Yoyo

[Lana & Yoyo]

The low-carb dry foods are very high in fat and therefore are very calorie dense. These foods must be portion-controlled otherwise, your cat may end up gaining weight...... The low-carb dry foods are also very high in phosphorus . . . Blue Buffalo is ... about 22% carbs by my calculations . . . I would not feed dry if I could avoid it at all: I firmly believe that the low-fat movement is responsible for the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in humans. Fat slows digestion thereby converting carbohydrates to sugar more slowly, keeping the impact lower by spreading it over a longer period of time. High glycemic foods without fat create high BG spikes since the carbs are processed quickly with no buffering. I suspect the same thing happened to pet food --- fat got reduced and the resulting product began having a far greater impact on blood sugar -- then we began to see an epidemic of obesity and diabetes in pets. When humans go on a low-carb diet, they lose weight regardless of calories (after all, insulin is the hormone that stores fat in our bodies). When I started using higher calorie EVO, my cat, Rusty, the dry food eater, lost weight .... If those calculations for Blue Buffalo are made on "As Fed" data (not guaranteed analysis), then 22% is not low carb and thus not an option. I don't feed dry to Yoyo, he is a wet food hog and consumes very little of the dry, and I'm going to keep EVO out and available for Rusty. I am not going to count calories.

As to the rest of Yoyo's diet:

I have begun giving freeze-dried food for treats (Yoyo loves variety & has already gotten bored with it)

I have stopped feeding FF Chunky varieties because of wheat gluten.

I have stopped feeding FF Roasted varieties because of wheat gluten.

I have stopped feeding FF varieties of fish because of phosphorus.

I have stopped feeding FF with beef because some cats have a sensitivity to beef.

I am now using some premiun brands of canned cat food that are within the carb limit that do not have wheat gluten or fish or beef in them.

I have moved to a diet that is 50% raw food.

I am not making any more dietary changes in the near term.

As to Yoyo's insulin dose, I plan to stay at 1 unit for 3 days, if possible, then move him up to 1.25 units.

Lana

 

[pamela and tigger]

"I firmly believe that the low-fat movement is responsible for the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in humans."

I totally agree with that assessment in humans. If you read Dr. Bernstein's book "Diabetes Solution", he talks about that a lot.

"I suspect the same thing happened to pet food --- fat got reduced and the resulting product began having a far greater impact on blood sugar -- then we began to see an epidemic of obesity and diabetes in pets."

I don't really disagree with anything you are saying here. If the fat were reduced though, then the protein (from grains or meat) and carbohydrates would then have to be increased to make up the basic three elements of food/calories. This more than likely contributed to the onslaught of feline diabetes. The increased calories from carbs, and along with some 'grains', led to feline obesity and insulin resistance. But I am not a feline nutritionist by a long shot.

Dr. Lisa explains it much better than I ever could in her feline obesity section of her website:

http://www.catinfo.org/?link=felineobesity

"It is important to understand the basic three elements of food/calories:

1. *protein
2. fat
3. carbohydrates

It is best to list foods in terms of caloric composition which reflects the percentage of total calories that come from protein, fat, and carbohydrate. The caloric breakdown of these three nutrient classes must add up to 100% of total calories. Therefore, if one class of nutrient is decreased, one, or both, of the other two must increase.

*A very important note about protein: Not all proteins are created equal. Proteins can either be from animals or plants. What defines cats as obligate (strict) carnivores is their need to consume protein from other animals - not plants."

One other thing about dry food is the hydration issue. But you are feeding it along with wet canned and raw so I wouldn't think it is as big an issue. But I do understand from different sources on the Internet that transition times in the gut for dry food is a lot slower than for wet or raw (approximately 10 hours versus 4 to 5) although there have not been definitive studies done on this that I can find as yet.

Anyway, regarding the dose. Sounds like a good plan.

 

[Sheila & Beau GA & Jeddie GA]

I think keeping the diet as is for now is a good idea - less changing variables so you can figure out what dose works best now.

My thoughts on dry are not necessarily different, just that I think the amount, quality and type of proteins in *most* dry food is wrong for cats so they keep eating them trying to get that amount of protein. Plus,. once the manufacturer's discovered the way to make them tasty was to spray them with animal digest, the stuff is like crack. They can't stop eating it! Beau got very fat on dry food, but he seemed to always be hungry. And then, of course, he became diabetic....