entry can be hidden after adding/amending product details, as can formulae for interim calculations(e.g. as fed carb %). I left the latter visible to show my working.



More to follow...
 
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Hi Erimess,

Erimess & Sammy (GA) said:
First, how are you deciding who is going to get access to this to enter information? The right information for doing these calculations (regardless if the spreadsheet is doing them) can sometimes be hard to come by ...
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What we are hoping to do, in a nutshell, is to produce a document that isn't 'static' and can be updated over time. It's very frustrating to come across information that is clearly out of date, and to have no way of getting it updated easily.

As to 'who' updates it, that will always be limited to the pool of people on FDMB at any given time. That changes a lot. Some folks are only brief visitors here; some stay for months or years.
Hopefully, the people who volunteer to update the document will have some kind of real interest in it and/or aptitude for it. If there is nobody at any given time who wants to update it then it won't get updated...:rolleyes:

Erimess & Sammy (GA) said:
...a lot of people don't understand what that information is - and sometimes don't even realize it's not the correct information. Every company is different and may present it in different ways.
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Yes indeed. It can be hard to get the correct information, and more so in some in some parts of the world than others.

In Europe we're very lucky. Pet food labelling here is presented in the same formula ('typical analysis' of protein, fat, etc). And the newer pet food companies give detailed ingredients lists. (Although - as everywhere else in the world - very few specify phosphorous and calcium content etc; though some will give this information if it's asked for.)

But even if we do have the correct information there is still the potential to enter it into the spreadsheet incorrectly. None of us is perfect; we can only do the best we can.

Erimess & Sammy (GA) said:
As to CRF cats, there's far more to it than just worrying about phosphorus levels - I ran a CRF group for a few years and people want to know protein, phosphorus, calcium, even sodium, magnesium, etc. (In fact, only worrying about phosphorus is an over-simplification of treating a CRF cat.)
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We're not trying to be a site for CRF kitties. We are, first and foremost, a feline diabetes site. However, quite a few cats here do have CRF, and some of us with older kitties (who don't have CRF) try to limit their phosphorous intake. I think there is a general consensus here that knowing the phosphorous content of foods is helpful (if indeed that information is even available). But nobody is suggesting that this is all there is to managing CRF. (And yes, the phosphorous percentage needs to be a dry matter calculation. Fortunately that's a simple one to do, even without a spreadsheet!)

Erimess & Sammy (GA) said:
I'm also a bit leary of putting those labels on the carb levels. Someone is going to take that as advice and that is not a good idea, especially as a catch-all for any cat in any situation. Are you really saying any food above 16% carbs is appropriate in any emergency situation??
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Yes, I absolutely agree with you! I wonder whether those labels might lead someone to falsely assume that feeding those foods would be sufficient to keep their kitty safe. It would be different if someone was also posting on the forum and getting 'real time' support for a cat in low BG numbers. But if this was the only information people had then I think it's open to misinterpretation.

Eliz
 
Critter Mom said:
Eliz, did you use dummy data in the kcal from carbs % column in your Draft B sheet? If not, then one of us is calculating the carbs incorrectly. Have a look at our different values for Nature's Menu Chicken & Turkey and also Ropocat Sensitive Venison to see what I mean.
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Yes, Aine, I noticed that late last night.
It's probably my error. I'll check my data and that my spreadsheet is functioning OK. :)

Edited to add: Spreadsheet is working fine, so either I put in the wrong data or looked at the wrong calculation (I had 3 pages of them open on the screen at the same time yesterday...:rolleyes:)
 
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