Confused About Carbs / Dry Matter

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DavidM

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Hello. Our cat was just recently diagnosed with diabetes and we stupidly had her on the dry DM food our vet prescribed. We were researching low carb canned foods and came across the chart posted in this forum. Based on that we chose the Wellness brand due to a lot of positive feedback across the board. However, when I do the calculations for the dry matter carb content, I end up with something around 18% which is much higher than the recommended amount. Also, wellness brand includes ingredients like sweet potatoes and vegetables which I am now reading are not recommended. Can anyone help me sort this out? What exactly are we looking at for carb content? Is there a recommended canned food for this? Unlike a lot of people, our cat will eat literally anything. Thank you for any help you can provide.

David
 
Is this the chart you are looking at? Janet and Binky’s chart Look at both the new and old wet food charts. We pick a food under 10% carbs that we can afford that our cats will eat. Most of us feed Friskies or Fancy Feast or Merrick or Wellness.

Some of the more premium ($$) brands include veggies and stuff cats don't really need. The cheaper brands include animal by products. But when you consider that the cat in the outdoors would be eating mice and perfectly healthy, it doesn't seem like an issue.

Have you sure seen this page by a vet: www.catinfo.org Dr. Lisa Petersen has great info on food in general.
 
Yes that is the chart I was looking at. I guess what I am confused by is the dry matter calculation. When we say 10% carbs are we talking about the wet calculation? Because by that, wellness chicken is 5%, but if you look at dry matter it's 18% carbs, whereas something like Evo 95 is much lower in dry matter. Just want to make sure we are doing the right thing.


Sue and Oliver (GA) said:
Is this the chart you are looking at? Janet and Binky’s chart Look at both the new and old wet food charts. We pick a food under 10% carbs that we can afford that our cats will eat. Most of us feed Friskies or Fancy Feast or Merrick or Wellness.

Some of the more premium ($$) brands include veggies and stuff cats don't really need. The cheaper brands include animal by products. But when you consider that the cat in the outdoors would be eating mice and perfectly healthy, it doesn't seem like an issue.

Have you sure seen this page by a vet: www.catinfo.org Dr. Lisa Petersen has great info on food in general.
Click to expand...
 
You need someone more scientific than I. Hopefully someone will be along. Does this help at all?


Q. How do you calculate the numbers on the table?
A. The numbers on the table are expressed as "percent of calories" (protein, fat, carbohydrate) or "amount per 100 calories" (fiber, phosphorus), based on as-fed information provided by the manufacturer. For pet foods, I follow the usual assumption that protein and carbohydrate each contain 3.5 calories per gram, and fat contains 8.5 calories per gram. You can use this Excel spreadsheet to see how the calculations are done, or read the longer explanation:
1.) Obtain "as fed" or "dry weight" values of protein, fat, carbohydrate, fiber, and phosphorus from manufacturer. Cross check: if you also have values for water and ash, the values of protein, fat, carbohydrate, fiber, ash, and water should add up to 100%. None of them should be negative.

2.) Calculate the amount of protein, etc, in 100 grams of food by dropping the percent sign. (Example: if a food is 9.5% protein, 100 grams of that food will contain 9.5 grams of protein.)

3.) Calculate total calories by multiplying protein by 3.5, fat by 8.5, and carbohydrate by 3.5, and summing the results.

4.) Calculate percent of calories from protein by dividing 3.5*protein by total calories. Calculate percent of calories from fat by dividing 8.5*fat by total calories. Calculate percent of calories from carbohydrate by dividing 3.5*carbohydrate by total calories. Cross-check: these numbers should add up to 100%, except for rounding error.

5.) Calculate grams of fiber per 100 calories by dividing fiber by total calories and multiplying by 100.

6.) Calculate mg of phosphorus per 100 calories by dividing phosphorus by total calories and multiplying by 100,000. (The extra 1000 is to change the units of phosphorus from grams to milligrams.)
 
Hi David,
I am not really sure how to answer your question. I guess I'm not sure where you are getting the data for dry vs. wet matter?
I know the math is already "done" for the canned food charts on the board. There is another spreadsheet that shows all the formulas used, and maybe that will help?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...58420168.5285900283452250490&hl=en_US&fmcmd=4

What we normally tell people is to look at "binky's" charts, and look for any brand/flavor that shows a number in the carbs column of under 10%, preferably under 7%.
It's great that your kitty isn't picky, so you have tons of options.
Carl
 
Thanks for helping me out guys. That googledoc sounds super helpful but for some reason I can't view it. I the that particular link is for your own psonal google account access. I don't know how that works exactly.
 
David,
I'll see if I can find the thread I originally got that off of and post it here.
Carl
 
Please see my Commercial Canned Food page where I discuss the calculations and the highly misleading values if you are using the information on the can....ie....the relatively worthless guaranteed analysis. In fact, I use Wellness as an example of how misleading using the information on the can is.

See catinfo.org.
 
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