Ok thank you! Question though, I've heard people on here feeding their cats Fancy Feast and Friskies. Why not the more expensive Hills Science Diet, Isms etc?
Well, there are a couple of reasons why we don't recommend or have many members here that feed the Hills Science Diet or Prescription Diet foods.
1. The dry varieties are too high in carbs for our diabetic kitties. We like to see 10% or less from carbs, which mimics a cats diet in the wild. For example, the Hill's W/D dry is around 37% carbs, the wet is 25% carbs. Way too high for our diabetic kitties. Lots of the canned varieties of those foods like the Iams are also high in carbs (14-19%). Ok for your hypo toolkit but too high for daily feeding to your diabetic cat.
2. The quality of the ingredients are no better than a lot of commercial cat foods. For example, the Hill's M/D has liver as the first ingredient. Not something you want to be feeding to your cat all the time, since the liver is one of the bodies organs that cleanses out the junk and bad stuff in the food we eat.
3. Availability. The foods we mention here most often, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Wellness grain free, are all readily available in most areas of the US and Canada.
4. Variety of flavors available. There are very limited choices in flavors in the Hills, Purina, Iams, etc foods. With the canned food options, you get a wider variety of flavors to choose from to tempt the most picky of kitties. It took me some time to discover that my Wink loved the Turkey & Giblets flavor best.
5. Cost. The Fancy Feast pate style, Friskies pate, are some of the least inexpensive canned foods available. Feeding your kitty any of the canned foods that contain meat by-products is closer to what they would eat in the wild then the cereals, grains and veggies found in most of those Hill's prescription foods.
Here is a link to an article on one vets take on those prescription diets.
Expensive does not equal quality or better for your cat.
We also follow the
AAHA Diabetes Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats, a 2010 vet journal published article that talks about the benefits of wet food over dry.
• Canned foods are preferred over dry foods. Canned foods
provide:
° Lower carbohydrate levels.
° Ease of portion control.
° Lower caloric density; cat can eat a higher volume of
canned food for the same caloric intake.
° Additional water intake.
25-28
