Dry matter as fed

Curious, I wrote to some of the companies of cat food (dry or wet) that I have given to our cats. All have written back. Some quicker than others but all in good time. They all gave me the information that I requested. How many carbs were in it? I really wish the pet food industry would include this information.

Unlike people food or the nutritional labels on people food, all give percentages, not percentages and grams. I find this confusing. As a diabetic (although not a 'good' diabetic) I was trained by the local diabetic clinic how to read labels, and figure out carbs per items. Percentages never entered the picture. It was always grams of carbs minus the grams of fibre.

Another thing I find confusing 'as fed' or 'dry matter'.

This is what shared with me...
Pro Plan Veterinary Diets® OM Overweight Management® Dry Feline Formula is as follows: 20.50% as fed or 22.21% dry matter. This is what the vet office recommended. We give it sparingly. We focus on wet pate.

There is approximately 28% carbs in our Whiskas Meaty Selections. We do not feed this to our sugar baby anymore. But his house mate continues to eat it. The housemate will also eat the Purina Pro Plan OM Management.

There are approximately 28% carbs in our Whiskas Tasty Chicken Flavoured Temptations. Again we do not give out these treats to Roops. Where they used to be a main course (we went through bags of them) he only gets them occasionally now, and a few. No piles of them. Not good for Roops.

I wrote to Hartz and inquired about Delectables Squeeze Ups. Chicken flavored. I recently found these in our local Walmart. And can share both cats love them. Which made me think they are too carby for my sugar boy. Here is what they shared...

The additional nutritional information on the Hartz Delectables Cat Treats is as follows

The Phosphorus is approximately 0.14%. So based on a 40 g pouch there is approximately 0.056 g Phosphorus in the 40 g serving. They also contains 1.92% Carbohydrates and salt content is 0.6%
Unfortunately, cholesterol content is not something we test for in our products, therefore we do not have these values available. They recommend they only be given as a treat.

I also wrote PetCuran about Go! Fit +Free Grain Free Recipe, Chicken, Turkey and Duck recipe dry kibble. It has been renamed GO! Solutions Carnivore Grain Free Chicken, Turkey, Duck. Same recipe just rebranded. carbohydrates are 16% per as fed basis. Still too high but appears to have the lowest amount of carbs for kibble. But might also share that we find this kibble smells like Turtle pellets. We are not feeding this to Roops. The smell alone puts me off. More info can be found on this product here https://www.petcurean.com/app/uploads/2019/04/CV_CTD_Cat.pdf

I still need to write to IAMS and find out how many carbs are in IAMS Healthy Adult Perfect Portion Grain free chicken flavor pate. This is what we feed Roops now. Or focus on. We did try to figure out grams in it but always best to be certain. I will feel terrible if it is equally as high as Friskies Turkey with gravy. We also have some Friskies pate on hand, and Fancy Feast Pate.

Roops has his good days and bad days. Some days he is interested in eating, others not so much. He has lost a pound. We know he can afford to lose some weight but we do not want him losing muscle. It is a concern. His neuropathy is no worse. but we have seen no significant progress recently. We are now giving him 3 1/3 units of Prozinc down from 5 twice a day. we believe he was receiving too high of a dose and bouncing. We will continue giving this amount until we purchase more lancets and begin testing again. He seems more alert to us, less sleepy, and is not voiding more than he was. Nor is there a strong ammonia smell as there was when he was first diagnosed. His breath does not smell. One day at a time.

 

Are you asking for the ME values? That is the best way to get the info. If that is not available, the dry matter info can be used to calculate the carbs yourself. Here is how Dr. Pierson says to ask for the info: “I would like to know the percentage of calories that come from protein, fat, and carbohydrates.” This is also known as the “metabolizable energy (ME) profile.” And, “How many milligrams of phosphorus are in the food per 100 kcal?”
https://catinfo.org/commercial-cat-foods/#contacting

Her calculation for determining the percentages is here: https://catinfo.org/commercial-cat-foods/#Calculating__Percentage_of_Carbohydrates:

 

Thank you for responding.
Is the ME values what we need to know for our sugar babies.
As mentioned for humans it is grams of carbs in a serving minus fiber that is needed.
So far all or most of the companies I have written to have shared the percentage of carbs in their products with me.
Most of those I wrote to were for my own curiosity. Most of those items I no longer give of feed Roops,
but his older house mate still eats them. (Whiskas/Temptations).
We keep contraband away from Roops.

We do give him Temptations but sparingly and infrequently.
Before he was diagnosed he ate piles of them.
That does not happen anymore.
I rarely buy Temptations anymore.
Neither cat are eating them.
But knowing how high they are in carbs, I take that as a positive.
I have begun looking for alternative treats.

Both cats love Hartz Delectables Squeeze Ups.
Like Temptations they now recognize the bag and sound of it.
We recently discovered these.
The other cat will eat these from the tube,
but Roops likes his on a plate.
Normally he licks the plate clean.
I have written the company, and believe these are an acceptable treat
but not to be given as their main diet.
I have also begun feeding Roops, Hartz Delectable Stew Lickable wet cat treat chicken flavored.
Like Friskies Turkey and Gravy. He pretty much licks the gravy off depending
on his mood and the day. Some days he will lick the bowl clean. Others
not. I have to be cautious and not give him too much fishy stuff.

I did try feeding him Heinz baby food chicken and broth. Cheaper alternative.
That was not a hit. While the consistency was much like the lickables
the flavor obviously not. Roops licked some of it...the other
cat would have none of it. If I want to give them a puree of chicken,
I think I will have to make it myself. Lickables are hard to find in this area.
Only one store sells them, and we visit it once a month.

He is back to not eating a lot. And that is a concern. Not sure why.
we have decreased his insulin down from 5 units 2 times per day,
to 3 1/2. He was not eating less, or voiding more. We believed he
was on too high of a dose. I do not know if this recent change in eating is down
to the heat/humidity, or something else. Other than not being interested in eating,
he continues to clean himself the best he can, purr, void and poop as he did in the past.

I purchased lancets yesterday so we should be able to keep tabs on his blood sugar now.
this time I bought human lancets. Much cheaper than alphatrak. $11 for a 100.
We may consider switching from the alphatrak glucose monitor to my glucose monitor.
Strips cheaper than the Alphatrak one.

 

We often get confused with carb values, not least because there are different ways of calculating them. So, first off, it's important to compare like with like.
On this forum we compare by the 'percentage of calories' that come from carbs. And the advice is to feed diabetic kitties foods that have less than 10% of calories from carbs. This is also the way that Dr Pierson does her calculations.

The challenge with US foods though is that the 'Guaranteed Analysis' data on the product label just guarantees minimum or maximum values for protein, fat, moisture, etc, and doesn't give the 'actual' values. To get the current values we nearly always need to contact the manufacturer and ask for them. Occasionally, if we're lucky, a 'typical analysis' may be found on the manufacturer's website.
It doesn't matter if the current values from the manufacturer are wet or dry, since water has no calories and doesn't affect the calculation.

Having got the current data you can do the calculation manually or use a simple online calculator to do the work for you.
The calculation works like this:
From the label data (or manufacturer's website) add up the percentages for protein, fat, ash, fibre and moisture.
Deduct that total from 100% and that will give you the carb percentage of the food by weight.
Then you have percentages by weight for protein, fat, carbs, ash, fibre, and moisture.

Multiply the protein and carb %'s x 3.5
Multiply the fat % by 8.5
That will give you the calories from each of those per 100g of food.
Add those up to give you total calories per 100g.

The final part of the calculation can be done a few different ways, this is one:
Divide the 'calories from carbs' per 100g by the 'total calories' per 100g, and then multiply by 100.
That should give you the 'percentage of calories' from carbs.

Alternatively, FDMB member Hellolucy has put together this calculator which should calculate 'percentage of calories' effortlessly.
If you click the link and open in Google sheets you can save a copy for your own use. You just enter the percentages for protein, fat, etc in the first column, and the percentage of calories from carbs should appear in the box on the bottom right of the calculation.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NOyUfaKxNa580Wnz-0c0_kRQgvlMJgnu/view

Eliz

 

A great treat you should try is Pure Bites. It is just dehydrated protien... My cat loves the chicken one and the duck one.

 

Not sure if it is available locally. I will look.
I go in the Pet store locally and have a deer in the headlight look.
So much is not good for our sugar babies.

Just googled it. I think I have seen that at Walmart.
Might be at Pet Valu.
Roops has issues with whitefish and other fishy stuff.
Ends up loosey goosey.
Hard sometimes to avoid it.
In most products.
I will look for chicken or turkey flavored Pure Bites.
Thanks for recommending it.

 

Doesn't have to be that brand, but any dehydrated meat snacks where that is the only ingredient