Carrageenan Allergy?

Does anyone know/have a cat that's allergic to carrageenan in canned food? It's possible, right?

I've noticed it's mainly in the higher quality diets and not so much the grocery-grade stuff. Just curious.

Well, from what I learned when my cats had problems from carrageenan was that the reaction carrageenan caused for them was not a true allergic reaction. Basically, among many other problems carrageenan can cause digestive problems, and it can also have an inflammatory effect. Carrageenan causes digestive problems because it inhibits pepsin and other gastric enzymes. It depresses peptic activity. In a human the result can be a stomach ache. In cats, vomiting. In fact, in some cats, the digestive problems from carrageenan can be so severe that the cat can't digest/keep down any food. (None of my cats ever had any other reactions from carrageenan, so I don't know what else it could cause for them.)

Anyway......My bad experiences with carrageenan go way, way back. All the way to the fall of '86, when the manufacturer of the canned cat food we were buying switched from guar gum to carrageenan, and suddenly we had a sick cat. Long story short, vet found nothing that could have explained what was going on with him, so we decided to check things on the fancy new label that was telling us that the food was now "improved". When we compared the ingredients in the old formula and the "improved" one, we found only one difference. All the ingredients were the same, except now, instead of guar gum, the food was thickened with carrageenan.
Luckily there was some info about carrageenan in one of our books. And it explained what was going on with our cat. I think, that problem was the easiest problem to solve, ever. So simple. All I had to do was go out and find food that was not thickened with carrageenan.

I'll PM you the info I have in the book, so you can read it all. No web link, so I can't post it.

Info from the web

http://www.notmilk.com/carageenan.html

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-carrageenan.htm
Very interesting posts here, including people's experiences with allergic reactions. Also some info about allergy testing.

Yes it is a KNOWN issue in some cats as Violet mentioned...

ALL the "gums and stabilizers " can have this issue... "lower end" usually have grains which do the binding..

Originally Posted by Violet

I'll PM you the info I have in the book, so you can read it all. No web link, so I can't post it.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Violet! I got your PM and I will be reading it in close detail.

Originally Posted by sharky

Yes it is a KNOWN issue in some cats as Violet mentioned...

ALL the "gums and stabilizers " can have this issue... "lower end" usually have grains which do the binding..

Click to expand...

Thank you, good to know! I looked through many different flavors of the more holistic canned foods and it seems like MOST of them contain it. As I said in my original post, the lower quality brands do not -- if a cat is suspected to have an issue with it, would you say that eating a lower end brand is better than just not eating wet at all?

I am dealing with severe food allergy issues with Tofu. He seems to be itching and scratching a lot when he eats canned food and I couldn't figure out WHY. Then I compared the ingredients list closely and realized that carrageenan is the one ingredient present in everything he tried and absent in the one food he COULD eat. But if I were to choose canned foods without this, it's mainly the lower end brands...what are your thoughts?

A good food you might want to try. High quality ingredients, no carrageenan.

http://www.mynaturalsite.com/tincatfood.php

Ingredients
http://www.trilogyonline.com/Trilogy...gredients.html

Another link
http://www.healthypetnet.com/Healthy...egory=Cat_Food

Rosemary extract( aka rosemary, rosemary oil) is KNOWN to cause tummy issues as is alfalfa IMHO I avoid both..

Meal in a wet food is NOT like meal in a dry food and IMHO should be avoided ..

The above food is solid but not close to being one for allergies and some of it ingredients are very questionable

I will Pm you some brands I found to work without any of the Known allergen/ intolerance ingredients

I will Pm you some brands I found to work without any of the Known allergen/ intolerance ingredients

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Sharky, everyone, including me, would very much appreciate it if you POSTED those brands for all of us. There is a desperate need for that kind of information. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who is always looking for foods that can make dealing with allergies easier.

As for Instinctive Choice, I was surprised when mine didn't have any issues from it. Maybe because we didn't entirely rely on it, it was just one part of their rotation diet at the time. I'll never know for sure. The food had a strong smell of rosemary, which bothered me more than the cats. Frankly, I hated it.

And talking about questionable ingredients......One of mine loved, and did very well on Nature's Variety Instinct (the chicken flavor). Me, I couldn't think of a worse ingredient list for some cats, if I tried.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Natures-Vari...lthy-Pet-Foods

Originally Posted by Violet

Sharky, everyone, including me, would very much appreciate it if you POSTED those brands for all of us. There is a desperate need for that kind of information. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who is always looking for foods that can make dealing with allergies easier.

As for Instinctive Choice, I was surprised when mine didn't have any issues from it. Maybe because we didn't entirely rely on it, it was just one part of their rotation diet at the time. I'll never know for sure. The food had a strong smell of rosemary, which bothered me more than the cats. Frankly, I hated it.

And talking about questionable ingredients......One of mine loved, and did very well on Nature's Variety Instinct (the chicken flavor). Me, I couldn't think of a worse ingredient list for some cats, if I tried.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Natures-Vari...lthy-Pet-Foods

Click to expand...

Well lets say my eyes are blurred by that list.. And some things bother some and not others... personally I have found WET foods with no grain or gums and full of by products seem to work for my liver and Ibd kids
Ingredients are subjective .. like I find Pea , potato and beet pulp questionable ingredients two for the allergen angle and one from processing ...

I am always compiling and will at some point if the makers STOP messing with formulas get a list up... for now I do some via PM do to location