How important is protein?

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Raewyn

Raewyn

Member Since 2019
Let me say first that I'm in New Zealand, so a lot of the cat food brand information around doesn't apply here. I found a low carbohydrate food at my supermarket that is a good price. Tim is underweight and is constantly hungry so is going through a lot of food at the moment. Comparing it to other food, it seems low in protein. The protein value listed on the can is 7%. This article lists protein content of the recommended foods as around 50%
http://www.felinediabetes.com/DietaryRecs_Greco.htm

But I'm also getting conflicting information about protein, which makes me wonder if there are different ways of measuring it.
Friskies Pate Supreme is listed as having 36% protein on the just published US spreadhseet.
However on the Purina NZ site crude protein listed as 10%.
I can't believe the difference would be that much between the same food sold in the US and New Zealand. Or could it? Maybe it's just a case of using the same brand name but being a completely different product.

I'm wondering if I should be switching to a higher protein food? At least once he's gained a bit of weight and his appetite reduces. But then I'm finding it hard to get my head around what a reasonable priced alternative would be.

Hills MD is what the vet told us to use, but confusingly the nutrition information is listed as % dry matter, which makes it impossible to compare with any other food.
https://www.hillspet.co.nz/cat-food/pd-md-feline-canned
 
I say the 7% is on a wet basis, that is as the canned food is served. Canned food is about 78% or so water. You can use this calculator to get the dry matter basis and dry matter is what the 50% is based on. However, notethe can label are mins or maxes so the caluclated values are not the real values.
http://fnae.org/dmb.html
 
Hi. I'm in New Zealand also. So is @flyingduster .

As you say many of the foods available worldwide are not available here. My issue was in balancing a good quality protein food with low phos. as my Tyler also had CKDII.

Does your pusscat have any other issues other than being currently diabetic ?

Will Tim eat raw food?

At the moment Tim @Raewyn will be somewhat skinny and have the hungers until the diabetes is more regulated.

I am not a fan of any prescription foods after what happened with Tyler but I would think that Hills md was not the right food anyway for a skinny cat.

Whatever food you end up with it will need to be changed slowly.

You should be fine with some of the Fancy Feast foods out there or Friskies Pate .
A hard boiled egg here and there adds protein as does a bit of poached chicken.
 
Thanks - Tim doesn't have any other health problems that we know of.
We buy a 100% chicken mince pet food for the dog and Tim loves this too. I was wondering if this might be suitable for him to eat as presumably it has high protein and low carbohydrates. Would it need to be supplemented with something though? Or I could use it to supplement his current food for some extra protein?
Fancy Feast is on special at the moment, so i might stock up on that and gradually transition once he gets to a good weight. It's reasonably expensive compared to the Chef I am buying at the moment, but that wouldn't be so much of a problem once he's not eating as much.
By my maths 7% protein in a can with 78% water equates to 32% protein dry. Which is not so bad compared with Friskies at 36%.
 
Yes. Compared to Chef and Whiskas foods are more expensive.

Dogs have a different need to a cat. Cats are obligate carnivores. They have more of a need for taurine than dogs.

You might find pet.co.nz to be a bit cheaper.

I have messaged both Chef and Jimbo to ask about moisture & carb content. I have started my husbands civvy on raw food as overall this is the better way to go.

Ideally you want below 10% carbs. 6% would be good.

Of course a high % good quality protein is also needed.
 
Raewyn said:
By my maths 7% protein in a can with 78% water equates to 32% protein dry. Which is not so bad compared with Friskies at 36%.
Click to expand...

Maybe but it also very much depends on what the carbs for that food is, not just the protein.

I've asked Chef for their % moisture content. I have a feeling this product might come back high in carbs which is no good for the handsome Tim.
 
Welcome from another kiwi!!

As has been said already the difference you’re seeing is that the dry matter calculation will be different to that on the can that measures the wet content!!!

Our friskies pate and fancy feast is fine. And someone on a Facebook group got hold of whiskas and theirs was under 10% carbs too. Actually I’d assume chef probably is as well, but it’s got more fillers and crap in it that I’d like to avoid.

I am feeding “Gourmet” cans as they’re a wee bit bigger than friskies but a similar price! And the ingredients list is pretty basic so I feel better about feeding it than some of the ones with ingredients lists as long as my arm! I don’t know their exact carb level but the ingredients suggest low haha.
 
This is the Gourmet. It’s 2 for $3 at my local countdown. They are 185g cans.
70292CDB-8CA5-4BA0-B020-B7E52FB1AE02.jpeg


And the ingredients (there are other flavours of course, this was just one of them!)
E361FB27-D4D9-4300-A9BB-8554026080FD.jpeg
 
Cool, thanks for the info.
I did actually message Chef to ask for their carb content. This is what they said:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us about our Chef Chicken.

All our wet Petfood SKU's have a carb level below 10% (on an as-fed basis) but our solid packs have lower carb levels (1-3%) than then casseroles (anything with chunks in gravy, 4-5%).

So if the customer buys canned Petfood, SKUs such as CHEF Jellimeat, Chicken classic or tasty lamb would have the lowest level of carbs.

If the customer prefers pouches, products such as jellimeat, tender chicken or tasty lamb would be the ones to go for.
Click to expand...

So the "solid packs" (the loaf ones) are fairly low in carbohydrates.

The Gourmet is a little cheaper than Friskies, but the protein content is a bit lower.

Is someone able to clarify whether the requirement of less than 10% carbs is for dry matter or as eaten?

The Hill's MD cans contain 18.2% carbs, but that is dry matter. What would that be as eaten?
The information on their site says "An eight fluid oz. measuring cup of Hill's Prescription Diet™ m/d™ Feline contains 4.4 oz. by weight."
Which I find very confusing. Is it saying it contains 4.4 oz of water? Which would make it 55% water.
If that's true, as eaten it would contain 8% carbs and 23% protein.

By the way I have just come back from the vet who is still suggesting that Hill's MD is the best food, but basically said it was my choice if I chose not to use it (she did say to make sure I chose a brand that had low carbs and high protein).
 
You need to be calculating the dry matter basis (minus water) because we can add water ourselves and water it down (I do!) but that doesn’t mean if she eats a can of food that she’s getting less carbs, it just means she’s getting g more water. Does that make sense?

My vet was quite keen to put Jazz on to hills as well, and we very nearly bought in to it but they didn’t have any in stock so were ordering it in. That’s when we joined here and were able to just say no to it after all!!
 
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And you’ll probably find the chef once you remove the moisture content are still going to be halfway decent. Probably better than hills at any rate!! And cheaper.
 
So the <10% requirement is for dry matter and not as-fed? Now I'm wondering if Chef is low carb at all since the 1-3% is as-fed, and I don't know what the moisture content is. If I assume 78% water, 1% carbs is within the 10%, but 3% carbs is over.
 
I did consider working out the moisture content myself by weighing some wet food, drying it out in the oven to get rid of the moisture and weighing it again. That might be going a little too far :-)

The other problem is that the range of 1-3% carbohydrates is actually a very big range when you are talking about 70-80% of that being moisture. 1% could make it well within the requirement, but 3% well out of it.
 
Yeah, they make it sound good.... but I think just go with what you can. Make note of the food fed, so that if there are spikes or issues then you can take the food in to consideration. For Jazz, the Gourmet doesn’t seem to spike her AT ALL, and in fact she will come down within an hour of eating it, so we are rolling with it. We also feed the friskies pate when it’s on special too.

I keep meaning to also go around the road to NZ Pet Good company that does raw meat mixes for dogs and cats that work out at a good per-kg price. Even if also doing canned food, you can’t go wrong with raw meat (in regards to carbs!)
 
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