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- Purraise
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I'm talking about the percentage of calories from protein, fat, and carbs, not dry matter basis calculations.This seems par for the course. If a food is 50% protein, and there's no need for carbs in a cat's diet, then the rest, 50% (minus ash) would have to be fat. I haven't seen very many commercial foods that are much higher than 50% protein with many of them lower. That one for instance is 44% protein.
What is the risk of high fat food in an otherwise healthy cat as long as protein requirements are being met?
The dry matter basis values can be misleading. Fat is denser in calories than protein. So if a food is 50% protein and 50% fat on a dry matter basis, then it will have double or more of its percentage of calories coming from fat.
The typical calories from a mouse, for example, would be 50%+ protein, 20-40% fat, and less than 5%-10% carbs.
To compute the percentage of calories from protein, fat, and carbs, you can use the as-fed values on the label.
Multiply the protein amount by 3.5 (7.5x3.5 = 26.25)
Multiply the fat amount by 8.5 (7.5x8.5=63.75)
Multiply carb amount by 3.5 - this can be estimated by subtracting the as-fed amounts on the packaging by 100 to estimate how much is left over. In this case, there is basically nothing left, so the carb amount is 0.
So the total amount of calories per 100g of the food is 26.25+63.75= 90.
The percentage of calories from protein is 26.25/63.75 = 29%
The percentage of calories from fat is 63.75/90 = 71%
I don't know about you, but I'm not comfortable feeding my cats a food with 71% of its calories from fat sources.
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