Difference in Analysis between Cat Food Db and Catinfo?

[Annieca2016]

So continues my semi-annual hunt for the best wet food I can afford for my girls. Usually I use the Catinfo spreadsheet and filter for less than 15% carbs, greater than 40% protein, and less than 50% fat. But it doesn't have some of the newer foods like Tiki Cat After Dark, so I go to Cat Food DB.

But I noticed that the dry matter analysis numbers are different for the same food. For example, Fancy Feasts Natural White Meat Chicken Pate on the CatInfo spreadsheet has an analysis of 75% protein, 25% fat, 0% carbs. But Cat Food DB has the dry matter analysis (same thing the CatInfo spreadsheet is based off of) at 41%/23%/12%. I understand CatInfo hasn't been updated since 2017, but could there really be that much of a quality decline in 4 years?

Fancy Feast Gourmet Naturals White Meat Chicken Cat Food Review - for CatFoodDB
Cat Food Database - for Catinfo

 

[Maurey]

It definitely can, and does. If in doubt, check a can in sale currently, via chewy or Amazon, and see which listing is closer to the truth. Some of the decline in quality can be attributed to Covid shortages, especially if catfooddb is very up to date.

ETA: looking at the composition of the food on Purina’s website, it looks like the carb content on catfooddb is a guess based on what’s unaccounted for in their nutritional breakdown (i.e. all the missing % is carbs), nevermind the ingredients not reflecting that. The protein is definitely lower than it previously was, but only Purina knows what the unnacounted 2.7% in their guaranteed analysis is. Perhaps they think their protein and fat percentages can vary that much between cans.
Based on the ingredients, it shouldn’t be carbs. Even so, I wouldn’t feed this food because of the fish (the lack of specificity with their ingredients isn’t great either, imo, but forgivable on budget foods), especially not on a regular basis. Imo you can find foods with better quality ingredients for the price.

 

[lisahe]

Based on the two sites, I'm sure some differences arise because they're using different data for their calculations. (This pretty much echoes what Maurey says, but here are quotes!) But the big thing is that Dr. Pierson's carb numbers are no longer dry matter, they're percent of calories from protein/fat/carbs. So data from the two charts aren't comparable. I'd forgotten about this myself! I'm so used to dry matter that I never stopped reading Dr. P's data as dry matter. Oops.

(I have an actual food question for you at the bottom, A Annieca2016 , if you want to skip the chart information!)

From Dr. Pierson:

There's also this: I don't trust guaranteed analysis numbers (which is what Catfooddb used) at all for these sorts of calculations.

As Dr. P says about the numbers she uses (TNA data) and GA data:

To their credit, Catfooddb does note that GA numbers aren't precise:

On to actual food! What is your budget for food, A Annieca2016 ? I'm also always on the lookout for foods with low carbs and low prices, though they're hard to find, particularly since there are lots of ingredients I can't or won't feed. Sheba pates aren't bad (Dr. P puts them at around 3%) and our cats love them, which is always a plus. I also feed the Sheba cuts (which are carbier) once a week. Some of Weruva's BFF (and other) foods are relatively inexpensive and low-carb; Weruva has tons of nutritional information so you can sort the data however you like. Our cats especially like some of Chewy's foods: Here's chicken/turkey, which Chewy says is 5.55% dry matter carbs. These foods are essentially a Tiki knockoff... but our cats like them better than Tiki! Prices on all those vary.

Good luck with your quest for foods!

 

[Annieca2016]

So for my two girls, I'd like to stay close to $100 a month for all food. (Which makes me cringe sometimes, but these kitties gotta live forever!) They get some dry because let's face it, I'm not one to enjoy two paws to the eyes at 4 am when they want noms, so they have a dry automatic feeder for that time. Currently they're getting 3/8th a cup of Instinct Raw Boost Healthy Weight and some days they get a can each of Fancy Feast Naturals, and some days they get half of a 5 oz can of Weruva's Cats in the Kitchen Chicken Frick-A-Zee.

I have this crazy spreadsheet (Cat Food Price Breakdown) with the company, variety, can size, case size, price, cost per can, calories per can, cans needed per day (for 2 cats), cost per day, cans needed per month, cases needed per month, and cost per month. I used Dr. P's database and restricted it to her recommendations of <40 protein, <50 fat, and <15 carb and went from there, adding a few more based on CatfoodDB (like American Journey Landmark). It looks like if not Fancy Feast, Tiki Cat Koolina Luau or Tiki Cat Puka Puka Luau might be my best bet based on all that number crunching.

 

[Heart For Cats]

I don't have access to the Cat Food Price Database Annie. Can you post the Tiki Cat numbers?

 

[Annieca2016]

Company	Variety	Can Size	Case Size	Price (Chewy)	Cost per can	Calories per can	Cans needed per day (for 2 cats)	Cost per day	Cans per month	Cases per month	Cost per month
Tiki Cat	Koolina Luau	10 oz	8	27.29	3.41	248	1	3.41125	30	3.75	102.34
Tiki Cat	Puka Puka Luau	10 oz	8	28.73	3.60	245	1	3.59125	30	3.75	107.74
Tiki Cat	Puka Puka Luau	6 oz	8	19.09	2.39	147	2	4.7725	60	7.5	143.16
Tiki Cat After Dark	Duck and Chicken Liver	3 oz	12	23.99	1.99	100	2.5	4.99	75	6.25	149.93
Tiki Cat	Koolina Luau	6 oz	8	20.04	2.505	149	2	5.01	60	7.5	150.30

That was assuming 125 calories per cat from wet food a day (so 250 calories total). Hope this helps!

 

[lisahe]

A Annieca2016 , it sounds like you feed your cats a lot like we do. (Except I don't have a spreadsheet like yours! I also couldn't access it but those data on Tiki, ouch!) Like you, I feed our two a tiny nighttime snack... except I feed them when I get up in the night because the autofeeder is trouble. (They did well with it for a week or so but then mauled it: they scratched at it, banged it around, and learned how to open it while they were "waiting" for their nocturnal meal.)

But I digress! Tiki's very good food, though it's expensive. Then again, there's more meat in the cans than in the Chewy knockoff. The again, our cats like the Chewy food better so less/nothing gets wasted. We've gone through several love-hate-love cycles with Tiki in the almost eight years we've had the cats. I think some of the cats' changes of heart have to do with Tiki's changes of recipe. For us, a lot of the decisions come down to what the cats will eat. Only one of their daily meals is canned, a good thing since they like their homemade cooked and commerical raw foods a lot more. They also love their dry nighttime snack food: Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein chicken.