Carbs in UK food - info needed
- Thread starter Sue484
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Elizabeth and Bertie
Member Since 2010
I'll try to find that out, Sue. Back soon...
From the data on the RC website, the feline diabetic pouches come out at 14.7% calories from carbs.
And the ingredients are:
"meat and animal derivatives, cereals (maize), derivatives of vegetable origin, minerals, oils and fats."
Couldn't do a proper calculation for dry DM because the data on the Purina website doesn't contain a percentage for 'ash', and the standard carb calculation requires that; but my guesstimate (allowing 2% for ash) would be around 13.9% calories from carbs. I have seen people on this forum quote both '13%' and '14%'. There is also a figure given on the 'Janet & Binky' food data page which gives it as 13%: This figure would have been an accurate one, but it is old info (2008). Here's the link for that:
http://binkyspage.tripod.com/dryfood.html
As dry food goes, the Purina DM is relatively low carb (some are over 30% calories from carbs!), but it is still considered too high for a diabetic.
The ingredients are:
"Poultry by-product meal, soy protein isolate, corn gluten meal, soy flour, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), corn starch, animal liver flavor, calcium carbonate, phosphoric acid, fish oil, potassium chloride, L-Lysine monohydrochloride, DL-Methionine, choline chloride, taurine, powdered cellulose, salt, Vitamin E supplement, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate, niacin, manganese sulfate, Vitamin A supplement, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, copper sulfate, riboflavin supplement, Vitamin B-12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, Vitamin D-3 supplement, calcium iodate, biotin, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), sodium selenite. L-4574"
And it is not only a matter of what the carb content is, but also how 'carb sensitive' the particular cat is, and this can vary a lot. Although the general recommendation is 'less than 10% calories from carbs', that may still be too high for some cats (who may do better with foods no higher than, say, 5% calories from carbs.)
Also, some cats are intolerant to certain carb sources (grains particularly), or to soya, and this can also elevate the blood glucose.
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Elizabeth and Bertie
Member Since 2010
Oh, forgot to give you the link to this thread about some people's experience of DM:
Why is Purina DM dry food bad
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Why is Purina DM dry food bad
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Elizabeth and Bertie
Member Since 2010
'Why' indeed....
There's no easy answer to that; or rather, there's a number of possible answers to that....
It may well be that our vets genuinely believe these are the best foods for certain health conditions. So, then you need to ask, why do they think that? Are they just as gullible as the rest of us when it comes to advertising? Is it because the pet food companies apparently sponsor events/training to vets? Is it because they earn money by selling this stuff? Is it because vets are busy people and, with everything else they're doing, they don't have time to learn about feline nutrition too...?
The following article (a few years old now) is quite interesting, and also has a couple of quotes from Dr Lisa Pierson (of catinfo.org):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ure-feeding-pet-killing--making-vet-rich.html
Oh, a couple of weeks back when I was waiting to pay my bill at the vets I overheard a conversation. The woman in front of me, paying at the desk, was bemoaning the cost of Royal Canin renal pouches for her cat, and she asked the vet nurse if she could buy it online anywhere else. The vet nurse told her it was a 'veterinary product' and she could only buy it directly from the vet's clinic!!! Shocking!
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