For Those Of You Figuring Carbs

sunflower7

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so today I was on 2 sites:
this one that has a carb calculator
http://scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html
and this one that has a chart catinfo.org

and there's a BIG discrepency. I am not sure which one is correct because I know so little, but as an example, on the calculator, I type in the info and get, say 2% wet matter carbs, and 8% dry matter carbs and on the CHART, she lists the SAME food as 23% carb

so anyone else ever notice this? just another "don't believe everything you read" I guess?


What I've settled on, and boiled it down to, is that ANY wet food I give is better than dry( which will remain maybe 20% of their diet, used to be maybe 30-40%) which we KNOW are higher in carbs than cans
 

Furballsmom

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Maybe look at if either or both are outdated? --not sure about the calculator...
What I've settled on, and boiled it down to, is that ANY wet food I give is better than dry( which will remain maybe 20% of their diet, used to be maybe 30-40%) which we KNOW are higher in carbs than cans
This sure gets my vote :lovecat3:
 

duckpond

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could be a mistake on either one, it happens. what is the food, i will look too. :)
 

Neo_23

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Dr. Pierson's way gives you protein/fat/carbs as a percentage of calories, whereas the guaranteed analysis gives it to you as a percentage of food weight including water. These should be different values.

The other thing to note is that Dr. Pierson called all of the companies to get exact values before doing her calculations, what is listed on food products are not exact values but rather minimums and maximums.
 

duckpond

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I forgot that she lists the % of calories that come from one of those ingredients, i think she use to give both figures, but last time simplified her list? Good Catch Neo_23. :) For a quick check i have been using the cat food database a lot lately, as i can check the ingredient list at the same time.. when you first start scrolling down she gives a pie chart that shows the % of calories in the food. Like Dr. Pierson. when you go further down you get the wet matter, and the dry matter analysis.

I like the all of the options, the online calculator, Dr. Pierson's site, and the cat food data base, i kind of check them against each other.

The main issue i have noticed, with the data base is she works off the information given on the can, kind of like we do, so she dosent always have the ash content figured in. That can make a difference in the final calculations, so i think some of her carb counts are too high.

CatFoodDB - Cat Food Reviews to help you find the best cat food for your cat
 
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sunflower7

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could be a mistake on either one, it happens. what is the food, i will look too. :)
It was with many of the foods I entered, at least 8 or 9 of them.
 
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sunflower7

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could be a mistake on either one, it happens. what is the food, i will look too. :)
2 I can remember: earthborn (chickens) and Tender and True cans
 

Neo_23

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There is no mistake, these are not comparable values. To get Dr. P.'s values you have to take the column that says "calories per 100g of nutrient" on the site that you linked to and divide it by the total calories per 100g of food.
 

duckpond

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These are just different ways of calculating the nutrition. i guess each of us decides which measurement makes most sense to us.

for example the Earthborn chicken catcciatori she shows us has 54% of the calories from protein, 27% from fat, and 20% from carbs.
http://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf

the same Earthborn chichen catcciatori on a dry matter basis has 56% protein, 11% fat, 8% fiber, 8% carbs, 17% ash in the 57 calorie per 100 gram serving.
Earthborn Holistic Chicken Catcciatori Cat Food Review

The online calculator for the chicken catcciatori tells us it has per 100 grams of food 58 calories, 35 of those calories are from protein, 17 calories from fat, and 5 calories from carbs.
Cat Food Nutrition Calculator | Elizabeth C Scheyder

The Cat food data base has a pie chart on each food, that shows the % of calories from each, and the DMB at the bottom. Look at some foods there, seeing the difference helped me understand a bit better about the different measurements and kind of how they relate. Someone better than me maybe can explain it better for us :)
 

Neo_23

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Wet matter and dry matter values give you carb values as a percentage of the weight of the food. Dr. P. gives the carb amount as a percentage of the calories. The latter is usually what is referred to when nutritionists state that a feline's total calorie intake should be roughly +50% protein, 30-40% fat, and <10% carbs.
 

duckpond

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2 I can remember: earthborn (chickens) and Tender and True cans
what i do, so i don't go crazy with all the different measurements, is use the calculator most of the time. It will get you in the ball park of where you need to be, in my opinion. there are minimums and maximums given, so it will be an estimate, but its close. And yes, most canned food will have less carbs than most wet foods. so if you dont like to play with the numbers, or it becomes stressful, just feed wet food that your cats like. :) Or use Dr. pierson's list, and feed off of it, or check the charts on the cat food data base. I didn't have time last night to explain the way i calculate, so i wanted to do that today.

I already have a base of wet and dry foods that i know about, so i only need to calculate, or check the list when i am deciding if i want to add in a new food i found, or not. Once you have decided on your basic foods its easier :)

I enter the information from the can in the calculator. I like for my protein calories in the calories per 100 grams to be higher than the fat calories. I punched in the numbers from the can of one of the foods i feed, Against the grain Caribbean chicken and cheese. the protein calories are 47, the fat calories are 17, the wet matter carbs are 2 and the total calories per 100 grams of food is 66. the dry matter carbs is 3. I like those numbers :) I will often stop here, if the food has more protein than fat, and the dry matter carbs is less than 10 i will normally feed the food.

If i want to know the percentage of protein or fat or carbs in the food its fairly easy to figure.
take the total calories per 100 grams of food and divide by the carb, or protein, or fat calories, which ever one you want to know the % it is of the total calories. once you get that number use 100 and divide by that number, that will give you the % of calories in the food from either the carbs, protein or fat. It will normally be close to Dr. Piersons numbers, but not always the same. I dont know if the min and max is the reason or not, maybe. I also get a big difference on the Earthborn chicken catcciatori when i calculate i get 8.62% calories from carbs?

with the against the grain chicken and cheese if i want to figure the % of calories from protein i would use the total calories 66 that the calculator gives me, and divide by the total protein calories 47 that gives me 1.40 then take 100 and divide by 1.40 that gives me 71.42% of those 66 calories is from protein. 66 divided by 47 = 1.40 then 100 divided by 1.40 gives us 71.42 % protein calories

with the carbs 66 divided by 2 is 33 100 divided by 33 is 3.03 which tells me 3.03% of those 66 calories of cat food is from carbs. you can do the same with the fat calories if you wish.

the calculator tells me the against the grain chicken and cheese has 71.42% protein calories , 25.77% fat calories, and 3.3% carb calories.
This is close enough for me to what Dr. Pierson gives on her list of 77% protein, 23% fat and 0 carbs
the min and max that we have from the labels may be where the difference is.
 
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sunflower7

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Thanks everyone ...I basically failed math a hundred years ago( I'm a blogger, so my brain is definitely not sharp in the math area) .
Can anyone tell me which line is lower carbs? Earthborn or weruva BUT ONLY the chicken or turkey no seafood?
 

duckpond

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Thanks everyone ...I basically failed math a hundred years ago( I'm a blogger, so my brain is definitely not sharp in the math area) .
Can anyone tell me which line is lower carbs? Earthborn or weruva BUT ONLY the chicken or turkey no seafood?
The lowest would Be Weruva paw lickin chicken and chicken frick a zee, some of their others are higher. my guys also like the tiki chicken flavors, those are very low carb. and the fussie cat super premium chicken and liver in pumpkin and chicken and beef in pumpkin soup. and the against the grain chicken and cheese
 

Neo_23

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If you just use Dr. Pierson’s chart it is pretty accurate. It only won’t be accurate for brands that have changed their formulas in the past year such as Nature’s Variety.
 
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sunflower7

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someone help? these are earthborn chicken caccitore I plugged in and compared to this chart which shows 20 % carbs, I am very confused? is it 20, 1.5, 8 or in between?


 

duckpond

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it is all of the above. confusing yes, because all of the numbers are measurments of different things, even though its carbs.

the carbs make up 1.5% of the food as a whole, in wet form straight from the can.. the can of food is made up of 10% protein, 1.5% carbs, 2% fat, 1.5% fiber, the is 82% of the can is water, and 3% is ash/minerals

If you suck all the moisture out of the food, just dry matter, then 8% of that 100 grams of dry food will be carbs.

20% is what Dr. Pierson says is the percentage of the total calories that comes from carbs. i suppose she could have a typo or miss figured the carbs on this food, im sure it happens. Or it may be that the minimum and maximum throws the calculation of this much, i dont know. And unless someone asks her, i don't think we will know. With my calculations i come much closer to her figures on all other foods, except for the earthborn poultry flavors. maybe their labels with their min and max are that much off. Dr. Pierson contacts the company and gets more exact figures, so im guessing she will be closer to the actual amounts than we can figure from the can. You may can email her the question? IDK or it could be the formula has changed, i dont know.

the way i figure the percentage of calories from carbs, using the can, does not equal 20% of the calories from carbs. But 8.6 percent of the calories from this product comes from carbs, catfood data base shows 9.2 % of the calories are from carbs, but she uses the can information, just like we do.

What i do to keep from going crazy with the numbers, is follow her chart, its easy, and i trust that she knows what she is doing. If a food is not on her list i use the data base and my own calculations. we can get close enough, unless you are feeding a diabetic cat. I am not feeding a diabetic cat, so i just try to make sure my carbs are as low as possible, dry matter basis, i stay below 10%, lower is better. If i were feeding a diabetic cat i think i would then go with either what my vet had me feed, or look at her chart for less than 10% of the calories from carbs foods. There are not many.

If your cats like this food, i dont see a problem putting it in a rotation with other, lower carb foods, i just dont think i would feed it every meal without further looking into the issue. But 20% calories from carbs is still lower than most any dry foods, and the protein to fat ratio is good! Just my opinion :)
 

Neo_23

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Dr. Pierson's values are based on percentage of total calories. So you have to take the protein/fat/carb calories per 100g and divide by the total calories per 100g.

For the carbs it would be 5/58 = ~9%.

The chart probably has different values because it has not been updated for a year and Earthborn probably changed their formula. The chart is also based on more accurate values provided by the companies when Dr. Pierson contacted them. Still, 9 and 20 percent are quite different so I'm guessing Earthborn changed their formula since last year.
 
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sunflower7

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Thank you so much! You explained it in a way my brain can actually understand.
yes, I may keep this in a rotation with some others like wellness, nulo...
I don't mind carbs changing as long as most are under 15%..and some are under 5%.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it so clearly.

Hoping my fat cat will lose a little weight from this. already my older cat has more energy! ( and I cut dry food down to about 2/3cup a day split between 3 cats, they love it and I don't think that's too much)
 

duckpond

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Thank you so much! You explained it in a way my brain can actually understand.
yes, I may keep this in a rotation with some others like wellness, nulo...
I don't mind carbs changing as long as most are under 15%..and some are under 5%.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it so clearly.

Hoping my fat cat will lose a little weight from this. already my older cat has more energy! ( and I cut dry food down to about 2/3cup a day split between 3 cats, they love it and I don't think that's too much)
glad i could help. it is confusing with all the different measurements. i think it would be fine in a rotation with other foods. The protein amount is over 50% which is important to me, and the fat is not too high, which is also important to me. I like for the majority of foods i feed to have more protein than fat, along with lower carbs. Cats need protein!
 
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