I am trying a diet change for my newly diagnosed diabetic 12 year old kitty. I am hoping to avoid insulin injections. I have always fed him Purina One Urinary Tract Formula dry food and a can of Whiskas at night. I bought some Fancy Feast and thankfully he likes it. I would still like to give him a bit of dry food too. Are there any low carb dry foods? I am also going to change all 4 cats over to low carb too as they are all 10+ years old. Also, any suggsstions on how long a change in blood sugar levels would take if they even will change? Planning to get bloodwork crom vet and make some phone calls.
Beware- you are going to get an earful from this board about how dry cat food is the devil.
But my cats look fabulous on a wet/ dry diet (even the one who can’t have wet and gets all dry). I feed Nature’s Variety Instinct- grain and gluten free and I use the single sourced protein/carb kind. I see that you are in Oxford- I get mine from Feed and Lumber.
It’s dated 2008 so this chart is a bit out of date, but it might give you a point to start your research.
FWIW, I feed Wellness Core kibble in addition to low carb canned food.
Why wait until they’re all 10? When it comes to preventing problems like diabetes, it’s never too early to start.
[QUOTE=Maude;7439280]
I am trying a diet change for my newly diagnosed diabetic 12 year old kitty. I am hoping to avoid insulin injections. I have always fed him Purina One Urinary Tract Formula dry food and a can of Whiskas at night. I bought some Fancy Feast and thankfully he likes it. I would still like to give him a bit of dry food too. Are there any low carb dry foods? I am also going to change all 4 cats over to low carb too as they are all 10+ years old. Also, any suggsstions on how long a change in blood sugar levels would take if they even will change? Planning to get bloodwork crom vet and make some phone calls.[/QUOTE]
So yup, I’m going to give you an earful. Sorry.
Dry food is not good for cats. Sure they can live long lives with it, so can people who are chain smokers until they die of something unrelated at 80. Does that make it ok?
Cats are meant to eat meat, they are obligate carnivores. Lions, tigers, ocelots and lynxes are not fed big bowls of kibble at the zoo for a reason. They are meat-eaters, and so are domestic cats.
If you truly want to avoid future health problems with your cats, you need to feed them the best diet possible. Just like you could probably sustain yourself on McDonald’s and frozen dinners for a long time, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
Basically when you go into the pet food store, the cheap stuff is cheap for a reason. Look for “grain-free” labels on canned food. Some good brands are Nature’s Variety, Tiki Cat, EVO, Wellness, Before Grain, Blue Buffalo… look at the ingredients list - there should be very little “filler” - it should be meat, meat broth, and vitamins/minerals for the most part. That’s it. Cats don’t need wheat, corn, eggs, blueberries, peas, carrots, cranberries, etc etc etc etc…
My 14-yr old geriatric cat just got his bloodwork done in preparation for a basic dental. The change in him since I switched him to raw and grain-free canned 5 years ago is nothing short of miraculous (and he didn’t have any major issues back then, either). He no longer has crystals in his urine, his bloodwork is pretty much perfect and comparable to a 4-yr old’s, he is lean, shiny and insanely active (plays and bolts around the house like a kitten), he is more affectionate than ever and purrs about 75% more than he used to, and louder.
The vet techs and vet all marveled at his coat and muscle tone for a 14-yr old cat. They were floored. My vet told them “it’s cuz she feeds him properly!!”. She is very supportive of my choice to feed a species-appropriate diet to my cats, and I love her for it.
Another thing - cats are not “grazers” the way horses are, k? They are meant to gorge themselves on a kill and then fast until they hunt and kill their next prey, which is often not until the next day. So their metabolism is not designed to process little quantities of food on a constant basis every day, it’s not healthy for them. This is doubly important if your cats are indoor-only.
Please browse this site, which is very informative. http://www.rawfedcats.org/toxic.htm
Good luck. 
Cost is not a concern. My indoor cats have eaten Hills C/D diet for over 10 years after one suffered a blockage. Pippin at 16 is the picture of health and Squeaker at 10 looks great too although a bit “fluffy” as she like her extra pounds referred to. Barn cats have been eating Purina One Urinary Tract Formula dry food for years. My 12 year old Frodo (barn cat) has had gum disease forever and without going into the whole history what is left of his teeth are loose enough to pull. He has a grade 4 of 6 heart murmer and bloodwork is fine except he is now dosed diabetic. But, steroids, infection and stress (going to the vet) can elevate BS also. Now that I am researching feline diabetes, I realize that my well intended (and very expensive) feeding program is not the best thing for the kids. I want to change to a healthier diet, but they have lived their lives with free choice dry food. I am just looking for a way to let them graze just a WEE bit. (Yeah, I get it, they aren’t horses.) I did buy a bag of Nutresca low glycemic cat food at the grocery store and Frodo seems to like it. Anyone know anything about this food? An interesting observation: the Menagerie forum has a very different tone than the Dressage forum. Thanks for all your input!
WHY do you want to feed dry food? or let them “graze”? neither is at all good for cats, so what is your motivation here? often people’s methods of feeding their animals are all about themselves and have nothing to do with the animal’s needs.
you wouldn’t decide to feed your horse “free choice” grain, now would you, even if the horse really wanted to have free access to the grain-bin? and why wouldn’t you? because you KNOW it will be very bad for your horse.
[QUOTE=wendy;7439634]
WHY do you want to feed dry food? or let them “graze”? neither is at all good for cats, so what is your motivation here? often people’s methods of feeding their animals are all about themselves and have nothing to do with the animal’s needs.
you wouldn’t decide to feed your horse “free choice” grain, now would you, even if the horse really wanted to have free access to the grain-bin? and why wouldn’t you? because you KNOW it will be very bad for your horse.[/QUOTE]
Cats aren’t horses. I wouldn’t give my horse free choice because he would eat himself to death. I wouldn’t feed my dogs free choice, because they would eat themselves to death (seriously, they’ve tried, my lab ate over 10lbs of dog food after a cat opened the bag for her). My cats are much smarter than that and in the past have done very well on free choice dry supplemented with canned food. I no longer free feed because of my allergy cat, but the other two do get fed dry when they ask for it.
OP- I really like the wellness core dried food, it goes over very well with my picky kitty and both cats do vert well on it.
All of our dogs and cats are on Wellness Core. Happy, healthy animals. 10 Year old BC has been on Wellness Core or Innova Evo for most of his life and people can’t believe his age. High energy, no greying around the face and luxurious coat.
If you are looking for low carb, I would feed raw. If time is an issue for you, try pre-made frozen raw or freeze dried raw which you add water to. I am agreeing with the above posters who say that dry food is bad for cats- it is bad for cats! Grazing is also not ideal for cats. I have two cats, Simba and Reagan. I used to feed a mixture of “quality” dried food- Nature’s Variety instinct and Wellness CORE and some wet food from the same brands daily. Both cats were overweight. Mind you, I fed the least amount suggested for their weights and activity level. In addition to the weight, they also were shedding a lot and pooped twice daily. Now that I’ve switched to prey model raw feeding, the cats don’t poop often, and when they do it is small and not stinky- indicating that they are absorbing more nutrients. They are also now both at an appropriate weight and their teeth are better as well. If raw feeding is not an option for you then at least switch over to all wet food or frozen raw food. There is usually less carbs in wet cat food. Here is a website about wet food/ premade raw options:
http://www.naturalcatcareblog.com/2010/12/the-7-best-natural-commercial-cat-foods-so-far/
Costco’s Kirkland dry cat food is grain free so should be low carb though I am just investigating it now.
Some years ago, my vet told me that CSU was doing a study and had found that some cats with diabetes could be completely cured of their diabetes by going on a canned food diet - that related to the carbs, I’m sure. Well, probably with the moisture content, too.
Get rid of the dry. Dry food is not good for cats in general and is really not a good choice for a diabetic.
Grain free does not equal low carb
In fact, if anything it can mean higher carb. Depends on the food. Think about it. Dry food is like a meatloaf. You need some kind of binder. Usually this is grains–in crap foods that’s corn and/or wheat, in good foods it’s rice or sometimes oats or barley. So when you remove grains from food you have to use something instead and what is usually used is potato. Which is higher carb? Rice or potato?
Some GF foods add enough protein to compensate and are low carb–although not as low as a raw diet or a good canned diet. Evo and Orijen are the two I know that are high protein low carb. Evo is lower in carb than Orijen but Orijen is close.
But then you have foods like Natural Balance which has carbs through the roof. In fact if you look at their GF recipes you’ll often see Potato is the first ingredient.
I got all of this from the Whole Dog Journal. But you can also figure it out for yourself just be estimating %carbs. It can be a little tricky because the companies don’t always give you all the %of ingredients. The formula is
%other stuff + %carbs = 100%
other stuff = protein, fat, fiber, moisture, ash, anything else I might be forgetting that is a % of the ingredients
Therefore:
%carbs = 100% - %other stuff
And I agree with others. Cats don’t need dry food. If possible just feed your cats 3 meals a day of wet food. They’ll get used to it.
Earthborn Holistics grain free dry is 17% carbohydrate. Orijen is 18%. Those are about the lowest dry % I’ve come across.
In short, no, not low enough.
A cat should get no more than 7% of its total calories from carbs. For a diabetic, you want to stay under 5%. I don’t know of any dry that meets that number. Even diabetic formulas don’t; Hill’s is 13%. Even if there was one low enough, you’re still running a huge risk of urinary problems from feeding dry food, and those are life threatening and not fun to deal with. Ask me how I know…
if cost is not an option, do a freeze dried raw kibble. It is VERY VERY low carb, but still a dry nugget.
http://vitalessentialsraw.herokuapp.com/pages/products?species=Cat
I would feed this food in a heartbeat- if I could afford it. I use it as a treat.
My parents 19 year old diabetic cat gets EVO canned food, venison or chicken I think. NO dry at all. She gets very sick on dry now because of the carbs.
She gets fed twice a day and is just dandy.
