Fiber In Cat Food

 

I had a hard time deciding which photo to use at the top of my post about decision paralysis, so I'm making an off-topic post just to use this evocative photo. 

 
Content Notes For This Specific Paragraph: Anatomical Terms, Pet Smells, Pet Digestive Issues, Pet Wounds.

Cats have two anal glands that add scent to their poops. The openings are next to and a little lower than the anus. During healthy operation, the poop leaving the cat squeezes some liquid out of the anal glands. Poop that is too skinny or too soft doesn't work as well. My cats have problems with anal glands getting blocked, and the fluid in them getting infected and thick. One of my cats had an anal gland rupture and we're about to have vet visit number three about it. 

Based on various things I've read, eating more fiber is likely to change my cats' poop in a way that alleviates their specific health issue. I know that anything on food packaging outside the nutrition label is straight up advertising and likely to be misleading. So switching to cat food that claims to be high fiber is not sufficiently rigorous for me.

My first question is: How much fiber have I been feeding my cats?

Wet food:

• Fancy Feast Gourmet Naturals Beef Recipe in Gravy Canned Cat Food - Crude Fiber 1.5% Max
• Purina Pro Plan Adult Chicken, Tomato & Pasta Entree in Gravy Canned Cat Food - Crude Fiber 1.5% Max
• Hill's Science Diet Adult Healthy Cuisine Roasted Chicken & Rice Medley Canned Cat Food - Crude Fiber 2.0% Max
• Purina Pro Plan Gravy Chicken Entrée Urinary Health Tract Cat Food - Crude Fiber 0.2% max

Kibble:

• Purina Pro Plan Adult Salmon & Rice Formula Dry Cat Food -Crude Fiber 2.0% max
• Purina Pro Plan Chicken & Rice Formula with Probiotics High Protein Cat Food - Crude Fiber 2.0% max
• Purina Pro Plan Focus Adult Urinary Tract Health Formula Dry Cat Food - Crude Fiber 2.0% max

In retrospect it's not surprising that kibble has more fiber than wet food, and I've been feeding my cats less than 2% fiber recently.

My second question is: How do I read pet food labels? since they are significantly different from human food nutrition labels and that's covered in the bibliography.

My third question is: How much fiber is in a healthy "high fiber" diet for cats? So I'm going to look up the nutrition info for foods in the listicle in the bibliography.

High Fiber Foods (or so one article asserts):

• The Honest Kitchen Grain-Free Turkey and Chicken Clusters - Crude Fiber Max 4%
• Smalls Cat Food - The link in the article shows six different cat foods whose Crude Fiber Max are all listed as 1.5% so I'm confused why this is on their list.
• Purina ONE Hairball Control High-Fiber, Natural Adult Dry Cat Food - Crude Fiber Max 4.5%
• Hill’s Science Diet Adult Indoor Cat Food - The Amazon link had the wrong picture and I couldn't read the guaranteed analysis, so I looked up Hill's Science Diet Adult 7+ Indoor Chicken Recipe Dry Cat Food on Chewy and it said Crude Fiber 6.5% min, Crude Fiber 10.0% max which was the first time I'd noticed a minimum fiber content.
• Blue Buffalo Weight Control Natural Adult Dry Cat Food - Crude Fiber 9.0% max
• Instinct Raw Boost Mixers Grain-Free Freeze-Dried Raw Cat Food Toppers - Once again Amazon's listing is not prioritizing the guaranteed analysis but Chewy says 15.0% max
• Purina Pro Plan with Probiotics High Protein Adult Dry Cat Food - Crude Fiber 2.0% max

This finicky research taught me that articles claiming to list high-fiber foods might include regular-fiber foods, Amazon is not good about including the important part of the label on pet food, and high fiber cat food ranges from 4% to 15%, and the terms "indoor" and "hairball" seem to correlate with higher fiber content.

I've learned that with humans' digestion, drastic changes in fiber can cause problems so my next Chewy's order is going to include kibble that's 4% - 5% fiber (about twice the fiber they've been eating) and if that goes well the order after that might go up to 6.5% fiber. I don't want to go above that without talking to my vet first.

I like having this level of information. I enjoy (or at least feel engaged while) gathering and comparing this sort of data. Chatting explicitly and out loud about how much information is available for a decision is probably something I should incorporate into supporting my teen with decision paralysis.

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Bibliography:

• I mostly buy cat food from Chewy, whose "recent order" list is useful.
• PDF of how to read a pet food label
• This article by a pet food company has the best description I've come across of why soluble fiber is beneficial.
• Although I disapprove of one of the brands in this list it was useful to calibrate my understanding of how much fiber is "high fiber" in cat food.
• This article from Tufts (which I did not read all the way through) says that "Crude Fiber" does not include any soluble fiber, so that might explain some of the discrepancies.