? Low carb dry food??

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WilbursPerson

WilbursPerson

Member Since 2019
Hi all -
We are trying to shift to all low carb wet food (challenging with 3 civvies, one with multiple food allergies). As a back up though, does anyone have hints on low carb dry food?

I have found several recommended via various veterinarian websites for cats who refuse dry food but only 2 are safe for the civvie (no beef, milk, egg, oat, peanut, pork, potato, rabbit, salmon, shellfish, soy, spinach, squash/pumpkin, sweet potato, venison).

I am going through all 67 pages of Dr Lisa's wet food and cross matching allergens as well.

these are the 2 that I found that are safe for the allergic/pancreatitis civvie but am open to any other suggestions!
Wysong Epigen original (but it has an unspecified "meat protein isolate" and per Dr Lisa's list in general the Wysong products are unbalanced nutritionally)
Natural balance LID high protein

many many thanks!
 
This is not a dry food. ZiwiPeak has an air dried raw line of food. It looks like a small, jerky-style treat. My cats love the stuff. It's low carb and a little bit goes a long way. There are no grains, additives, gums, or carageenan in the food.
 
I'm not sure there are any dry foods that would work for both your diabetic and food allergies cats.
What food does you food allergic cat eat now?
Symptoms of food allergic cat? vomiting, skin rashes, etc?
Maybe try meal feeding only?

Have you thought about drying out the canned cat food in your oven? Really smelly, but it's a way to make your own dried food.

Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein chicken has egg and salmon in it, so that is out as an option.
The Young Again foods all have pork. Plus a lot of cats get diarrhea eating this.
Ziwipeak Mackeral and Lamb has green mussel (shellfish). Other flavor is venison.
 
I have nothing to add to the two you have already mentioned, except that now that my big boy is diabetic, I see just how hard it is to find a low-carb dry food. We were feeding Billy Origen Cat and Kitten and Instinct Extreme Protein, and I though they were awesome. Compared to other dry foods, they are, but both of them have around 20% carbohydrates. I see why so many folks on the forum switch to a wet food diet. Of course, Billy thinks he's gone to heaven. He Lurves wet food!

I hope you find some other options for your kitties.
 
The allergic cat has IBD and pancreatitis- going to a strict diet of only non allergenic food has kept all GI symptoms away and no recurrent episodes of pancreatitis.

Thanks for the tip on baking the wet food down - never thought of that! Also thanks for the leads on “lower carb” dry food - the instinct ultimate protein may be a good choice.
 
So what non-allergenic foods are helping her? Asking because maybe there is someone else either now or in the future and we can pass that information along.
 
Of course!

allergen safe but not super diabetic friendly:
Dry food - prescription royal canin HP
Wet food (previously used as treats until Wilbur was diagnosed) - prescription royal canin selected protein PD

diabetic food recommended by the vet:
glycobalance recommended by the vet had allergens in both the wet and dry.

Foods from here:
of the list from Dr Lisa, I searched the ingredients of all the foods that I could find on Chewy and came up with 4 unequivocally safe foods for Clark (the Civvie with food allergies):
Nature’s variety instinct limited ingredient turkey
Tiki cat puka puka
Wellness complete chicken
Wellness complete turkey

chewy didn’t have all the foods so I only searched the ones I could find on chewy. The egg, potatoes, sweet potatoes, meat by products, and fish were huge problems. Some of the ones labeled as turkey or chicken also had fish in the ingredients. I could have searched non chewy.com but since I found winners there I went with them.

we are pursuing 4 enclosures called MeowSpaces which are keyed to each cats microchips but want to keep everything allergen free as much as feasible.

thanks!
 
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The RC soy protein is hydrolyzed so it’s supposedly less allergenic. Is that true? I assume so but who really knows. Anecdotally she’s been doing better on it.

The Tiki after dark chicken (as well as chicken and duck) has tuna oil it which is why I went with the puka puka.

protein wise we are limited it seems to poultry: they didn’t specifically test for it but she’s allergic to other non poultry meat. I’m hoping maybe ziwi will come out with a poultry only.

thsnks!!
 
WilbursPerson said:
The RC soy protein is hydrolyzed so it’s supposedly less allergenic. Is that true? I assume so but who really knows. Anecdotally she’s been doing better on it.

The Tiki after dark chicken (as well as chicken and duck) has tuna oil it which is why I went with the puka puka.

protein wise we are limited it seems to poultry: they didn’t specifically test for it but she’s allergic to other non poultry meat. I’m hoping maybe ziwi will come out with a poultry only.

thsnks!!
Click to expand...

I caught that with the Tiki beef and duck having the tuna oil.
I don't see the tuna oil with the lamb :) I'm not sure about the other protein sources and allergies ....
My cat will eat the chicken only Tiki Cat, but it's not his favorite. I bought the larger cans to save on money, but since I only have one cat I use the smaller ones now so it doesn't get too solid from sitting in the fridge.

It looks like the Ziwi peak has a chicken formula , but they all have the mussel in it
https://www.chewy.com/ziwi-peak-air-dried-chicken-recipe/dp/176678
Hope you find something that works for all your furbabies
 
Ack - bummer on the mussels!! I feel like we have solid diabetic and allergen friendly food choices. Not a ton but a few. Plus all our cats love food so switching the wet foods should be easy overall but I suspect will have one hard food holdout.

thank you!!!
 
Me vet had me try the Hill's Z/d food for my IBD cat. Only made the diarrhea worse and that has hydrolyzed chicken protein. Tried the LID diets, novel proteins but my cat did not love canned food. With a little experimenting (actually a lot) with food elimination trials, found it was the grains of any type, especially any rice products causing the problem, even the little amounts in the Friskies pates. I did find a dry food that did not give her constant, unrelenting diarrhea and used that. Acana Regionals, but those have too many of the trigger foods for you to use with your IBD cat (All dry foods and too high carb for a diabetic anyway.)

You did a lot of research to find foods for both your diabetic and allergic/IBD cats.

If you do decide to try and 'dehydrate' some of the wet food in your oven, low temp (200 F???) if I remember, spread out on a cookie sheet and it will stink up your home something fierce. Don't remember how long to leave it in the oven to dry out.

For your suspected dry food holdout, don't know if any of the Transitioning Tips that are on catinfo.org would help or not. I used every single one of them with Wink. Having a 'smorgasbord' with multiple wet food selections helped a lot.

Good luck with the food change and monitor the BG levels more closely as a lower carb food may cause your diabetic to drop 100 mg/dl or more.
 
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