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Is it best to go w/ highest amount? Example is Soulistic's Chick. & Pumpkin w/ only 8% Crude Protein -- vs their Chicken in Gravy w/ 10% Crude Prot. (only Chicken in it, w/ no Pumpkin added as a filler) -- thus a higher amount due to no filler from the Pumpkin (a non-Protein but rather Carb containing source).
I assume the pure, Chicken in Gravy, is better as it is 10% Crude Protein & Obligate Carnivores (such as cats) need higher levels of Protein -- NOT filler as in Pumpkin or veggies, etc.
It is best to not put too much stock in that protein number as it doesn't give you any indication of the quality or source of protein. It includes plant proteins which cats are metabolically unable to utilize, and that can give you a false picture of how much usable protein is in a food.
The best thing to do is read the ingredients. I personally don't feed either of the foods you mentioned because I don't like pumpkin and tapioca starch so high up in the list of a food supposedly designed for obligate carnivores.
My Neighbor goes to the store and gets Ham Salad for his cats, because it has more meat in it, and its cheaper than the can food!! And, if he ever gets hungry, he can have a sandwhich too ROTFLOL
I feed both of my kitties canned Wellness foods. Grain free, lots of meat that are the very first items in the ingredients list. They love it and have very shiny coats and excellent health.
It really depends upon what else is in it, what your cat will eat, etc. BTW, that protein amount is based on the food having a certain amount of moisture in it. Presumably on a dry matter basis the protein amount would be quite high. I don't know how to figure the dry matter basis off the top of my head (you can look this up, or maybe someone else will post a link), but this will also give you a way to get an idea of how many calories are in the food. (The moisture doesn't have any calories. ) This is important because some canned foods have significantly fewer calories per can than others, usually due to higher moisture content. Nothing wrong with that necessarily but you want to make sure your cat is getting enough food.
Of the two you mentioned, assuming the moisture content is the same, then the gravy should have more meat in it than the pumpkin one. And while there's nothing wrong with your cat having some pumpkin, it's generally not necessary on a regular basis so more meat is probably better.
And yes, the protein number by itself will contain some protein from plants. This is how you get food like a certain dry Hill's Prescription Diet noted on the forum recently which has 40% protein (remember, dry basis, that canned chicken is going to have much more than 10% on a dry basis so you don't compare the 10 to the 40 directly) and almost no actual meat-based sources of it. It's mostly from corn and wheat gluten, not good quality sources for a carnivore as noted. Corn, wheat and soy are about the last things you want in your cat's food. Potatoes, rice, not beneficial but maybe tolerable. Pumpkin has been noted as useful from time to time, but I don't think you'd need it constantly in the food. The key is to think about all the ingredients in there. In a canned food it should be mainly a meat source and then a bunch of supplements which are added back in after the food is cooked. A few of the supplements can be suspect (a source of vitamin K, sometimes listed that way or sometimes as menadione sodium bisulfite, is controversial, for example).
It where the protein is coming from, meat or plant derived. Best way to judge that is to know how much carbohydrates are in the food, as that also reflects the plant levels.
To find the dry matter percentage of anything in a cat food, divide the nutrient in question, (protein in this instance) by the dry matter percentage, multiply by 100.
For example: Soulistic good karma chicken and gravy
Protein is listed at 10 %. Moisture is listed at 84 % which means the dry matter percentage is 16 %. So you divide .10 by .16 and get .625. Multiply by 100 and get 62.5 % protein.
This gives the Soulistic good karma Chicken and Gravy a dry matter percentage of 62.5 % protein, which is very good.
This can be done for dry foods too, that is best way to do comparisons for dry/wet foods.
PS as said above, the source of the protein matters too, for cats. I don't know the carb percentage for soulistic.
Here's a link I found for determining carbohydrates in cat food. I do not know if it is accurate or not, I'm out of time to play around with this at the moment.
Maybe someone else can do some calculations and check their results with known lists and let us know if it is accurate.
PS I did a quick calculate for the Soulistic I was using above. It came out to 2.4 % carbohydrates. That is very good. It also listed the calories, 53 for 100 grams of food. The can contains 156 grams, and is listed as...84 calories (I think?) so that sounds very close.
<edit> just looked it up on the soulistic website, the 5.5 oz can of good karma has 94 calories and the 3 oz can has 54 calories. hmm....well I really have to go, so can't comment any more now.
Last edited by catsmom21; 11-09-2011 at 12:34 PM..
Reason: to add
Here's a link I found for determining carbohydrates in cat food. I do not know if it is accurate or not, I'm out of time to play around with this at the moment.
Maybe someone else can do some calculations and check their results with known lists and let us know if it is accurate.
PS I did a quick calculate for the Soulistic I was using above. It came out to 2.4 % carbohydrates. That is very good. It also listed the calories, 53 for 100 grams of food. The can contains 156 grams, and is listed as...84 calories (I think?) so that sounds very close.
<edit> just looked it up on the soulistic website, the 5.5 oz can of good karma has 94 calories and the 3 oz can has 54 calories. hmm....well I really have to go, so can't comment any more now.
It is not very accurate. I made a chart with the carbohydrate level of foods on a dry matter basis, the numbers were provided by the companies. If you want it, send me a message with your email address, and I'll email it to you.
It is not very accurate. I made a chart with the carbohydrate level of foods on a dry matter basis, the numbers were provided by the companies. If you want it, send me a message with your email address, and I'll email it to you.
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) This is important because some canned foods have significantly fewer calories per can than others, usually due to higher moisture content. Nothing wrong with that necessarily but you want to make sure your cat is getting enough food.
