Turkey cat food- is it safe?

pinkdagger said:

The dry food I give in small bits in the evenings is a poultry formula with turkey as the third highest ingredient, but the bulk of my cats' diets is wet anyway, and we do have a few turkey recipes rotating in and out.

My beef with Purina Pro Plan turkey is that rice, corn gluten meal, and soy isolate appear high on the list of ingredients whereas my personal ideal is to not see any of those in cat food at all. I don't see tryptophan listed specifically in their ingredients.. are you concerned about what could be in the turkey content? Based on my GoogleFu these past few seconds (obviously Wikipedia and WebMD don't make me an expert :lol3: ), it would appear that turkey contains no more tryptophan than other poultry.

As you mentioned lower fat, is weight a concern for either of your cats? If so, maybe switching to or tightening up meal feedings with more calorie controlled portions and/or a higher meat-based protein and lower carb type of food would be more helpful in that regard.

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From our work it appears that normal animals may not be suitable subjects for testing sleep-inducing effect of tryptophan since their slow-wave sleep (SWS) latency is relatively short. In polyphasic sleepers like cats, we did not observe tryptophan's hypnotic effect with any dosage used (10, 30 or 135 mg/kg).

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..."what is not true is that the levels of tryptophan one eats in turkey are enough to cause drowsiness," Devlin said. "The primary culprit of post-Thanksgiving meal sleepiness is simply over-eating, which causes a large shunting of blood toward the digestive tract and away from the brain. This is compounded by a release of insulin from the pancreas that moves the carbohydrates (potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, etc.) away from the digestive tract and into storage sites in various body tissues. Insulin can cause slight sleepiness."

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... Yes, it's true that turkey does contain tryptophan, but not a particularly high amount. In fact, all meats contain tryptophan. Tryptophan is just an amino acid—a building block of muscle. Turkey has only marginally more tryptophan than chicken, but not as much as a pork chop. You want a meat that's really high in tryptophan? Try caribou, also known as reindeer (run, run Rudolph!). In fact, some vegetables even have more tryptophan than turkey. Heck, soybeans have twice the tryptophan as turkey.

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• pinkdagger
• Sep 11, 2014

pinkdagger said:

Turkey is actually lower in tryptophan than some other proteins and the idea that a singular food would be the root of any issue, unless of course your cats have any sensitivities, seems to be a catch-all scapegoat. Are you concerned about the Thanksgiving warnings that @momto3cats
and and @Raintyger mentioned, or having your cats become sluggish and lazy as a result of high levels of tryptophan? If so, those warnings are all erring on the side of safety that their pets aren't choking on cooked bones, getting into parts for preparing the turkey (wrappings, string, etc. which would smell meaty), and to ensure they are receiving a balanced diet vs being (over)fed unbalanced treats/tablefoods with too many seasonings that can make them sick.

 
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On the note of soy, especially because that particular food contains it,  http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/03/28/avoid-using-soy-on-pets.aspx

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• pinkdagger
• Sep 11, 2014

Source

A food table of poultry highest in trypotophan: http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-005079000000000000000-w.html?maxCount=176
Other foods high in tryptophan: http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000079000000000000000-4.html

Although bear in mind these levels also vary based on how they are prepared.

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Willowy said:

If it's tryptophan you want, they do sell it as a supplement. Some people use it for dogs; it's shown some success for anxiety/aggression. But I don't know what a safe and effective cat dosage would be so you'd have to do a lot more research.

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