Calorie Count of Cat Food

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

*~Zephyr~* wrote: »

Last year, I had to keep a food diary for my Bert to establish calorie intake when he started losing weight, so I wrote to all the cat food manufacturers and asked for calorie counts of all their foods.

The highest calorie ones are the pate types. Gourmet Gold pate has more calories per gram than any of the other foods. I was quite surprised by the calorie count in most popular foods - it was way lower than I thought. The sachets average about 78 kcal per 100gm and the pate about 90kcal.

Dry food is WAY more calorie dense - between 350 and 400 kcal per 100gm. Bert stopped eating his dry food and only ate wet and the weight fell off him very, very quickly. Which is not surprising when you know that the dry is three times more calorific than the wet.

Hills a/d prescription diet has extra calories in and you can get it from pets at home. It's £1.79 for a 156gm tin but you could just mix some of it in with their usual wet food just to add some calories.

Or scramble them some eggs? All extra protein which might fill them up. Add some unsalted butter if they are tolerant of lactose. My kitties love scrambled egg! Some cats will enjoy a raw egg, beaten up too. All extra calories.

Hope this helps.

Possibly an embarrassingly simple solution, here.

Bloke brought home a big bag of IAMS (boo, hiss).

After he rather wisely decided to get on with dishing it up before they chewed his legs out from under him, they demolished it (Idiot Cat resembling a vacuum cleaner in the process, as he didn't do much crunching), had a drink each, pestered for two more small wet food meals and settled down to sleep overnight.

He's given them 25% IAMS and 75% their usual grain free wet food today.

I've been able to make broccoli soup with them perching on their worksurface and the linen basket to watch me, instead of leaping onto our worksurface and trying to trip me up at least three times. I got followed back into the kitchen later to be peacefully watched opening the fridge door, rather than have them screaming at me for more food. And they're sleeping, rather than trying to kill one another.

Obviously, I'll be changing from the IAMS as soon as the bag runs out (in about two months, as it went straight into an airtight container) to something that actually vaguely resembles ingredients a cat should be eating - recommendations for small kibble please! - but it seems like just adding that bit of dry food could make all the difference to their satiety levels. They seemed to automatically know that they needed to drink more with it, too (but not so much that it puffs up inside and makes them throw up, unlike one of my old cats, the gutbucket he was).

If they end up tubby little bloaters, I'll be back trying to get them to lose weight.

Thank you - I genuinely didn't know it had more calories, as I just assumed that dried grains and a bit of meat slurry wouldn't represent anything more than a massive fibre hit.

But they are not getting scrambled egg. That's for the OH to actually eat undisturbed for a change, unless I drop an egg on the floor and they're welcome to assist.

calicocat

*~Zephyr~* wrote: »

Ah, poor old skinny cat! But I suppose she's earned the right to be picky about her food reaching that grand old age. Bless her.

If she likes gravy, the Sheba foil hexagonal tray in Beef in gravy is the most calorific of all the wet foods at 94kcal per 100gm.

We also found that the Purina One sachets seemed to have lots more gravy than other sachets.

If you still want to try her on the pate, try mixing one with some cat milk and watering the pate down to a more lickable paste - extra calories from the milk too. It's all worth a try.

If you want to PM me your email address, I'll be happy to send you the calorie info I got from the manufacturers.

Hope this helps skinny cat. Give her ears a tickle from me

Went yesterday to get a veritable array of all the above foods to try with her... . She has eaten the beef Gold one this time...the whole thing. Also some dried food which is good news.

Have found a nice local vet, she is booked in for a full service and mot , including full blood checks. This will be fun....Not. She's at an age now though where she needs everything checking out bless her. It is only a couple of miles away so we may get there without peeing/pooing/being sick/and hyperventilating. They do house calls too, so if needs be, they would come to her. :T.

jenny-wren

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Possibly an embarrassingly simple solution, here.

Obviously, I'll be changing from the IAMS as soon as the bag runs out (in about two months, as it went straight into an airtight container) to something that actually vaguely resembles ingredients a cat should be eating - recommendations for small kibble please! - but it seems like just adding that bit of dry food could make all the difference to their satiety levels. They seemed to automatically know that they needed to drink more with it, too (but not so much that it puffs up inside and makes them throw up, unlike one of my old cats, the gutbucket he was).

We have a rather greedy rather podgy rather lazy puddle of a cat. When I say 'rather' I really mean extremely. She wouldn't walk the length of herself unless there's food involved. In a valiant attempt to stop her begging for food and to try to shift some of the flab, on the advice of the vet, we gave her Hills Metabolic dry food. More pounds piled on! And she was still howling like she hadn't eaten for a week. She has only 6 teeth, all at the front, and no chewing teeth. Surprisingly, the dry food was hoovered up without consequence.

Now we have our own plan of action. Not quite Kitty Slimming World but short of buying a cat-sized hamster wheel it was worth a try. She's now on good quality grain-free wet food with a little dry food to try to stave off any hunger pangs (and to stop her appearing like the shopkeeper from Mr Benn at the very clink of a food dish). Having no teeth, small dry food is a must. She'll eat Applaws (a bit powdery for my liking) but the dry food we have found to be the best is Porta 21 Feline Finest Cats Heaven. Grain-free, small pieces like mini kitty hula hoops, and good for fatties. The weight isn't coming off as yet but at least it's stabilised. Now all we have to do is encourage her to stay awake for long enough after a meal to burn off a few calories.