Ahh - This Helped Us, Passing Along (How To Calculate Carbs in Canned Food)

[Morpheus & Sam]

Hi, y'all...

I have so much to catch up on, but I need to do that in another post. I just wanted to pass this along because I thought it might help someone else.

I was getting weird blood sugar numbers on some of the "low" carb food I was feeding Morpheus. For example, tonight, I fed him Mariner's Catch, which, according to the database (and the numbers the people from Purina gave Dr. Pierson, I believe - I think they gave her "Dry Matter" numbers ... "Wet Matter" numbers are what pop Glucose up? Still reading ...) has only 6% carbs, and he jumped from 193 mg/dL to 333 mg/dL in two hours, so I wanted to double check the numbers on that.

I'd recently come across this web page and I'm using it to check the numbers on Fancy Feast Gourmet Naturals and other foods on which I can't find information. The page shows you how to get the carbohydrate content of the food by using the information given to you on the container or the home page (you'll probably have to go to the Purina, Fancy Feast, whatever site to find the information you need, but once there it's pretty simple.)

As it turns out, the 6% carb content food I gave him tonight was 14% carbs. So now he's going to be in the 400s by the time his shot comes around. Yay. :-(

Anyway, I thought this might be helpful to others as well.

Figuring Out the Carbs in Canned Cat Food

 

[Elizabeth and Bertie]

Hi,

As it turns out, the 6% carb content food I gave him tonight was 14% carbs. So now he's going to be in the 400s by the time his shot comes around. Yay. :-(

Ah, the knotty and confusing issue of carbs in cat food... Which of us ever thought that one day in the future we'd be concerning ourselves with this issue, haha!

Carb values can be calculated and compared in a few different of ways. And some people do just compare by dry matter weight. But just getting dry matter weight for carb content doesn't tell the whole story. And the most common and most useful way to calculate and compare carb values is to use the 'percentage of calories from carbs'. This can be calculated using dry or wet values (since water has no calories) and this is how Dr Lisa does her calculations.

One of the difficulties with working out carb values for US foods is that the labelling on the product may or may not be a true representation of what is actually in the product. US foods usually give just a 'guaranteed analysis' of minimum or maximum values for protein, fat, moisture, etc. But to get the current 'as fed' values it's usually necessary to contact the manufacture and ask for them. (Dr Lisa has obtained info from the manufacturers for all the foods that are on her list.) ...Sometimes, if you're lucky, the manufacturer's website may give 'typical analysis' data, which is more useful. (In Europe 'typical analysis' is the norm, so things are easier for us!)

If you can get the 'current as fed data' then the calculation is going to be much more accurate. That said, it has to be borne in mind that pet food labelling just ain't really that accurate anyway; so even with the best data we can get our calculation is only ever to be a 'good guesstimate'...

If it's not possible to get the 'current as fed' values for a food, then, for sure, do try a calculation with the GA values (but take the result with 'a pinch of salt'...). Also, scan through the ingredients list for any carb sources. That may give you enough info for you to decide whether the food is worth taking a punt on.
Ultimately 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. What really matters is the effect of any food on our cat's blood glucose. Fortunately, hometesting can give us lots of useful info about this. ...Yet another really good reason to be hometesting.

There's a calculator here that calculates percentage of calories from carbs. It was made by FDMB member 'Hellolucy'. If you click on it and open in Google sheets you can save a copy for your own use.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NOyUfaKxNa580Wnz-0c0_kRQgvlMJgnu/view

Eliz

 

[Morpheus & Sam]

Hi,


Ah, the knotty and confusing issue of carbs in cat food... Which of us ever thought that one day in the future we'd be concerning ourselves with this issue, haha!

Carb values can be calculated and compared in a few different of ways. And some people do just compare by dry matter weight. But just getting dry matter weight for carb content doesn't tell the whole story. And the most common and most useful way to calculate and compare carb values is to use the 'percentage of calories from carbs'. This can be calculated using dry or wet values (since water has no calories) and this is how Dr Lisa does her calculations.

One of the difficulties with working out carb values for US foods is that the labelling on the product may or may not be a true representation of what is actually in the product. US foods usually give just a 'guaranteed analysis' of minimum or maximum values for protein, fat, moisture, etc. But to get the current 'as fed' values it's usually necessary to contact the manufacture and ask for them. (Dr Lisa has obtained info from the manufacturers for all the foods that are on her list.) ...Sometimes, if you're lucky, the manufacturer's website may give 'typical analysis' data, which is more useful. (In Europe 'typical analysis' is the norm, so things are easier for us!)

If you can get the 'current as fed data' then the calculation is going to be much more accurate. That said, it has to be borne in mind that pet food labelling just ain't really that accurate anyway; so even with the best data we can get our calculation is only ever to be a 'good guesstimate'...

If it's not possible to get the 'current as fed' values for a food, then, for sure, do try a calculation with the GA values (but take the result with 'a pinch of salt'...). Also, scan through the ingredients list for any carb sources. That may give you enough info for you to decide whether the food is worth taking a punt on.
Ultimately 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. What really matters is the effect of any food on our cat's blood glucose. Fortunately, hometesting can give us lots of useful info about this. ...Yet another really good reason to be hometesting.

There's a calculator here that calculates percentage of calories from carbs. It was made by FDMB member 'Hellolucy'. If you click on it and open in Google sheets you can save a copy for your own use.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NOyUfaKxNa580Wnz-0c0_kRQgvlMJgnu/view

Eliz

Awesome, thank you. I did try contacting Fancy Feast about the food I can't find nutritional data on -- this was a couple of weeks ago, and they kindly said they'd get back to me as soon as possible. Apparently ASAP hasn't come around for them yet.

I'm getting ready to give him some of the FF Gourmet Naturals I spoke of previously. That doesn't seem to kick his blood sugar into the stratosphere. I'll definitely check out Hellolucy's calculator. I'm collecting as much information as possible just trying to keep ahead of the curve here.

 

[FurBabiesMama]

I guess you saw Dr Pierson's page about calculations https://catinfo.org/commercial-cat-foods/#Calculating__Percentage_of_Carbohydrates:

And what she says to ask for when contacting food companies: “I would like to know the percentage of calories that come from protein, fat, and carbohydrates.” This is also known as the “metabolizable energy (ME) profile.” “How many milligrams of phosphorus are in the food per 100 kcal?”

I contacted Purina (Fancy Feast) once. It took them awhile to get back to me, but they did.

 

[Morpheus & Sam]

I guess you saw Dr Pierson's page about calculations https://catinfo.org/commercial-cat-foods/#Calculating__Percentage_of_Carbohydrates:

And what she says to ask for when contacting food companies: “I would like to know the percentage of calories that come from protein, fat, and carbohydrates.” This is also known as the “metabolizable energy (ME) profile.” “How many milligrams of phosphorus are in the food per 100 kcal?”

I contacted Purina (Fancy Feast) once. It took them awhile to get back to me, but they did.

I didn't, but thank you for the link.

That's basically what I asked for, because we had a full CBC done on Morpheus and his kidney values were a little off and protein is one of the things you have to regulate in kidney challenged cats.

Also, I just did a quick read-through of Dr. Pierson's page, and her method of calculating the carb content of foods is the same as on the page I linked, except hers is more exact with the number used to divide it into Dry Matter. (i.e. Hers is better. Again, thank you for the heads up.)