for an individualized program consult with a holistic veterinarian i recommend a high
moisture diet to keep up the cat's fluid levels do not feed dry food alone kidney problems are
accelerated by a diet of dry food that too many people feed their animals hey friends it's
jess and jericho and that was quote by dr jean hofve from the book the veterinarian's guide to
natural remedies for cats this is part two of my ckd series part one was about pre-made raw
and lightly cooked options i'll put that video in the top right corner and in the description below
so in this video we're gonna talk about low phosphorus wet cat food that you and your cat's
doctor should discuss i am not a doctor i cannot provide individual advice through video and in
youtube comments even if i was a doctor so again you have to take this information to your cat's
doctor because every cat is an individual so you and your cat's veterinarian have to come up with a
wellness plan that works for your individual cat so according to vca hospitals a low phosphorus
diet for cats with kidney disease would mean that the phosphorus level is between 0.3
and 0.6 percent on a dry matter basis so i use dr lisa pierson's cat food database and you can sort
it by phosphorus level right here or you can sort it by carbs you can sort it by protein i sorted
by phosphorus since that's what we're concerned with when it comes to ckd cats so i looked through
this and tried to find the best that i could with the lowest phosphorus so since this was compiled
in 2017 i went to the manufacturer's website and dug around for the nutritional information because
it's 2022 right now so we want to make sure that we have the most updated information so i suggest
that you do the same the first low phosphorus wet cat food that we'll look at is weruva i don't know
how to pronounce that but so here we have the with beef and pumpkin and gravy so that's a con
right there with means that the beef and pumpkin composition is less than 25% combined the minimum
requirement is three percent but it's less than 25% otherwise it would say beef and pumpkin dinner
or beef and pumpkin entree so that's a con right there right off the bat but in the ingredients we
see beef broth beef i think that's it for meat ingredients so you know it's still better than
meat byproducts or mystery meats at least it tells you beef broth beef and there's also pumpkins
sweet potato potato starch carrot you know these things are going to add carbs to the food but when
we're looking at ckd you know we might need higher fat higher protein and these vegetables can also
add some fiber to the diet to help everything move out but so for the nutritional information
right here you see under guaranteed analysis it says detailed nutrition information so i'm going
to click on that and then it's going to tell us all the products that they have they're going to
tell us the me metabolized energy as fed but you want to look at dry matter basis dry matter basis
means remove the moisture so we have to compare cat foods on a dry matter basis because dry and
wet foods have vastly different moisture contents so we're gonna look down to oh hey jericho he's
like all right fine i'll join your video and just clean my butt so so we're looking at steak frites
and let's see this is minerals uh dry matter basis okay so steak frites we look at phosphorus this
is actually the one with the lowest phosphorus 0.57 percent on a dry matter basis remember vca
hospitals says between 0.3 and 0.6 so that's within this range the protein on a dry matter
basis is 61% that's great that actually is exactly what mice provide so you're still sticking to the
cat's natural diet although some of the protein probably comes from the pumpkin and stuff because
of the aafco product name rule fat is good carbs 7.5% on a dry matter basis so that's really good
uh typically you won't find less than 10% unless you're making raw food at home so 7.5%
is definitely more ideal than the average which is you know upwards of 30 or 50 percent especially
when you're talking about dry food the next low phosphorus wet cat food that we'll look at is
wellness healthy indulgence chicken and chicken liver this has the same product name with chicken
and chicken liver so that means the minimum requirement of chicken and chicken liver combined
is three percent and it's less than 25% otherwise it would say chicken and chicken liver dinner or
chicken and chicken lover recipe or entree would have one of those descriptive words when you see
with it means between three and 25 well three and twenty four point nine percent has to be less than
twenty five anyway scroll down to the ingredients so chicken broth water sufficient for processing
chicken chicken liver so again that's good they're telling you that there's muscle meat but they're
not saying poultry meal they tell you chicken chicken broth chicken and instead of saying
poultry by products they say chicken liver so they're telling you the animal and the byproducts
that's being used that's what you want to see very specific ingredients then there's also eggs again
and eggs is a great source of protein but it's very low in phosphorus and eggs are actually
known as the ideal protein they are the most bioavailable protein so that's going to be
easy for your cat to digest then there's cons potato starch guar gum which is a thickening
agent the xanthan gum is another thickening agent but there's no carrageenan so maybe
that's a kind of a con but also kind of good because they aren't using the carcinogenic
thickening agent you'll also see some some other inappropriate ingredients potato starch and
white sweet potatoes blueberries but again these are all cons that are in most commercial cat foods
and frankly you're going to see way worse cons in the prescription foods but that's just my opinion
and for nutrient profiles it says nutrient profile is available here click on that and this is going
to tell us the dry matter basis of the composition so we're going to look at this section here is in
the middle that's what aafco requires and then on the right is what their product contains so
for protein on a dry matter basis is 37% that's a con because that's pretty low but again with
most commercial cat foods this is this is the reality of it all so uh you know you're gonna have
to deal with that when you're feeding commercial foods and the carbohydrates again that's not ideal
23% that's double what ideal would be which is ideally less than 10% but if we look
at the phosphorus on a dry matter basis it's at 0.55% so that's within what vca
hospitals recommends the next low phosphorus wet cat food that we'll look at is soulistic
this is their good karma pouch and the product name is chicken dinner so this is the first one
that we've looked at that fits under that 25% minimum requirement of chicken so you see this
says chicken dinner instead of saying with chicken so this product has the most chicken compared to
the other two so we'll look at the ingredients chicken chicken broth i think that's it for
meat ingredients so a con here would be this one doesn't include liver so you'll have to weigh out
which one you think is more appropriate and then there's xanthan gum another thickening agent this
one is basically just chicken water and vitamins and minerals which isn't ideal but again when
you're looking at the larger picture comparing dry food to wet food wet food's always going to win
so yes maybe this food isn't 100% ideal but when compared to dry food if this is your only option
this is still going to be better so right here where it says complete nutritional information
linked page that's what you want to click on i looked at other cat foods in the database
and this information wasn't available so again you have to contact the manufacturer for this
information or dig around for it on their website so we're going to scroll down to dry matter basis
and we were looking at good karma pouches and this is a big difference because they also have a good
karma can that has completely different values so make sure you're looking at the right product
when you're doing this pouches good karma protein 55% that's great fat 13% that's lower than what it
should be with mice and other rodents and birds generally you'll find that the fat is half the
amount of protein so an ideal number here would be something more like 25 to 30% and then you'll see
this is why that there's low fat because the carbs are really high so 27% carbs slightly higher than
the one that we just looked at but the phosphorus here is 0.68% on a dry matter basis technically
it's higher than the 0.3 to 0.6% range but there weren't that many options on the cat food database
that i used you know by dr lisa pierson but again you're gonna have to take these options
to your cat's doctor to figure out a plan that works for your individual cat and then you can
check out this video right over meow to transition your cat to his new wet food thanks for watching