Newcomer Jackson - Found Low-Carb Foods

Hello - My cat Jackson was diagnosed with diabetes three weeks ago. He's started on Lantus and I've been working on getting better canned and dry food choices into the household. I've got four cats and for one I haven't yet got her to delve into anything canned, but I continue to work on that as I'd like to elimate as much dry food as possible from the household.

Jackson is now on three canned meals a day and he gets Halo Indoor Cat Grain-Free Turkey & Duck, which the manufacturer tells me is .01% carbohydrates. For dry, we re in the process of transitioning over 7 days to Wellness Core Natural Grain-Free Original Turkey, Turkey Meal & Chicken Meal Dry Cat Food. If you go to the manufacturer's web site and download the nutitional info PDF file, you'll see the the carbohydrates are 13.04% As Fed and 14.17% Dry Matter bases. This is lower than the Pro Plan Veterinary DM dry.

If you look into these brands, you'll find the carbs very alot by specific product. For example when talking to the Wellness Core folks, one of their dry products was 35% carbs, another 25%, so the exact formulation does make a difference.

As stated elsewhere on this forum and as you vet should be able to tell you, changing to much lower carb foods may well result in a big drop in blood glucose levels. So work with your vet on this and be sure you are testing frequently and doing glucose curves. My vet's had me do two in the last couple of weeks to help keep a close eye on this. You don't want your cat to get very dangerous hypoglycemia nor do you want a Somogyi effect happening.

One thing about buying food from Petco and Petsmart which I just caught onto recently - their prices for the same product in the store may well be more than their online price. Take a snapshot of the online price you want them to match up to the cash register when you buy in the store. I've saved up to 30 cents a can sometimes by doing this. Best to all-

 

Welcome! Is that Halo Grain-Free Turkey & Duck the one they used to call 'Spot's Pate'? If so, it is 5% carbs which is not bad. It is a little lower in protein (36%) and higher in fat (59%) than is ideal though. Dr. Pierson (catinfo.org) recommends starting with a minimum of 40% protein and a maximum of 50% fat. Please see the link to the cat food database in my signature. That is her food chart. What you want is the metabolizable energy (ME) profile.. the percentage of calories that come from protein, fat, and carbohydrates. Manufacturers do not usually provide that info, at least not without you contacting them for it.

If you must continue feeding dry food, you may want to consider Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein Chicken which is 4 to 5% carbs or Young Again Zero which has only trace carbs (though it has been known to cause runny, stinky poop for many cats). It is best if you can keep carbs under 10% but often even lower than that is best.

I'm glad to hear that you are testing at home. That is so important!

 

No, the Halo Grain-Free Turkey & Duck is the product as stated in my original post. Your thinking that it is the same as another product is incorrect. Pet food manufacturers typically offer numerous products which can vary significanly from a nutritional perspective within their own product line. As mentioned in my post, the manufacturer told me is .01% carbohydrates. I've done alot of research on cat foods, have seen lists from various resources and I like to phone the manufacturers to get the most current information from them. I am sharing that information because I think it's great news that someone is making a canned food that is virtually carb free and I think this might help others.

 

Actually, It IS the food that used to be called Spot's Pate. The product has recently undergone a change. You will find this information as well as side-by-side photos of the old and new cans here: https://www.chewy.com/halo-turkey-duck-recipe-grain-free/dp/104926 I see the Dry Matter Basis % of carbs is listed as 0.1% on their site (https://halopets.com/products/halo-grain-free-indoor-cat-turkey-duck-pate); however, as I mentioned before, what you want is the metabolizable energy (ME) profile... the percentage of calories that come from protein, fat, and carbohydrates. It is great that you research foods and call the manufacturers. You just have to be very specific when talking to them to make sure you get the percentage of calories that come from protein, fat and carbs. This is not normally the way they want to give you the info, but many will if you specifically ask for it. Usually, doing so in writing such as via email is better than on the phone so that it is very clear what you asked for and what their response was.

Either way, the food is definitely low carb. There are actually many good no or very low carb wet food options available. I'm glad you found something that works for you and Jackson.

 

@Jackson The Loving
Kudos to you for contacting the manufacturer for information! You can use the information the manufacturer gave you, but you need to do a little math to end up with the information you need.

For example, here's an explanation given by @Marje and Gracie on how to calculate the nutritional composition of cat food for another member using information supplied by Merrick for their Purrfect Bistro Grain Free Morsels Cowboy Cookout: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...onal-content-of-cat-food.201750/#post-2254744. While the foods are different, the math used is the same.

Like @FurBabiesMama mentioned, the Halo Indoor Cat Grain-Free Turkey & Duck comes out to be around 5% carbs, 36% protein, and 59% fat. I feed my cats raw food for the most part, but I do give them commercial canned food once or twice a week for no other reason than I want them to continue to recognize canned food as food just in case something happens and I'm not able to feed them raw for some reason. Since they like the Halo Turkey and Duck I usually supplement with raw food when I give it to them to boost the percentage of protein.

FurBabiesMama offered some better choices if you must feed dry.

Congratulations on initiating a change to low carb food and testing Jackson's blood sugar at home! You're off to a good start. Please post any other questions you may have on Feline Health - (The Main Forum) and be sure to check out the "sticky" posts marked with yellow tags in the Lantus/Basaglar (glargine) and Levemir (detemir) Insulin Support Group for current information on using Lantus with diabetic cats.

Welcome to the FDMB... hope to see you posting often!


Edited to add: You might be interested in this Info post Marje created tonight:
Calculating % Calories from Carbohydrates