Comparing prescription dry foods

[moggiegirl]

My cat Spotty has been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease after a 4 day period of not eating, vomiting and an overnight trip to the emergency room. He was also diagnosed with an inflamed nasopharynx but was treated with antibiotics. This was a couple months ago.

Spotty does not have diarrhea and lately he's been acting very normal, eating, drinking, urinating and defacating, playing, acting like a cat. He's on prednisone once a day. Because food allergies are not suspected, he was prescribed a low residue diet instead of a hypoallergenic diet. He's been doing well on the Eukanuba low residue dry diet and the only prescription canned food proven to be palatable to Spotty is the IVD Limited Ingredient rabbit and pea diet which is approved by my vet. The vet did not approve of Wellness canned food or any other non-prescription food for Spotty.

What I am currently doing is comparing two different dry foods, Eukanuba low residue and IVD Rabbit and Pea. I'd like to get some opinions on which food would be considered a healthier choice and why? I'm looking for reasons other than the ethoxyquin debate. I'm currently cycling a tropical fish tank and ethoxyquin is in the fish food so I'm not all that concerned about ethoxyquin. Here is the ingredient list for both foods.

Eukanuba Low-Residue Adult/Feline Dry Formula:

Chicken By-Product Meal, Corn Meal, Corn Grits, Chicken, Fish Meal, Dried Beet Pulp (sugar removed) Natural Chicken Flavor, Dried Egg Product, Brewers Dried Yeast, Fructooligosaccharides, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E and Citric Acid), Potassium Chloride, Fish Oil (preserved with Ethoxyquin), Calcium Carbonate, DL-Methionine, Choline Chloride, Mannanoligosaccharides, Salt, Vitamin E Supplement, Zinc Oxide, Manganese Sulfate, Niacin, Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin A Acetate, Copper Sulfate, Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Rosemary


IVD Green Peas and Rabbit Feline Formula:

Ground Peas, Rabbit Meal, Rabbit, Rabbit Digest, Canola Oil (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols And Citric Acid) Phosphoric Acid, Choline Chloride, Salmon Oil, DL-Methionine, Sodium Chloride, Potassium Citrate, L-lysine, Vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, LAscorbyl-2-Polyphosphate, Niacin Supplement, Inositol, Vitamin A Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin Supplement, Menadione Sodium Bisulfate Complex (Source of Vitamin K Activity), Beta Carotene, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement), Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Iron Proteinate, Copper Sulfate, Copper proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite, Taurine, Rosemary

A lot to type. The reason I have chosen to go with Eukanuba dry is because this food has the Iams dental defense system proven to reduce plaque and tarter by 40% in cats. Of course I also feed canned food so that probably reduces that. I'm just curious what you all think.

[icklemiss21]

Personally if I had to choose, I would go with the IVD Green Peas and Rabbit Feline Formula, I am never fond of a by product and corn being the main ingredient in my furbabies' food. But neither jump out as being great - but few prescription diets do!

Bumper has a very sensitive tummy and he wouldn't be able to eat the Iams - I would be cleaning up puke for the life of the bag... I actually found that once i moved away from all the prescription diets my vet recommended that he was a lot better. He now eats EVO with no problems at all. He threw up for 3 day of the first week of the changeover and after that - NOTHING!

As far as the dental defense... the results of the study are far from conclusive and the statistics very open to interpretation... I would go for the better food with no dental defense over a worse food with it.

Vets are often compensated for selling certain foods... mine told me that chicken soup and innova and wellness were terrible foods and he didn't understand all that holistic bull****. My BF's parents have a black lab that had some dietary problems when they got her and the vet told them that a wet diet would be bad for the dog as all wet food gives animals worms. I have since changed vets to one that does not push Science diet onto my cats at every visit and both me and the cats are much healthier.

With Bumper (who actually can not stomach wet food) I have found that the less carbs in a food (the lower down the list they are) and the less likely they are to be corn based (rice seems ok with him) the better he is.

[Gudewife]

Given this choice (and if I fed dry), I'd pick the IVD. The Eukanuba, it appears to me, stands a good chance of having much more corn in it than meat (when 2 of the first 3 ingredients are corn, I am leery). The IVD just looks far better to me, ingredient-wise. Also, the corn would make it an automatic no-go for my cat anyhow. It looks like chicken is pretty far down on the list of ingredients (since it was weighed with water weight included), and though I'm not completely against by-products, I won't feed a food that derives most or all of its meat protein from them (there is fish meal in this, as well, though I avoid most fish except the occasional rotation in of a can of Chicken & Herring). So, mainly corn and by-products would make the decision for me...I also tend to question the palatability of an ostensibly chicken-based food that requires chicken flavouring.

I'm pretty skeptical of pet-food manufacturers' motives, so I don't put a lot of stock in their marketing claims...and I don't really buy the dry-food-for-dental-health stuff anyhow (especially as I have a cat who refuses to chew dry food, no matter its size). And like icklemiss, I'd take a non-corn food over a heavily corn-based "dental" food any day.

[moggiegirl]

Now that I think about it, it does seem that a limited ingredient diet such as Rabbit and Pea would be more beneficial to a cat with even a touch of inflammatory bowel disease. It is not believed by my vet that Spotty has any protein allergies. I give him a piece of chicken every now and then and it's the main source of his current dry food, the Eukanuba. But perhaps the Rabbit and Pea which is made of only Rabbit and Pea and also has omega 3's from salmon oil is less likely to contain something that I don't know about that might not be good for Spotty long term, even though he appears to be doing well on it. Peas are not grains, they do seem to be a weaker carbohydrate source, and omega 3's are proven to be beneficial for cats with IBD because they have anti-inflammatory effects.

I do feel that I need more of an education. I would like to know why corn is not good for cats. As I understand it, it is only the hulls of the corn that are hard to digest which are removed prior to processing pet food.

[Gudewife]

My issue with corn is mainly that my cat has a hard time with it (it murders her skin and coat), and it's a fairly common food allergen for cats (it makes a great cat litter, though). I also have an issue with pet food manufacturers using corn as a cheap protein source. Yes, corn is a protein source, but not one which is well-utilized by cats (compared to say, eggs or meat), and when I see a food with a high corn content, I tend to view the protein content with increased scrutiny, especially when that corn is parted out into separate ingredients to make it look like smaller amounts, when in fact, it outweighs anything else in the food (including any meat)...I am always wondering how much of that theoretical protein comes from vegetable sources. There's just no way to know the percentage of meat vs. vegetable protein in a given food, unless you trust the manufacturers to tell the truth (which I don't...truth in advertising is one thing, but what a phone service rep or field rep says to a consumer is largely untraceable and unenforceable).

Looking at the Eukanuba ingredients, I see two sources of corn immediately following the chicken byproduct meal, and my instant question is do the corn meal and corn grits together outweigh the byproduct meal? Next listed is chicken, but since it was weighed with all its water weight included (which must be removed before it's made into a dry food), the actual amount of dry matter "chicken" remaining may actually be quite small (perhaps even less than the beet pulp, again there is really NO way to know for sure).

If I had an IBD cat, I'd probably choose the IVD because of its limited protein and more benign carbohydrates, as well as its simpler formulation (less variables). IBD's main symptom usually is intermittent vomiting, and only sometimes do cats present with diarrhea. Then again, the best food is the highest-quality one that you can afford, and that your cat will reliably eat and thrive on, so it's really up to each of us to make that determination based on the information we have. I've found that my cat does far better on a corn and wheat free diet, YMMV. I'm in the process of switching her back to her normal diet from canned i/d, and I am literally watching her dandruff and shedding decrease as I phase out the Rx food.

Edited to add: There's a table of biological value of meat vs. plant proteins at http://www.maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm
It's about 1/3 of the way down the page...very colourful chart.

[moggiegirl]

Thank you. They Eukanuba dry food does have dried egg product as an additional source of protein by the way.

However, the IVD dry does seem to be better. I remember a receptionist in a holistic vet clinic telling me that they prescribe IVD diets to cats that refuse to eat raw meat, probably because of the simpleness of these foods. I didn't decide to go the holistic route, I was just checking that place out. I was searching because I'm bothered by the fact that Hill's Pet Nutrition(Makers of Science Diet) is dominating the veterinary community and vets can't seem to bring themselves to question their authority. But we sure can.

Regarding price, they're both prescription diets so they will cost me about the same. I hope my cats will like it. They love the canned. Cats eat rabbits in the wild. I know a cat named Leo with 2 homes, his original and he uses my grandparents house as a guest house. He regularly catches canyon rabbits and eats the entire carcasses of them. We've been wondering how he got his shiny coat and maybe that's it. Noone wants to make a mouse cat food, But the rabbit and pea is the closest thing to it, definitely rodent based. If anyone wants to convince me some more feel free to. I may start switching Spotty to IVD Rabbit and Pea tomorrow. I haven't made up my mind 100% but I'm definitely thinking about it so if anyone wants to convince me some more go ahead. If I'm convinced, I'll buy a bag as soon as I get off work tomorrow. I may not be very well educated about cat foods but I do want the best for my cats.

[SLICK]

who makes the rabbit and pea and is this dry food or canned?

[moggiegirl]

IVD-Innovative Veterinary Diet, I highly reccommend it over Hill's Prescription Diet. My cats have found the canned food to be extremely palatable, and most prescription canned foods don't have that advantage. The dry food I haven't tried yet.

I'm wondering, if you weighed the nutrient analysis of the IVD green pea and Rabbit and the Eukanuba low residue dry and it turned out to be about the same of about 32% protein or so, would the IVD Rabbit and Pea still be the better choice? Carbohydrate quantity would be about the same, just different sources of them. The Iams company does use only animal based protein and corn as carbohydrate source.

I will happily change Spotty's food if it's really better for him. It may even be better for Rosie my perfectly healthy cat too. But only if I'm truly convinced that corn and chicken by-products are bad and the Rabbit and Pea is far healthier will I change his dry food.