Raw food diet for adult onset diabetes?
My mother’s 9 year old cat now has diabetes. Would he benefit from a raw food diet? I’ve been doing quite a bit of research for my pup and mentioned the idea to my mother (which kinda grossed her out). I thought I had read somewhere that a raw diet could help with feline diabetes and now I’m trying to find some research for her.
I know he’d benefit from a raw food diet regardless, but would a raw diet help with his diabetes specifically?
ETA: She’s been feeding him one variety of Purina brand kibble for his entire life and has only recently switched him to a Friskies wet food. [For the record]
Tagged with: diabetes • diet help • eta • feline diabetes • kibble • pup • purina • raw diet • raw food diet • wet food
Filed under: Raw Food Diet
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Contrary to what Ken posted above, many vets have had diabetic cats go into remission with initiation of therapy early on, including insulin as well as a high protein, low carb canned food diet.
It would be best for your cat not to eat raw food when it has diabetes. The blood from meat products could contain sugar from the feed they gave the specific animal.
Cats need meat. They would get sick without it after a time. I have seen it again and again in ferals. I have added meat to their diet and they got better. Cats if left to hunt for themselves eat raw meat ALL the time. So yes, if someone is willing to put the work into it. A cat who has always been fed canned food might reject this diet. Even canned food should be carefully chosen and the meat is ground at least.
PS I am vegan.
Hi
A raw food diet or quality canned foods under 10% carbs would help, Warning do NOT change foods without lowering the dose of insulin first. Lower carbs can reduce insulin needs
I work with diabetic cat owners worldwide helping them to regulate their cats. Many vets are not up to date on correct t treatment of this disease and some can be dangerous in their advice as they do not have the correct information to use. Only your mom or the caregivers can do that. If you want I can help teach and work with your mom to make her cat back to like before diagnosis as well as probably save her money
If interested my email is justken@rocketmail.com
Personally I would choose to switch the cat to grain free food. No carbs.
You can go raw for a diabetic cat but you cannot put the cat on dry food:
1) First and foremost, always choose a canned, pouched, or raw meat diet for your cat. No type, brand or variety of dry food is acceptable for any cat, but especially not for any diabetic cat!! This includes every single food that is labeled as “for diabetics” (such as Hills m/d dry, Purina DM dry and Innova Evo dry). I CANNOT emphasize this point enough. I have had several clients whose diabetic cats have been released from their dependence on insulin who subsequently relapsed because their people believed what they read on a bag of dry cat food. There is simply NO dry cat food, and there likely never will be any dry cat food that will be an appropriate food for diabetic cats!
2) Look for a food that contains little or NO cereals, vegetables or fruits of any kind. Some of the most expensive of the “wet” cat foods available today contain hideous amounts of completely unnecessary plant-derived ingredients like corn, corn flour, corn grits, corn gluten, rice, rice flour, wheat, wheat gluten, soy protein, potato, sweet potato, carrots, apples, cranberries, blueberries and similar. These ingredients might be part of a well-balanced human diet, but they have no place in the diet of even a healthy cat, much less a cat already debilitated by the ill effects of a high-carbohydrate diet. Pet food companies put these ingredients in their canned foods because they are cheap and plentiful, and because they appeal to the pet food buyer’s mistaken ideas about what is “good food” for cats. These ingredients have no scientifically-demonstrated value for the cat; in fact these ingredients contribute unacceptable amount of carbohydrate, sugar, and fiber (gastrointestinal residue) that the cat is not equipped to handle. The use of these ingredients is solely the result of corporate profitability and marketing considerations!
3) Find foods that have a predominance of acceptable meat ingredients, like chicken, turkey, and beef, or even meat-by-products, that your cat likes. Palatability is very important because your cat can only benefit from foods that it is willing to eat. Meat by-products have been given a “bad rap” by pet food companies that wish to market their vegetable ingredients successfully against meat-based foods. The fact is that meat-by-products in most canned foods are nothing more or less than the wholesome parts of meat animals that humans do not usually consume. For example, the clean spleens, lungs and udders of meat-animals would be discarded in most parts of the world if they could not be included in pet foods. They are perfectly acceptable meats for pets, if handled properly. As I have told many of my clients, I would much prefer my cats eat such by-products than corn, rice, potato or other vegetable ingredients.
4) Having just stated that wet foods with meat ingredients are acceptable for the feline diabetic, I nonetheless always suggest to my clients that they consider feeding at least some fresh, raw or lightly cooked meat to their diabetic cats. My own cats eat ONLY raw meat and, while this is not mandatory for good results in the diabetic cat, it is a very good way to provide some of the natural, unprocessed nutrition the cat evolved to utilize best. While some carbohydrate-addicted cats do not take readily to meat, many diabetic cats seem to instinctively recognize unprocessed meat as their natural diet. It is fun to watch a pet “attack” a meat diet with the same zest that its ancestors displayed after a successful hunt! To summarize: Diabetic cat owners should not become slaves to pet food nutrient charts. Such charts are, by their very nature, inaccurate, incomplete (new foods come along every day) and self-serving to the pet food companies. You simply cannot be sure to make the very best food choices for your cat by this method. Foods which charts may show as “lower in carbs” than others may not actually be lower in carbs and other nutrients listed. It is much more sensible to understand the basic rules of cat food selection as these rules apply to all foods, whether they are listed on charts or not, and whether those charts are accurate or not. After working with a great many diabetic cats, and watching them achieve good remissions on a great many diets, (even some that did not rate as well on charts as others), I am convinced that common sense and a few basic “rules” work extremely well in helping pet owners make good choices when they shop for foods for their diabetic kitties.
It has to be fresh raw, not sitting at the grocery store for a week then in your fridge for another 5 days.
I would feed our diabetic cat some raw in the morning, and he’d get specific canned foods with low fat/low carb during his daily time, plus a dry food available all day. Diabetic cats benefit from 4 small meals a day, to even out their sugar level. There’s a good list to compare over at the "Janet And Binkey’s" site, it breaks down the commercial foods by protein and fat and carb levels. Just google them.
There is very good feline diabetes information online, as well as at least two very good feline diabetes lists over on yahoogroups–come over and join. Purina foods are not very good for diabetics, too many carbs. Except for their prescription food, the ‘diabetic management’, which is ok. Royal Canin also puts out a prescription ‘diabetic management’ food that is very good. And their off the shelf cat food of Siamese 38 is almost as good, we used those for ours along with the Fancy Feast ‘feasts’ without the gravy.
Raw food is protein, which is what a diabetic cat needs–high protein. You need to watch the age of the meat though, since the bacteria count grows on the surface and can cause salmonella problems. If the meat is at room temperature, the bacteria growth doubles every hour.