I don't know what wet food to trust in Australia!

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monty_dweezil (GA)

monty_dweezil (GA)

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I REALLY want Dweezil (and Monty) onto a mostly wet food diet, but I am SO untrusting of any cat foods available in Australia, after the last experience we had.

We started feeding him mostly the Fancy Feast cod, sole & shrimp, chicken & liver and the whitefish & tuna. The lowest carb ones on the list and the ones they LOVED. And after a week of this, Dweezil began showing symptoms the same as right before he was diagnosed. He lost the weight he'd just gained back. He was peeing and drinking very frequently and STARVING. I was confused. I thought...it CAN'T be the food! But it was, because since we completely stopped it, he's stabilised. Took another week, but he's finally there (for now).

So because of this, I am very worried and feeling out of my depth. On one side, I've got my partner who is very nervous about going against our vet, who says to ONLY feed the Royal Canin Diabetic food and ONLY twice a day with the insulin shot. (admittedly, once we showed her the list of low carb wet foods, she did think this was a great idea and to go ahead). And on the other side, I've got all this billions of research saying NOT to feed ANY dry EVER and definitely NOT only feed twice a day, every 12 hours. And that cats on a dry only diet end up dying of kidney failure and are chronically dehydrated. And this concerns me more than usual because Dweezil used to get urinary inflammation and blockages when he was younger and I worry that he may be slightly prone to this again if he got too dehydrated from all dry food. I WANT him on wet food, but how do I know which is safe?

And then I've got this amazing list of low carb wet foods from here...but then find out that in Australia, it's all different and they DO contain carbs in the form of cereals. So...I don't know what food I can give him that's safe!! Apart from the online sourced ones of course (Ziwipeak), which I am still waiting for.

Plus, add on the fact we still cannot get any blood from him at all and we don't know what his numbers are, and all we DO know is (despite him seeming stable and ok right now), his urine glucose is always at the highest level whenever we test him (which is once a day at the moment as he is not urinating that frequently anymore). We can't just try out all these different supposedly safe wet foods and then wait a week to see a change and then if it's bad, we wait another week to get him stable again. It'd be different if we could test his blood glucose of course.

Also, in general, ever since we had our boys (six years), we've fed them the same sort of diet. A small amount of pet store quality dry food (Advance, for any Australian people here) twice a day, and their main meals of wet food, including the Fancy Feast of cod, shrimp and sole (pretty much just that), Ultimates (which apparently are safe for Diabetics as mentioned on here) and some Purr brand (which I also cannot see any mention of cereal in)...and yet...he got Diabetes.
 
I am now looking at the Ultimates brand, which some have said seems ok in terms of carbs. I came across the formula to work out carbs from the inadequate cat food labels too, which is....

As an example

- Protein 9.5%
- Fat 5.0%
- Fiber 1.0%
- Moisture 75.0%
- Ash 2.0%

So this equals 92.5% total. Then you take that away from 100% and you end up with 7.5%. So that is carbs. Yay, right? No!

You have to convert it to dry matter to find out the real carb value.

So you take the 25% that isn't moisture, and then divide the 7.5 carb value by 0.25 and you end up with...30. So it's actually 30% carbs.

But what do you do when the label doesn't list moisture at all? Ultimates does not list it, although the other stuff seems ok (apart from "gelling agent"). But I cannot buy it without knowing the moisture content so I can work out the carbs!

I wrote to Ultimates at their email address but it bounced back, rejected by their server.

And why do they use ash in cat foods anyway!?!?
 
Have you looked at the food chart on catinfo.org?

It's 37 pages long! I haven't looked to see if Ullimates is on there though.

I feed Hank 9 Lives wet food. It's probably one of the cheapest wet food at the stores BUT I feed Hank the flavors that are 2-5% carbs.

What I'm trying to say is, don't frustrate yourself over this. Look on the food chart for something 10% carbs or lower, print out the pages you want and take it to the store with you.

It's more important to master home testing. When Hank was first diagnosed, before I learned to test, I thought that he was fine too. Until I took him to the vet, twice within 2 weeks and his BG was over 700! That's why home testing is so important! Watch some Youtube videos and practice, practice, practice! It does take about 2 weeks to get the hang of it.

What helped me was making a rice sock and switching to a 29 gauge Lancet. The more you test, his ears will make more capillaries, which will make it easier to get blood. Also rubbing a thin film of Neosporin will help the blood to bead up too.

I've been where you are. I know it seems very overwhelming but it does get easier with time.
Hang in there! We're here to help you.

If you have anymore questions, just ask away.

Kimmie
 
@Kimmied - we need food for Australia, not the US, so the Cat Info list isn't going to be very helpful.

Maybe contact Dr Rand at the U of Queensland, and see if they know of some local to you.


 
No, and this is what annoys me too! Not only do we not have many of the same brands, but the ones we do share are not necessarily the same ingredients!

I am feeling worse and worse about trying to get blood from dweezy's ears. His ears are always warm (it is hot here right now) but he always has to be restrained. It is very hard as he jerks around a lot. And i HATE hurting him. Even though i know i'm hurting him more in the long term by not doing it.
 
Ooh goodness. Dweezil doesn't like having his paw or arm held. It is hard to trim his claws, not because of the claws themselves, but due to the fact it requires us to hold his paws briefly.
 
I'm so sorry you're agonising about what wet foods to give Dweezil. :( Are there no wet foods you can buy in Oz that you can feed to him that don't make him ill ?

If you're getting fraught about blood testing, just concentrate on the food situation for the next couple of days . Did you see the post about contacting the Doc at the university of Queensland ?

If you poached some chicken breast & cut it up , would Dweezil eat that ?
 
Dweezil LOVES chicken. We used to feed him a bit of my shaved chicken slices sometimes (my partner is a vegetarian), but then we stopped as it made him hyper and we didn't know what was in it. Supermarket brand packaged shaved chicken.

I think with me, it's more that I just don't trust the ingredients in the wet food here. Fancy Feast cod, sole & shrimp they both LOVE and it's apparently low carb (like the best one available of the FF varieties I think), but when he started eating that, his symptoms returned after a week. So...I don't understand why that happened. It may have coincided with his dose being reduced from 2 units to 1 unit, but I don't want to risk putting him back on the FF because we can't as yet check his blood glucose to see what impact the FF will have right away. We don't want to put him through discomfort for two weeks after trying the FF...(one week of symptoms returning, one week for them to fade again after stopping eating again).

I hear Ultimates wet food is good here, but when I went to work out the carbs in it, the website doesn't list the moisture content so I can't work it out. I emailed them but their server rejected my email saying no such recipient. *sigh*

I'm STILL waiting for my Ziwipeak food to arrive. It's only coming from about an hour away, and yet it's taken 8 days so far. I suspect that although I paid an extra $2 NOT to have it sent via courier, they may have done it anyway, which means it's been sitting in the courier depot place for 8 days waiting until I can get to it to pick it up. (I don't drive). Nothing is ever simple.

I will definitely contact the Doc at Uni of QLD, definitely!
 
Hello,

Thanks for messaging me Rhiannon.

I don't know your name, sorry. I went through exactly the same troubles when I first wanted to put Angie on low carb. I live in the country outside of Melbourne. Angie is really sensitive to carbs and once came out of remission from one little meal of high carb food. :(

Here are the foods that I and other Australian members have found to be low carb:
- whiskers tinned food that say loaf - casserole and mince are both high carb. This food isn't very good quality but it didn't affect her blood sugar.
- Nature's Gift - duck and kangaroo are both low carb. Beef in gravy is not. These were my favorite backups till or local supermarket stopped stocking them. They're now only in inderpendent supermarkets.
- VIP Gourmet Fresh Mince - from major supermarkets and IGAs. I normaly make Angie food but this is the one I buy when I run out. It's raw kangaroo mince with added nutrients to make it balanced. I feed it raw but if you want to cook it you will need to add thyamine afterwards because heat distroys it.
- VIP Fussy Cat fresh mince pouches. Angie prefers these to the tray but they're too expensive for me.
- I've never tried Ziwi Peak but I've heard it's the best tinned food here. Some cats find it too rich and it upsets their stomachs so I've heard (perhaps from Vyctor's Mum?) that you should water it down.
- I've also heard that Vet's All Natural is exceptional - it's a balanced powder that you add to raw meat. It's 6.1% carbs. I haven't tried it with Angie because she has too many food allergies.

I've heard different things about fancy feast and other brands that seem to be ok overseas and couldn't get clear answers either. I'm not game to try them!

I hope that was helpful. Let me know if you're unclear about anything and I can attach photos of the ones I have tested. :)

Good luck with the testing.

Grace
 
Oh, and be careful with shaved meat - it often contains honey or sugar. I'd try plain raw or cooked meat as treats instead.
 
Thank you!!

Yes, we stopped giving him the shaved chicken ages ago (long before diagnosis) mainly because both cats were becoming obsessed with it.

Hmm, I think I may have seen Nature's Gift around the place. I'll have a look.

Ah...those meat ones, Fussy Cat and VIP. We tried those before. Monty wouldn't even touch it and Dweezil threw up violently all over himself.
 
The beef in gravy natures gift is okay too -gravy foods are normally a no no but this one isn't that sort of gravy, it doesn't contain flour or cereals or any of the bad things
 
I went to the Nature's Gift site to find out about the ingredients, which is fine, except they don't list the moisture content so I can't work out the carbs!!! How does anyone know they're ok if they don't know the % of carbs?
 
The ziwipeak arrived today. We're trying the fish and venison one first. Dweezil LOVED it. Yay!!! Monty showed no interest at all.

I gave them both a small amount so as not to overload their tummies, but dweezil ate both meals and has been fine since. Good.

It says it's 1.5% carbs which is amazing. I just hope it's true.
 
Have you thought about a raw food diet? You can make that yourself. Along with the food charts, Dr. Pierson also has info on making your own raw homemade diet at http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood

catinfo.org is an excellent source for feline nutrition no matter what you feed.

But I swear by the raw. Many others here feed raw also. No carbs!
 
Hmmm...this has always intimidated me hugely, as I don't cook at all, anything. I don't even know how to boil an egg!!!! lol My partner does all the cooking and is a vegetarian.

I'm also not sure if my boys would even like raw. Monty doesn't seem to like anything except the Fancy Feast type very processed foods. Dweezy is more likely to accept raw, but the few times we've tried things verging on raw, he's thrown up violently.
 
You could try a little bit of plain raw chicken (tiny bit) and see how he takes to it. Making the food isnt really cooking, it's just mixing ingredients together. There are commercial raw diets too, which I used in the beginning.

I have been a vegetarian for 30 years. Raw meat is gross to me, but I do for my girls:)

Funny thing is my girls throw up anything that isn't raw now! Even tiny bits of cooked meat or any type of "people" food. The last time I tried to give them processed cat food was couple years ago and they couldn't keep it down.

I started on the raw back in 2007 after the big cat food recall. I felt like I couldnt trust any of the food out there. I started with a commercial raw and they were on that for years. I started making it myself when the company changed the ingredients and it wasn't agreeing with Katie.
She was still receiving insulin at the time. I started making the food myself out of desperation and a couple months later she went OTJ. I don't know if the food change had anything to do with it, but hey, I ain't gonna rock the boat...so I keep doing it.
Katie also had hyperlipidemia (high content of fat in the blood), which the vet wondered whether it contributed to her diabetes. She was not overweight and they thought it was genetic disorder. By making the food, I can control the fat content and replace the fat with good fats (salmon oil) and her last blood panel showed the fat content in her blood normal for the first time in her life. So it works for us:)
 
monty_dweezil said:
Wow, that's quite amazing!

What do you put in your raw food?
Click to expand...

I basically just follow Dr. Lisa's recipe at catinfo.org, except I use skinless chicken thighs and trim all excess fat. I substitute the missing fat with extra salmon/fish oil. Been making it myself for almost 2 years now. For treats the girls get chopped up raw chicken breast.
I don't recommend anyone trim all the fat like I do, cats do need fat. That's their energy source. But in Katie's case and her hyperlipidemia, like I said, it works for us.
I guess it's the type of fat she gets that makes the difference with her. I feel VERY lucky.
 
I am in Australia too and I have found the following foods do not have a noticeable effect on blood glucose readings.
- The new Whiskas 8+ loaf pouches are very good in terms of effect on blood glucose level as they seem to have no effect. When my Lucy has had low blood glucose readings and I have fed some of this food her blood glucose levels kept dropping so I then fed some high carb food to bring her glucose levels up.
- Fancy feast kitten. Both the turkey and the fish varieties seem to have minimal effect on blood glucose so I feed Lucy these foods.
- Fancy feast whitefish and tuna, savoury salmon and the cod varieties seem fine and they contain no cereals.
- Snappy Tom Ultimates. The ones I have bought contain no cereals and they seem to be fine.
- Dine Desire. I have found some of these seem to raise blood glucose so I save them for treat foods as a reward when I am trying to get Lucy to come out from under the bed as she loves these foods. They are not meant to be fed as the main food in any case. There are different gelling agents used in these foods and you need to find out from the company what gelling agent is used in each food.
- Fancy feast grilled. Despite these having cereals in them I haven't found significant effects on Lucy's glucose levels when fed in small amounts as a treat occasionally but I only feed about one or two teaspoons. The company claims these are low carb but I avoid them because of the cereals.
I think you also need to take into account how your cat reacts to each food too.
 
Hmm. Dweezil must be more sensitive i think. He was doing very well until he had eaten the fancy feast cod, shrimp and sole and the whitefish and tuna. Then within a week he was just how he was right before diagnosis. Sigh.

Now we're also concerned as it's been three days since he started eating ziwipeak (with 1.5% carbs apparently) and although he seems good, he is peeing more again. Bigger sigh.
 
Hi all, I recently posted a new thread asking about low carb foods readily available in Oz then found this thread.
Is anyone aware of if the food options mentioned above, example whiskas loaf varieties, natures gift etc are low in fat also? I used to feed VIP fresh roo mince before Boo was diagnosed diabetic.
 
So I finally heard back from Snappy Tom Ultimates about the analysis of their food (not just guaranteed analysis) and they say they cannot provide the as fed or typical analysis.

WHY NOT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
 
monty_dweezil said:
So I finally heard back from Snappy Tom Ultimates about the analysis of their food (not just guaranteed analysis) and they say they cannot provide the as fed or typical analysis.

WHY NOT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Click to expand...

Ahhh..that makes it difficult! Didn't know Ultimates was made by Snappy Tom btw. It is one of the only supermarket brands Boo will eat and appeared to fit the criteria. He's being very fussy of late, I have to employ all sorts of tricks to get him to eat enough food for me to shoot. So hard when we're limited not only by low carb but low fat.
Thanks for the update
 
I know this thread is 3 weeks old but I thought I would add my 2 cents worth as I am also in Australia with a diabetic cat. My Julius has been eating wet Fancy Feast and Dine Desire for 15 years. He now has diabetes so a lot of his favorite flavours from those two brands are out for him.

He was diagnosed back in November and I had heard a lot of positive things about Fancy Feast for diabetic cats. Since Julius enjoyed it so much I decided to just eliminate the bad varieties from the pantry and only keep the low carb ones.

I also stumbled into the problem of the US varieties and ingredients being different to the Aussie varieties. I have pretty much spent 3 months researching this and narrowing down the low carb varieties. I also contacted Purina who sent me a list of carbs in the Aussie varieties. I have uploaded the file here, it is not comprehensive but it was something. I went ahead and cross checked their list with other info available on line as well.

In any case there are 7 FF varieties available in Australia which have zero or very low carbs and NO cereals (and their awful by-products). These 7 are well stocked in my pantry and Julius has been at normal kitty glucose levels for several weeks now since I banished all the nasty ones with cereals from his diet. He is also only on half a unit of Lantus per day.

The zero/low carb varieties are listed below and are available at Coles and Woolworths.

- Cod, Sole and Shrimp
- Fish and Prawn Medley
- Seafood Medley
- Savoury Salmon
- Ocean Whitefish and Tuna
- Kitten Whitefish Feast
- Kitten Turkey Feast

Hope this helps. This food works for me but I am going to suggest talking to your vet if you want to change your cats diet because any change of diet for a diabetic cat can have reactions.
 

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Thank you SO much for that! I have happily expanded Dweezil's options now thanks to some ultimates varieties, some weruva cat's in the kitchen varieties, a nature's gift one, ziwipeak, a couple of wellness core and now i can re-introduce those fancy feasts, yay!
 
monty_dweezil said:
As an example
- Protein 9.5%
- Fat 5.0%
- Fiber 1.0%
- Moisture 75.0%
- Ash 2.0%

So this equals 92.5% total. Then you take that away from 100% and you end up with 7.5%. So that is carbs. Yay, right? No!
Click to expand...

What we're looking for is the percentage of calories from carbs, so there's a calculation that needs to be done.

If you have analysis % figures for protein, fat, fibre, ash and moisture then you can do the calculation.
Here is a nifty online calculator that can probably do that for you:
http://scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html

The Sheyderweb calculator will work out the calories from carbs per 100g of food.
If the food has close to 100 total calories per 100g, then the calories from carbs per 100g will be the same as the percentage of calories from carbs.
(So, if there are 7 calories from carbs in 100g of food, the percentage of calories will also be 7%.)
The Scheyderweb calculator may be all that you need to use. Hurrah!

However..
If there is significantly more/less than 100 total calories per 100g of food then you need to do another calculation. So you grab a calculator and do this:
Divide the calories from carbs per 100g by the total calories per 100g, and multiply by 100. That will give you the percentage of calories from carbs. :)

.
 
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This is difficult when no cat food labels and hardly any websites give you the required information! Most don't list moisture or fiber, only protein and fat.

I wrote to a few companies, but they say "Unfortunately, we cannot provide that information". Eep. WHY NOT!?
 
monty_dweezil - I'm just wondering when you mention the 'ultimate varieties' do you mean the 'Ultimate Indulge' in the rectangular cans? I went to Woolies today to see what choices there were aside from Fancy Feast because I would like a bit more variety for my cat and I found the 'ultimate indulge' range made by Safcol in the gold rectangular cans? No artificial colours, preservatives or flavours. Is that the ones you refer too?

And also I found a brand called 'Gourmet Delight' tins? The tins say, by-product free, grain free, no artificial colours, flavours, preservatives and all natural meat and fish. Have you heard of that brand too?
 
monty_dweezil said:
This is difficult when no cat food labels and hardly any websites give you the required information! Most don't list moisture or fiber, only protein and fat.

I wrote to a few companies, but they say "Unfortunately, we cannot provide that information". Eep. WHY NOT!?
Click to expand...
Yes, indeed, 'why not!?'...
It must be so frustrating when you've actually gone to the trouble of contacting the food manufacturers to try to find out this information (and well done for trying...)

It does seem that Australians have a much harder time than the rest of us when it comes to identifying suitable foods for diabetics. :(

Incidentally, would you consider posting details of foods that you have found to be suitable in the new Think Tank thread about foods? It could really help other Aussies who join the forum...
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/food-links.133016/

Eliz
 
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