Young again vs Dr Elseys vs 3 majors

Hello everyone,

First time post here, our cat-Totoro has been diagnosed diabetic after some pancreatitis, he's around 10 year old (adopted from refuge), he doesn't like to eat wet food so here we are trying to figure out what dry food we can give him, of course the vet recommended any of the major 3 (royal canin diabetic, hill's m/d and purina d/m), after some researching we noticed that those 3 foods are really bad in regard of quality of ingredients and even royal canin has high carbs count like around 30%, we discussed this with our vet (and asked 2 other vets too) and they all said that these 3 foods are the best choice cause they've been thoroughly tested and its not the high carb count that matters but the type of sugar/glucose used in making those foods, every time we asked any vet about any food other than major 3 veterinary specific, they don't know anything about it, is this a common thing that vets only recommend those major 3 foods??

After some digging online we found this forum and I've been reading a lot of posts to have a better understanding of the disease and what can we do about it, se we noticed that most people here use Young Again or Dr Elsey's clean protein, we are in Canada so our only option is going through Petsmart for Dr. Elsey's and a distributor to get Young again (with the risk of getting out of stock), I just would like some more recent advise about these 2 dry foods as we plan to give our diabetic cat (currently on Royal Canin Diabetic) and maybe switch all our cats to these food, we currently are with Pecturean Go and we have 2 that mainly eat wet food and dont eat too much dry food

Also some more advise I would ask would like if we manage to switch the cats to any of these 2 foods, how can we manage the diabetic cat to only eat his portions without over eating the portions of the rest, as we mainly have feeder toys so they can eat whenever they want through the day.

Check our cats Instagram page !!
https://www.instagram.com/el_castillo_miau/
Sorry for the long post.
Any advise is appreciated, thanks a lot..

 

Welcome. Waving from central Ontario.
I never used much dry but someone will be by before too long to advise.
It is the obviously biased sales reps who "educate" the vet.

There's also Wysong Epigen 90 dry.

What are you feeding currently?

It is best to slowly transition to a lower carb food. Lower carbs = less insulin needed. Home testing is crucial to keep your Totoro safe.

 

Bonjour from Montreal, it feels weird trying to go against the vet's advise, I didn't ask about Epigen 90 cause I couldn't find it, I thought its not available here in Canada as like many others.

Currently Totoro (diabetic cat) is eating only Royal Canin Diabetic, Momoka (11 year old fatty) mostly eats dry food too (Petcurean Go mixed with Orijen cause variety), Emita and Yukita (younger ones around 5y) eat mostly wet food-Petcurean Go, but this last batch its being very bad, they dont like it that much and the consistency of the food changed like more softish and they eat a little of the dry food go and orgen mix.

 

Waving from BC. Other Canadian options for those who don't eat wet are freeze dried raw (Primal or Stella & Chewys are low carb) or air dried (Ziwipeak). Both have some crunch. The nice thing about freeze dried is that if he likes it, you can slowly add a bit of water to it, to make it wetter and wetter and see if he'll transition. If you do switch from the high carb "vet sold" products be very cautious. Are you home testing his blood sugars yet? Going to a lower carb food can make a difference in the amount of insulin needed, so we recommend home testing to keep him safe.

I found it easier to switch both my cats to the same diet. In this case it was raw, but I still had to police the feed station to make sure there was no stealing. Low carb wet or raw is better for all cats. If your non diabetic can't jump as high, feeding the others higher up is an option. Or if the diabetic is a fatty, you can feed in a box with a doorway fatty can't fit through. Barring that, there are microchip feeders that open just for a specific cat wearing a collar, but they are a bit spendy.

Don't worry about going against vet advice on food. Most of them get less than a day's worth of training on nutrition, and at least one of the vet schools invites someone from Hills to do the presentation. If you haven't found it yet, here is a good website on cat nutrition by a vet who is a specialist in feline nutrition: https://catinfo.org/

 

Vets probably get about 5 min of training on nutrition. Generally, it's the representatives from the pet food companies who visit their offices and "educate" them. As an alternative, you might want to take a look at this website on feline nutrition that's written by a vet. She's very pro canned food for a variety of reasons -- it's a better quality of protein and much higher in moisture content. It's germane given that cats are obligate carnivores and they have a low thirst drive. Perhaps this would be a website to share with your vet.

There may be some other options. ZiwiPeak makes an air dried version of their canned foods. You may need to run the carbohydrate calculations -- the chicken is approximately 4% carb -- or contact the company for the "as fed" values for carbohydrates. It looks like the brand is available in Montreal.

I see Wendy just posted some of the same information. One other thought is to see if your cats would be interested in a raw food diet.

 

When I adopted Chucky, the shelter vet told me that he could only eat Purina DM or Royal Canins Glycobalance for the rest of his life. I just told them okay because I didn't want them to refuse the adoption lol.

I'm currently feeding him Fancy Feast wet and a little Dr. Elseys Clean Protein and he's doing great.

I think it's good to partner with your vet as much as possible but sadly, many of them are not well educated on diabetes or nutrition.
His current vet supported me taking him off the prescription food, so depending on the vet, you can get the opposite advice.

 

I tried to look for Primal or Stella & Chewys, but apparently I cannot seem to find it easily and also the packages are really small, also I found Ziwipeak but its like $70 for 2 lb bag, I think its the more expensive of all, and because like you said, I will also try to switch my cats to the same diet, with 4 cats its gonna get expensive.

At the moment 3 of my cats, are really fit and go anywhere, except Momoka (a little fatty), we just did a blood test and even if she's the oldest, she's perfectly fine just needs to lose some weight, so I think she can benefit from this diet switch and she also just eats dry food.

We already bought one of those microchip feeders, but Totoro doesn't like too much the diabetic food (Royal Canin Diabetic) and he's always trying to eat other food.

We are just new in this journey, but yeah, we will buy the machine to do home testing so we can know better the health of Totoro.

Thanks for all the suggetstions.

 

I looked into Ziwipeak and for the dry food its super expensive, $70 for a 2 lb bag its excessive, regarding the wet food, Totoro doesn't like wet food at all, so that's why the research about dry food.

Thank you for the websites, I need to keep informing me about this stuff.

 

Most likely, you can return partial bags to the vet (unless the bag is almost empty) for a refund. The manufacturers cover this.

 

I tried asking 3 vets about it and I was dismissed by all 3, they only support/know the 3 the major ones, I think its incredible that they know nothing about other brands of food because it will help a lot the health of our pets, unfortunately also finding a good vet is hard as we've been looking over the years and there aren't many options to go.

I ordered one bag of young again zero mature, let's see if they like it or if there's any issues.

 

You would not be the first person to say that your cat won't eat the prescription food. Vets hear that a lot.

 

Just cause I wasn't sure if he was gonna like anything, I actually bought the 3 major ones, and purina is really small kibbles, no go, I will return it, hill's at first bite he likes it but then it gets like moisty and then he doesn't like it anymore I'll try to return that one too, the one he eats the most is royal canin and we will continue as at the moment I dont want to feed him his regular food (Petcurean Go) as I'm not sure if that's gonna affect his glucose levels, so I am waiting for a bag of Young Again to try it, and if that doesn't work, we will try Dr Elsey clean protein, once we find a food he likes and tis good for his health, certainly we will stick to it.

 

The thing is I wouldn't mind that much to feed him that, but first he doesn't like it that much, and second, the ingredients, those foods are made with terrible quality ingredients, that it was proven to affect the health of the cats over the long-term.

Certainly my vet said that of course its just a matter of adjustment if he doesn't like the prescription food but still it baffles me that you mention any brand that a lot of people here use to feed their cats and they get better, and they know a nothing about it, they never even heard any brand you mention.

 

Check the amount that you would be feeding your cat the ZiwiPeak. I know it's pricey but you may not need to feed your cat the same volume you do with other food.

 

I ordered a bag of Young Again (still a little bit pricey) to see if my cats like it, or have any known issue to it (diarrhea, smelly poop, allergies), and try to switch all of them, if that doesn't work I might go with Dr. Elsey's next and if that fails, I'll try Ziwipeak, unfortunately, I didnt seem to find the other suggestions here (primal, stella & chewys, epigen 90)

Regarding the feeding, yes I saw the quantity is different cause of the high protein diet.

 

If you are going to try the Young Again, make a slow transition. An abrupt switch will likely cause diarrhea. My understanding is that their customer service if very good if you have questions.

 

There are like 2 things that I'm worried about Young Again even tho its supposed to be good and a lot of people like it, first is according what I read here, but from like 2018, is the quality control is not that good, people received bags with mold, and second, like the other brands, I can only find it here in Canada through a sole distributor, if they go out business for any reason welp I'm fried.

Yeah, I will transition them slowly, thanks for the input.

 

To be honest, the most problems with cat food recalls are with dry food. They do tend to get mold since there is some level of moisture in the food. The reviews of the Young Again are good and there's never been a recall.

 

Nulo is a low carb dry and Drevon loved it. (chewy)

 

Nulo doesn't make low carb kibble as far as I know. It's never been mentioned in any of the feline health groups I'm a part of. Out of curiosity I took a glance at their nutritional profile for the Nulo CAT & KITTEN GRAIN-FREE CHICKEN & COD RECIPE and it's 18% carbs: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...-742d-4fb2-a6d3-8acf00b534c6.pdf?v=1602369059.

They may have changed the formula since you fed it to Drevon.

 

YIKES that stinks! what a shame really he enjoyed it so much-I hate when they ruin a good thing!

 

Yes, I was going to reply that Nulo is around 18% carbs, I tend to follow CatFoodDB - Unbiased Cat Food Reviews to be able to find the values and quality of ingredients of the food, and so far in my limited research I found that diabetic cats would need to eat a food with less than 10% carbs in their diet (please correct me if I'm wrong), so only for dry food, we have young again, epigen 90, dr elsey's clean protein and ziwipeak fit this profile, still can't verify the other 2 (primal and stella&chewy) and for all these limited foods, at least here in Canada, I can only get "easily" young again and dr elsey's, so its going to be difficult if my cat doesn't like any of those 2.

 

Primal and Stella & Chewy are all low carb because they are freeze-dried raw foods.

I give both of my cats, even the diabetic one, Dr. Elsey's chicken kibble as treats. They love it and it doesn't give them any GI issues. The salmon formula is a little higher in carbs, 9% I believe.