It's not just the grains in the foods that contribute to a higher carb content. It's fruits and vegetables too.
In an attempt to keep costs low, to substitute for the grains without adding more meat, some manufacturers have substituted potatoes or some form of peas ( green, yellow, pea flour, pea meal) or tapioca or another starch or other fruits and vegetables. They have learned that many people know grains in cat food are not necessary but they are still trying to make the foods appealing to the human consumer. "Huum. I like to eat blueberries and potatoes and carrots and cranberries and peas. It's good for me, should be good for my cat."
The cat would like to be thrown a chunk of raw meat. The human can't deal with that.
Yes, some of the cat foods on Dr. Lisa Pierson's
cat food list do contain some grains. Like the Friskies contains some rice. The carb content is still low enough to be under 10% so you know the amount of rice in the Friskies has to be very small.
If we all lived in a perfect world, where we had enough resources to feed our cats appropriate food, we'd probably all be feeding raw.
If the food manufacturers cared about the quality of their food, they would change the ingredients. Grains and fruits and vegetables are cheap. Fat is cheap. Meat is expensive. :sad:
As to weather or not a particular treat with a little bit of carbs will raise your cats BG levels, well that is something you could experiment with. ECID. You need to test for your cat. It's an unknown quality. There also hasn't been anyone that took the time and months long effort to get the as fed value data from all the manufacturers and calculate the carb percentage for all the treats that are available.
We are fortunate that vet Dr. Pierson feels strongly enough about cat food nutrition that she does take up this massive effort with the canned foods. It was months of work for her to do this. Diabetic cats rejoice at her commitment.
I know that a lot of advice is available about keeping away from foods and treats with corn, wheat or soy in them, but what about rice, brown rice, barley and oatmeal? Are they just as bad? Better but not great? OK in small amounts (like as an ingredient in treats?)
Are other grains bad? Well one of the other diabetic cat forums bans all foods with grains. Friskies is forbidden. Are small amounts ok? I would have to say we just don't know for each cat. I know that my Wink is carb sensitive and couple of ounces of Friskies raises his BG about 20-30 points. With other alternatives, the pure meat freeze dried etc,, we have never really checked.
