Diet, Diet, Diet, Diet

[ocat]

During the month of January, Ocat's diet was changed 4 times and his insulin (Lantus) requirements changed dramatically. Ocat was easy to control on the Ocean Whitefish, Raw is still a work in progress and the change to raw has been, by far, the most difficult change to manage.

Hills m/d dry              8.00 BID   wild swings, high BG
Fancy Feast Chunky Chicken 3.00 BID   no swings, good control
FF Kitten Ocean Whitefish  1.75 BID   flatter curve allowing excellent control
Raw                        0.10 BID   sensitive to tiny dose variations *

* obviously 0.20 is 100% more insulin than 0.10, but that doesn't make things any easier

 

[BJM]

Cooking is supposed to make food more digestible (*) and, of course, canning cooks it to death and then some.
Edited to add: * at least for humans

So it makes sense that raw food would be digested more slowly, resulting in more moderate glucose curve and insulin requirements.

 

[Jen & Squeak]

Conversely, some cats actually need foods that are in the 5-7 % of calories from carbs range (or even a tad higher) to keep from yo-yo'ing and developing ketones...

 

[pamela and tigger]

Transit times of food has always been something that has interested me especially with our diabetics. According to this one source:

"How long does it take for raw food to digest, compared to cooked, or even kibble?

According to Kymythy Schultze, in her book "The Ultimate Diet," raw stays in the stomach 4-5 hours, cooked about 8-10 hours and kibble takes approximately 15 hours to be broken down and move out of the stomach."

http://www.njboxers.com/more.htm#digest

Also, ETA.....

http://www.felineinstincts.com/whyrawdi ... ddogs.html

"Kymythy R. Schultze is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist and Animal Health Instructor

As Kymythy Schultze points out "A carnivore's body has been designed to derive its needed nutrients from raw food.

Cooked food takes longer to digest and therefore requires more of the animal's energy.

Heat also destroys enzymes and antioxidants, which are very important for good health. In fact, enzymes are needed for every biochemical activity in dog's or cat's body.

The body has a limited supply of its own enzymes. It is designed to consume enzymes in raw food.

When the pancreas is called upon to produce enzymes because the ingested cooked food has none, the pancreas must enlarge and work harder than it is de­signed to.

When stressed, the pancreas sends white blood cell, or leukocytes, to the digestive system to aid in digestion. But when the leukocytes use their enzymatic activity to aid digestion, they are less able to help destroy bacteria and foreign invaders in the body and this impairs the immune system."

Cooking food also transforms its essential fatty acids into trans fats dangerous toxins that weaken your pet. Heat destroys many vital amino acids, vitamins, and minerals."

 

[ocat]

Hi,
Thanks everyone for the info. I was hoping to see a flatter curve with the fewer carbs in raw -- where peak BG was even closer to nadir. Certainly that was what happened when the carbs were lowered from Chunky Chicken to Ocean Whitefish. At the moment he slips outside my target range of 50-100 far too much of the time now -- it was far easier when there were some carbs to titrate against...

Since i have a syringe on its way with markings to 0.05 units, i'm holding off the pain of changing his diet back or adding a few carbs to his raw food.

Not sure if the lack of stability is simply my lack of an ability to accurately give such tiny doses, lack of time at this level of insulin, or simply that he will never be stable with so few carbs in his diet. Time will tell...

Ocat doesn't like eating on a schedule or rather his will is stronger than mine on this -- so i've never been able to try to flatten the curve by changing the time he eats in relation to the injections (or indeed see any effect of his feedings on BG)... OK i did for a while feed him a tiny bit of his old higher carb food at about +3 -- which proved to be very effective at flatting the BG curve.

Will keep an eye on BG and times he eats -- maybe there's a relationship now...
-Craig

 

[Lisa dvm]

As Kymythy Schultze points out "When the pancreas is called upon to produce enzymes because the ingested cooked food has none, the pancreas must enlarge and work harder than it is de­signed to.

When stressed, the pancreas sends white blood cell, or leukocytes, to the digestive system to aid in digestion. But when the leukocytes use their enzymatic activity to aid digestion, they are less able to help destroy bacteria and foreign invaders in the body and this impairs the immune system."

I hate to butt in here but I have a problem with several statements made by KS - most notably, the two statements that she makes above. I would love to see documentation that cats that eat cooked food have an enlarged pancreas and....

the last statement has no basis in fact since white blood cells do not come from the pancreas, nor do they contain digestive enzymes.

 

[pamela and tigger]

As Kymythy Schultze points out "When the pancreas is called upon to produce enzymes because the ingested cooked food has none, the pancreas must enlarge and work harder than it is de­signed to.

When stressed, the pancreas sends white blood cell, or leukocytes, to the digestive system to aid in digestion. But when the leukocytes use their enzymatic activity to aid digestion, they are less able to help destroy bacteria and foreign invaders in the body and this impairs the immune system."

I hate to butt in here but I have a problem with several statements made by KS - most notably, the two statements that she makes above. I would love to see documentation that cats that eat cooked food have an enlarged pancreas and....

the last statement has no basis in fact since white blood cells do not come from the pancreas, nor do they contain digestive enzymes.

Thank you Dr. Lisa for weighing in.

Before adding in this last comment, after seeing it mentioned in an excerpt from her book online, I researched it and found that it is mentioned numerous times on different websites. Of course, as we all know with the Internet this doesn't mean it is necessarily true. As this Google search shows there are quite a few sites that quote this exactly the same:

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=e ... e2e8efe107

It doesn't prove the statement is right of course. All I can do as a layman is to supply the link where I read it. Again, that doesn't mean it is accurate as you have pointed out.

So thank you for clarifying this.

Regarding the transit times though. I am sure it would depend on the cat's health, of course, any medications they are on or stress even. So I am sure there is not an absolute cut and dry answer. But as a basic comparison between raw/cooked/dry food, I am just wondering if I should just forget about this whole transit thing. I have been kind of obsessed about it for a while now. :roll:

I know you are busy, but any light you can shed on this would be appreciated.

 

[Lisa dvm]

Before adding in this last comment, after seeing it mentioned in an excerpt from her book online, I researched it and found that it is mentioned numerous times on different websites.

But where is their proof? What reputable evidence are they basing their statements on?

I wish that I had more time to address this but I am swamped right now so the comments will be short.

This appears to be a case of a snowball running downhill perpetuating a falsehood. I did not go to the sites linked below...just no time...but how many of them are simply parroting KS?

Of course, as we all know with the Internet this doesn't mean it is necessarily true.

Very true and this seems to be a good example of that issue. Again, wbcs do not come from the pancreas and they are not full of digestive enzymes that impact the digestion of food. If she really thinks that the pancreas kicks out a bunch of wbcs that then go into the gut tract and then burst open with enough enzymes...and the right kind of enzymes to actually impact the digestion of food...then she needs to go back and take a course in basic immunology because that is just not the way it works.

Regarding the transit times though. I am sure it would depend on the cat's health, of course, any medications they are on or stress even. So I am sure there is not an absolute cut and dry answer. But as a basic comparison between raw/cooked/dry food, I am just wondering if I should just forget about this whole transit thing. I have been kind of obsessed about it for a while now. :roll:

There are no reputable studies that I know of that prove that there is a difference in transit time of cooked vs raw meat but I admit that I have not looked hard to find them.....but I really don't think that they are there.

That said....my bottom line is that I am stupid. Plain and simple....I am stupid. Therefore, I will try to stick to nature as closely as possible which is why I wrote this on my website:

From my Making Cat Food page under the heading "Raw vs Cooked":

One of the most common questions I get asked is "why can't I just use this recipe and cook it instead of feeding it raw?" The goal here is to feed a diet that nature intended for your carnivore - staying as close as possible to the form and nutritional composition that your cat would eat in a natural setting - while implementing safety strategies as discussed below.

I am not as smart as nature. I don't know exactly what nutrients and in what amounts and in what form are destroyed/damaged with the cooking process.

However, if sourcing meat from a supermarket versus directly from the producer, I encourage people to 'split the difference' and partially cook (par boil) the outside of whole meats prior to grinding them as noted in my safety section below. This will kill the surface bacteria and will make this diet much safer than dry food. The chicken (thighs) cat food that I make usually ends up being ~25-50% cooked and ~50-75% raw.

End excerpt.

What I do not like to see is the raw foodies perpetuating falsehoods based on no good evidence whatsoever. It just makes all of us look like a bunch of whack jobs emotionally tied to feeding raw food. I feed raw because...again....I am stupid and prefer to defer to nature as much as possible but I won't start making statements (like KS does) about digestibility, transit time...etc...etc...etc without good proof. It just destroys one's credibility.

Let's look at the pancreas of a lot of living beings (humans, cats, and dogs) that eat cooked food. Do we really see a bunch of hyperplastic pancreii?? (Not sure if "pancreii" is the plural of pancreas but it sounds good. :smile: )

 

[pamela and tigger]

Before adding in this last comment, after seeing it mentioned in an excerpt from her book online, I researched it and found that it is mentioned numerous times on different websites.

But where is their proof? What reputable evidence are they basing their statements on?

Well, that was the point I was trying to make. I guess their proof is that Kymythy Schultze said it so it must be true. When I googled the phrase...."When stressed, the pancreas sends white blood cell, or leukocytes, to the digestive system to aid in digestion. But when the leukocytes use their enzymatic activity to aid digestion, they are less able to help destroy bacteria and foreign invaders in the body and this impairs the immune system."

.....I came up with no less than eleven sites at the top of the Goggle list with the exact same quote (yes, parroting KS). Again that doesn't necessarily make it true and as you have pointed out it is an incorrect statement. But again, how would a layman like me know that? And therein lies the problem I guess.

I wish that I had more time to address this but I am swamped right now so the comments will be short.

Thank you for your input as always Dr. Lisa. It is very much appreciated! And thank you for the PM. I tried to reply but I guess your PM is disabled to receive replies on the board.

 

[Lisa dvm]

Hi Pamela,

Can you email me at my usually email address? (The one under my avatar.)

 

[janelle and Nomad]

Harrison's Principals of Internal Medicine is my ultimate source and is the text used in many medical schools. The white blood cell aiding in digestion and other parts of this theory are physiologically impossible unless KS has reinvented basic biology.. You always have to evaluate the source of information and if it is credible. There is a lot of unverified and dangerious information floating around on the web.

 

[ocat]

Hi,
Ocat's BG is still under 100, 32 hours after his last dose. Glad i stuck with the raw long enough to see this. For Ocat, diet is (almost) everything.
-Craig