I got this question from Laura, who is a member of Tracie’s Club and is dealing with serious urinary blockage issues with her Leo, who gets struvite crystals.
Dear Tracie — I re-read your chapter on nutrition and how to read labels. Armed with this information, I spent an hour or so at the pet store reading labels… very interesting!
Following your suggestion, I bought Weruva’s chicken canned food -10% protein, and Leo loves it (it also smells great). I noticed that they use tapioca or potato starch. In your book, you mention potatoes as an ingredient to avoid. I wasn’t able to tell from the label what percentage of the food was comprised of starch. In Leo’s situation, what is your opinion of this ingredient?
I also purchased a chicken canned food from Instinct. From the label, it looks good, but Leo really prefers the Weruva. At some point, I’ll venture into the raw food diets, but Salmonella is a concern and I don’t want to add to Leo’s health issues.
Thanks so much for your help and advice. I really appreciate having a reliable resource to help sort out the myriad of information available.
I replied to Laura:
While I know that the potato starch in Weruva food is used as thickener and is only a tiny portion of the food, I wanted to let the owner of the company, David Forman, explain it to you himself. (As for feeding raw, I don’t think you need to rush into that. Many cats do not do well on it and I think you’ll feel most comfortable using different Weruva flavors and use Dr. Harvey’s Whisker Smackers and Halo’s Liv-a-Littles for treats). David Forman wrote:
We use potato starch at less than 1% of the overall formulas, and as potato starch is made of other components other than carbohydrates, the percentage of actual nutrition coming from the potato starch is likely under 0.5%. In other words, the potato starch serves no nutritional purpose. The purpose of the starch is to thicken the gravy so the formula will not be super watery.
There is of course a big difference when using potatoes as the carbohydrate/binder source in kibble where the percentage of potato has to be high in order for the kibble to hold itself together. The quantity necessary of potatoes in kibble (or other carbohydrate sources in kibble) typically forces the potatoes to be a significant source of nutrition. Cats are of course obligate carnivores and need no carbohydrates. And dogs, also carnivores, do not need the carbs from potatoes, though some dogs may be able to adapt better than others when eating an omnivorous diet.
Tags: dr. harvey's, halo, potato starch, raw food, salmonella, struvite crystals, tracie's club, weruva