Sodium in cat food - tiki cat after dark

[mmin]

Hello!
I was wondering when we say a food has high sodium content, how high is high, how much is generally acceptable?
Also, does anyone know how to calculate/ find out the sodium content/ know if its acceptable or on the higher end for Tiki Cat after dark canned cat food?
Thank you!

 

[sivyaleah]

Not sure off hand good sodium levels, should be easy enough to Google but I do know if you go onto the website of any major brand of cat food you can pick up the entire nutrition profiles from their webpages.

 

[LTS3]

AAFCO only sets a minimum requirement of 0.2% in cat food. There is no maximum limit. A current NRC table lists a m minimum of 160 mg of sodium per 1000 kcal of ME with a recommended allowance of 170 mg.

Nutritional Requirements and Related Diseases of Small Animals - Management and Nutrition - Merck Veterinary Manual

Learn about the veterinary topic of Nutritional Requirements and Related Diseases of Small Animals. Find specific details on this topic and related topics from the Merck Vet Manual.

www.merckvetmanual.com

One can contact the pet food manufacturer and ask for the full nutritional content of the food. The web site may only list the guaranteed minimum and maximum analysis for just a few things, sodium not usually being one of them.

Is there a reason you are looking at sodium content of canned food?

 

[Kathcats]

Hi! I have an easy solution: 9 times out of 10 you can find the answer on Chewy.com where someone else has asked already and they report back with the answer they get from the manufacturer. So for the Tiki Cat After Dark Chicken Canned Cat Food 2.8 oz, someone asked “On a dry matter basis, what is the percentage of sodium in this recipe? And Chewy tells them, “This cat food has a Sodium content of approximately 0.38% on a dry-matter basis* and 0.06% on an as-fed basis.” The date of the question is also listed as Feb 6, 2019 so you can gauge the chances of the sodium having changed drastically since then. (If you really want to be sure, it’s actually pretty easy to call the larger companies and get an answer right away since they are used to it.) FYI, that percentage is relatively low. For cats with early stage kidney disease, general guidelines for sodium are often between 0.2-0.4% on a dry matter basis (Note there are several different ways of comparing nutrients, but one of the more common (albeit less scientific) is the percentage on a dry matter basis, which factors out the difference in water content between different foods so you are comparing apples to apples).
As for what constitutes high sodium, for healthy cats, there’s not a big consensus as far as what the upper limits of sodium should be (at least in the US). Manufacturers will say they just excrete the excess and there’s just not a lot of conclusive scientific literature on whether high sodium is harmful. On the other hand, there are a lot of good guidelines out there for lowered sodium intake for cat with all sorts of medical conditions, including hypertension, uroliths, and cardiac issues and obviously kidney disease. For context and more info, check out the huge database of foods on Tanya’s Comprehensive Guide to Feline CRF (https://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm.) Note that the sodium contents in her list range all the way from 0.11 to 2.8% (dry matter) . So 2.8% is the highest out of hundreds of US cat foods. Even so, I did some math and I think that is still a good deal below the European maximum (which uses a different metric). As with Chewy, the stats on Tanya’s may not be current but are a good guide.
Hope that wasn’t more than you bargained for, but I wanted to share since I recently had to figure it all out.
Best,
Kathcats

 

[maggie101]

There is something different about tiki after dark. Coco will not touch it but loves American journey landmark. Both shredded chicken