Carbohydrates In Australian Cat Foods

This page is a companion to our articles on homemade low carb diets for cats and the problems with commercial cat foods.

Carbohydrates are the only major nutrient not to be declared on cat foods. Therefore, I’ve done three things:

1. Created an online carbohydrate calculator for wet and dry pet foods
2. Estimated the carbohydrate levels in a wide range of pouch or tinned foods
3. Showed you how I worked out these figures

Pet Food Carbohydrate Calculator

Note: as you will see later, these figures are only estimates. They are hopefully close to the truth but cannot be verified without analysis.

Carb Levels In Adult Cat Foods

Please Note: I have not included:

• The nearly 50% of can and pouch cat foods sold in Australia that aren’t complete foods. Click the link to learn more.
• Any dry foods- these all contain carbohydrate levels between 20 and 35%
• Foods that do not disclose either the carbohydrate level, or protein, fat, ash & fibre levels so I can work it out (e.g. Feline Natural)

I have avoided supermarket own-brands and ‘special’ diets like light, hairball, indoor, urinary, senior etc).
* Moisture not declared so given average value of 78%
** some numbers seem impossible; the first three have ingredients adding up to 100.7%, 100.5% & 100% respectively before carbs are considered (my guess is that actual moisture levels are lower than the ‘max’ figures supplied).

Carbs In Kitten Foods

Kitten foods are much harder. Many companies just don’t offer them.

How to find out the carbohydrate content of your cat’s food

This is the same method I used above- it may slightly overestimate the true level but should be within a few percent.

Most foods have a Guaranteed Analysis. Weirdly, it doesn’t include carbs, but that’s OK; you can work them out from everything else.

Let’s use the Grain Free Blackhawk as an example. I’m not saying it’s any better or worse than other foods.

1. Add up the %Crude Protein, Crude Fat, Ash, Crude Fibre and Moisture (34+16+3.5+8+10=71.5)
2. Subtract this number from 100% (100-71.5=28.5)
3. The carbohydrate level is approximately 28.5% (It’s not going to be exact but should be close)

This is as fed. To be able to compare wet and dry foods, let’s make it as a % of dry matter.

1. Turn the moisture percent into a fraction (10% = 0.1. A wet food would be around 80% = 0.8)
2. Subtract this from 1 (1-0.1=0.9. With wet foods, you’ll get a number around 0.2)
3. Divide the nutrients by this number (28.5 / 0.9 = 31.7%).Remember these numbers are only estimations.

Now go out and explore. Please leave us a comment with your findings!

By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. These blogs are from a series regularly posted on email and Twitter. Subscribe via email here to never miss a story!
Have something to add? Comments are welcome below and will appear within 24 hours of lodging.

Date on this page were collected as follows:
Fancy Feast, Purina, Veganpet: from package labels at Foodland Norwood 6/8/18
Hill’s from hillspet.com.au, Royal Canin from royalcanin.com.au, Ziwipeak from ziwipets.com, PRO PLAN from proplannutrition.com.au, Holistic Select from holisticselect.com.au. All accessed 7/8/18.