If I knew then, what I know now...

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Steph

Steph

Member Since 2013
...Stubbie might have lived longer. I am a 20-year health/medical and pet journalist. Five years ago, I didn't know I ABSOLUTELY HAD to calculate Dry Matter Analysis carb count (Yes, it requires math, my nemesis...) to control his BG. I was going by the Guaranteed Analysis count that most food products show us; that was easy, yes? I couldn't understand why I couldn't control his sugar: I blamed the insulin. And I was religious, testing and poking, and poking and testing. He continued to decline because of my lack of knowledge. And did a veterinarian ever mention this? Nope, not at all, never, ever.

Now, with Hope, and her other chronic conditions, such as CKD, I am religious about doing the math with the Dry Matter Analysis equation. It has greatly limited the wet food I can give her and I know she gets bored, but (I will NOT feed Friskies pates. They contain "Poultry By-Products, Meat By-Products" and we all know what By-Products are! (Oh, no!) And they brand has been cited for including synthetic vitamins. It includes multiple artificial ingredients. This is a personal choice as someone who studied the details.)

Her only dry food is high protein 1) Wysong Epigen 90 and 2) Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein, Chicken (not the salmon). Her nadir rests nicely at 137, and I do have to mildly adjust dosing every month or so. I only test her every couple of weeks. I used to be obsessing about that daily; but I do know I have to check twice monthly because her BG does change.

Her wet foods include some Weruva, Hounds & Gatos, etc...It's easy to "think" some are OK, and they are not at all...

Here's a good calculator. http://scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html It would be great if we maintained a list of wet foods here, those not included on Dr. Lisa's 2017 chart, that we could share with dry matter values under, say, 3 percent. There are many foods that are new, and aren't on that chart. Love to know what you are feeding that's super-low carb...and tasty to a kitty.

If this helps one cat, wonderful! I'm certainly not an expert, but had had a long journey with this: 10 years? Meow for now.
 
My girl gets the Tiki Cat after dark, the line has both paté and shredded textures, and enough flavors/variety of proteins that she doesn't get bored. I also give her Smallbatch raw sometimes, maybe every other day, and she likes that as well.
I never liked to feed my pets animal by products either, but didn't even consider carb content :banghead: the food I was feeding Misty for years had named meats and brown rice, etc so I thought it was good for her, but turns out it was way too high carb for a cat and that's what brought us here to a diabetes diagnosis.
 
I looked at that, Bree and I calculated too high carbs using the Dry Matter calculation:
http://scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html

Can you help me? I think they're too high for Hope. I don't think most people get this thing I am discussing. And the veterinarian diabetes brands are, well, suspect because some contain corn, yes? Anyway, maybe my numbers added up wrong for Tiki Cat after dark??? Thanks!
 
Steph said:
I looked at that, Bree and I calculated too high carbs using the Dry Matter calculation:
http://scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html

Can you help me? I think they're too high for Hope. I don't think most people get this thing I am discussing. And the veterinarian diabetes brands are, well, suspect because some contain corn, yes? Anyway, maybe my numbers added up wrong for Tiki Cat after dark??? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Hi Steph!
Dr. Lisa uses percentage of calories from carbs in her calculations, not dry matter percentage. Here's a quote from her website in the "commercial foods" section:
"General comment: For healthy cats, pick canned foods that are below 10% calories from carbohydrates, at least 40% calories from protein, and approximately 50% fat calories or less."
Those on this forum recommend under 10% of calories from carbs as well. I'm not sure how that translates to a dry matter basis, so I personally only refer to the percentage of calories from carbs when making decisions on what to feed my girl. Unfortunately this information is often hard to find. I selected the Tiki Cat after dark because all Tiki cat's other flavors listed on Dr. Lisa's chart had excellent protein/fat/carb ratios and looking at the ingredients I could tell that the after dark line was low carb as well. Also the ingredient list doesn't have any grains or vegetables so it's a good indication of very low carbs. I picked the after dark line over the others because I thought the organ meats would be good for Misty, and she can't have fish.
Here's the ingredient list for the Tiki Cat after dark chicken and duck flavor:

Chicken, chicken broth, chicken liver, chicken gizzard, chicken heart, duck, tricalcium phosphate, potassium chloride, choline chloride, magnesium sulfate, salt, taurine, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), vitamin E supplement, tuna oil, niacin (vitamin B3), zinc oxide, vitamin A supplement, biotin, vitamin B12 supplement, copper amino acid chelate, manganous oxide, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement (vitamin B2), sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), folic acid, potassium iodide, vitamin D3 supplement

No grains or veggies, just meat and supplements. I feel very good about feeding this to my girl :) I hope you find some of this helpful, I'm happy to answer any other questions you have to the best of my ability.
 
Whaat? I have to do math on top of all of this testing and shooting insulin?
I only feed Weruva's and recently FF Kitten Turkey. That is all. Please tell me those are alright?
 
Steph said:
...Stubbie might have lived longer. I am a 20-year health/medical and pet journalist. Five years ago, I didn't know I ABSOLUTELY HAD to calculate Dry Matter Analysis carb count (Yes, it requires math, my nemesis...) to control his BG. I was going by the Guaranteed Analysis count that most food products show us; that was easy, yes? I couldn't understand why I couldn't control his sugar: I blamed the insulin. And I was religious, testing and poking, and poking and testing. He continued to decline because of my lack of knowledge. And did a veterinarian ever mention this? Nope, not at all, never, ever.

Now, with Hope, and her other chronic conditions, such as CKD, I am religious about doing the math with the Dry Matter Analysis equation. It has greatly limited the wet food I can give her and I know she gets bored, but (I will NOT feed Friskies pates. They contain "Poultry By-Products, Meat By-Products" and we all know what By-Products are! (Oh, no!) And they brand has been cited for including synthetic vitamins. It includes multiple artificial ingredients. This is a personal choice as someone who studied the details.)

Her only dry food is high protein 1) Wysong Epigen 90 and 2) Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein, Chicken (not the salmon). Her nadir rests nicely at 137, and I do have to mildly adjust dosing every month or so. I only test her every couple of weeks. I used to be obsessing about that daily; but I do know I have to check twice monthly because her BG does change.

Her wet foods include some Weruva, Hounds & Gatos, etc...It's easy to "think" some are OK, and they are not at all...

Here's a good calculator. http://scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html It would be great if we maintained a list of wet foods here, those not included on Dr. Lisa's 2017 chart, that we could share with dry matter values under, say, 3 percent. There are many foods that are new, and aren't on that chart. Love to know what you are feeding that's super-low carb...and tasty to a kitty.

If this helps one cat, wonderful! I'm certainly not an expert, but had had a long journey with this: 10 years? Meow for now.
Click to expand...
If you're looking for a good food for diabetes and ckd, weruva had a lot of good options of low carb/low phosphorus.
 
Dr. Lisa’s chart contains %ME (metabolizable energy) for the protein, fat, and carbs %s. And that’s what the recommendation on here is to keep carbs under 10% according to her list (or using %ME). She apparently had listed the %DMB in a previous list but didn’t in the 2017 list. %ME and %DMB can give you very different numbers.
Weruva brand food will give you the %ME right on their website which was a godsend when I was researching new food for Howie. They also list the %DMB if you want to compare. It’s all so confusing!
 
Howiesmom said:
It’s all so confusing!
Click to expand...
There was a time (I'm old) when big box pet stores, grain free and wellness were even a thing. It wasn't a question of caring or money, my two boys ate that low ash wet food from Safeway. There was no internet either and no one told me about Taurine so making my own food was not going to happen. The stupid part is that those two cats lived to 17 and 23. My wife's cat ate MeowMix and made it to 18.
What's confusing is that since then we've had over a dozen cats that never saw 12.
 
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