Phosphorus And Salt

[forcryinoutloud]

My Jack was just diagnosed with a heart murmur and placed on Fortekor 5mg a day. I was told that there wasn't anything overly specific to do for him food/exercise wise, other than to go for a cat food that has low phosphorus and low salt in it. My problem is that, while the food I am using at the moment (Go! Fit and Free) lists the phosphorus content as "min" 1.1% on the bag, and the website lists the sodium content as .40% and phosphorus is listed as 1.49%, I honestly don't know if 1.49% phosphorus and .40% sodium is high or not. So I come with confusion and hope for help.

Is 1.49% high for phosphorus, .40% sodium?

I also bought some fit + free wet food but Jack absolutely refuses completely to even TASTE it. The other cats of course are DESPERATE for me to give it to them, but Jack is the one that really needs the extra water since he's a little bit dehydrated and needs a good BM.

I am going to try and get my hands on the grain free wet food he actually likes, even though it is now $4 a can - but the closest place I can get it is a little over an hour away and I can't get it for several days at least.

Mostly, I am worried about the phosphorus and salt content of the dry food he loves, while I try and get the wet food to supplement.

 

[lisamarie12]

As far as wet food, Weruva's canned foods are all on the low phos end, especially the non-fish flavors, many at or below 1% and low sodium. Weruva has four different lines but you can check the nutritional analysis for each one, make sure you check the "DMB", dry matter basis values.

None of Weruva's cans will cost you anywhere near $4.00 a can.

 

[forcryinoutloud]

I did check those when I was at the new pet store in town - the price was about the same, or a little more than the Go! Fit + Free cans I bought. The food Jack likes is $4 for the 12.5 ounce can, which none of the food I looked at seemed to come in, except a few brands that I wasn't overly excited by the ingredients of and/or they weren't grain free. The problem with the weruva is that it doesn't have a pate line that I saw, and Jack refuses to eat anything that has actual chunks in it. As proof yet again, the pure balance that I bought a couple cans of just to try that I opened tonight. He smelled it and pretty much ran away from the bowl much as he did the fit + free wet (though he LOVES the dry). So, I think I am definitely going to have to get my hands on the other food - even if the ingredients aren't totally great, at least he'll get more water in his diet and I can feed him half wet, half the dry fit + free he loves.

I don't think 1.49% and .40% seem all that high - though, of course, someone correct me if I am wrong. Jack is so finicky, that my main concern is making sure that he actually eats enough each day. So because he likes the fit + free so much, probably more than any of the other dry food he's been on the last almost 13 years, I don't want to look for a food that fits a particular nutritional requirement that he might just completely and utterly refuse to eat. I'm sure him not eating is far more dangerous than a little more phosphorus or salt as compared to a different food.

Of course, if the 1.49% is like, desperately high, I would have to look at another food. I just thought, finally a food that has lots of good proteins in the first five ingredients and no totally heinous ingredients that I have seen... I'm hoping it's in a safe range.

I'm hoping even more that Jack will start eating the wet food I give him. He already has some spots of loose skin from losing weight (about 16 pounds down to 13.5), and I don't want him to lose a bunch more as he's already pretty slinky, other than his primordial belly pouch so I don't want to like refuse to give him the dry to try and force him to eat the wet.

 

[missmimz]

Why are you looking for a low phos food? Does he have CKD too? is 1.49 the as fed or guaranteed? 1.49 isn't super high, but it's not low phos either. My senior really likes Feline Naturals chicken & venison canned food. It's not low phos, but it's good quality and unless he has CKD he doesn't really need proper low phos foods.

 

[forcryinoutloud]

I was told that he should be on low phosphorus and low salt. He doesn't have CKD - his levels (BUN I think it was?) were at 11, which they said was the first point that they start looking at kidney issues, but that it wasn't anything serious kidney wise, and that it was likely a result of the heart issues as they go hand in hand. I think the low phosphorus is more precautionary, as is the low sodium. He has a grade 2 murmur, which I know isn't a serious murmur but the vet seems to be taking preventative measures with the fortekor and the diet. We don't have any specialists close to us - I'd have to likely go to another province to find a heart specialist - so I have to go with what our rural vet believes. He seems to think that, while it is only a grade 2 murmur, that it could clearly become a more serious one down the road and is looking to hold that off as long as possible.

ETA:
The as fed basis is 1.4%, the dry matter basis is 1.5% .32g per 100kcal as fed for the phosphorus.
.40%, .43% and .03g respectively for the sodium.

 

[missmimz]

That's not considered low phos, but it's not high either. I'd be more concerned with the ingredients overall rather than just the phos or sodium levels. The only food I know is fairly high in sodium is Hounds and Gatos. Here's a list of low phos foods you could look at. Tanya's Comprehensive Guide to Feline Chronic Kidney Disease- Canned Food Data USA

 

[forcryinoutloud]

Thanks for the link. I did have a look at that list before. I just couldn't tell from it what was considered "high" phosphorus levels.

I chose Go! Fit + Free because it has Chicken meal, de-boned chicken, de-boned turkey, duck meal, turkey meal, salmon meal, de-boned trout, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols) as the first eight ingredients. It's not perfect by any means, but it seemed like one of the better dry foods as I transition toward a 50/50 grain free wet/dry diet (since with 4 cats I can't afford exclusively wet unless I give them by-product majority food, which I don't want to do). Of course, then I read some stuff online that has me all worried about the Fit + Free too. I think it's a combination of maybe either too much information, or not enough that has me stressing over this food with Jack's condition.

I want to feed all my furbabies the best that I can afford to give them, but I'm starting to feel really overwhelmed.

I think back to my first cat that we had when I was a child. She ate exclusively Puss-n-Boots canned food, and lived to be almost 21 years old. I can't even imagine what was in that cat food but she seemed to certainly be healthier than my poor boys have turned out to be. I know that almost 13 years is still a long time to have a cat, as some people lose theirs much younger, but I want them with me as long as possible, and the only thing I can think of is that the vet food we were told was "so great" for them was absolute crap and is causing all these medical issues. So now I am investigating and stressing over finding a much better diet for them than the vet food, but most specifically for Jack because of the heart condition - even though he's been off the vet food for a couple years now.

He was on Holistic Blend "My Healthy Pet" Turkey and Chicken, but I realized after starting this journey that it had peas and potatoes in the first five ingredients, and and that he probably wasn't getting enough proper protein from it (which has me feeling awful). That's why I switched to the Fit + Free that has three types of animal protein - turkey, chicken and duck as well as some fish (though lower down on the list). I am hoping that it will help him gain back some of the muscle he seems to have lost (he has some loose skin under his arms, and I hate that his shoulder blades seem very prominent, though the vet said he still has a good weight, that his ribs aren't protruding or anything like that).

 

[missmimz]

My oldest is 14 and I don't think that's old at all! Unfortunately, a lot of the good foods are more pricey, but you could just feed your senior the higher quality foods and feed your other cats lower end foods. Merrick LID duck is pretty low in phos and duck is a good protein source with good fats for seniors, too. My 14 year old eats a lot of raw duck and loves it. The other option is to rotate between high end and lower end foods so there's a balance. I feed mostly raw, but brands I like are Weruva, Tikicat, Ziwipeak and Feline Naturals. Some of those are def more expensive. But even some fancy feast or sheba foods aren't good bad. I would avoid FF for your senior, though, because FF Is really high in phos. Tanya's list is from lowest to highest. So the lower the number, the lower the phos.

 

[mschauer]

Is 1.49% high for phosphorus, .40% sodium?

AAFCO guidelines call for a food for an adult cat to have a minimum of 0.5% phosphorus and 0.2% sodium so anything close to those values would be "low" with regards to what can be sold OTC.

BTW, while the label lists some amounts as "minimums" and the actual amount could be higher in reality the actual values will be close to, but guaranteed to be at least, the minimum stated.

 

[forcryinoutloud]

I think Weruva is the only brand that I saw from your list at our local pet store that just opened. It was between $2.50-$3 a can for a can that wasn't even 5.5oz

I'm still trying to find an online retailer that will ship to Canada without costing an arm and leg, making the cans even more expensive.

--

Thank you! I will definitely be checking out the phosphorus levels of the available wet cat food here and looking for something on the low end to offset the medium levels in the fit + free for a 50/50 diet. If I can get Jack to actually eat the wet!

 

[LTS3]

Try these:

Discount pet food websites that ship to Canada?
Buying single cans online to Canada
Switching to all wet diet - how to budget in Canada?

Amazon.ca has a ton of foods available.