Starch in catfood

Most of us know that all retail catfoods contain starchy ingredients, which
are not normally a significant part of a wild carnivore's diet. But the
Guaranteed Analysis shown on the package label always ignores the starch
content of each brand.

So for several dry catfoods, I did a little arithemetic to solve for the
starch content, which curiously is not shown on any of their assays. To
simplify the calculation, I took the (albeit questionable) liberty of
changing the maxes and mins to nominals and subtracted the totals of each
from 100 to obtain their nominal balances, which are each presumed to be the
missing constituent-- starch.

Brand
Nominal Starch Content

Serengeti* ~ Chicken Meal & Salmon 30%
Taste of the Wild* ~ Roasted Venison & Smoked Salmon 24%
Eukanuba ~ Adult With Lamb & Rice 24%
EVC* ~ Turkey & Chicken
14%

* Labeled 'Grain Free'

I've noticed that all of the cat foods that have 'Grain Free' on their front
labels substitute one or more of the following ingredients for grains:
potatoes, potato starch, sweet potato, peas, pumpkin, carrot.. EVC happens
to contain the last three, which I doubt are good for cats to be eating. So
this is not a sales pitch for EVC.

With regards to digestability, insulin spikes, toxicity, etc.-- Does anyone
out there know whether these alternatively starchy catfood fillers are any
better or worse for cats than are grains?

On 4/1/2012 3:00 PM, Zy wrote:
Most of us know that all retail catfoods contain starchy ingredients, which
are not normally a significant part of a wild carnivore's diet. But the
Guaranteed Analysis shown on the package label always ignores the starch
content of each brand.

So for several dry catfoods, I did a little arithemetic to solve for the
starch content, which curiously is not shown on any of their assays. To
simplify the calculation, I took the (albeit questionable) liberty of
changing the maxes and mins to nominals and subtracted the totals of each
from 100 to obtain their nominal balances, which are each presumed to be the
missing constituent-- starch.

Brand
Nominal Starch Content

Serengeti* ~ Chicken Meal& Salmon 30%
Taste of the Wild* ~ Roasted Venison& Smoked Salmon 24%
Eukanuba ~ Adult With Lamb& Rice 24%
EVC* ~ Turkey& Chicken
14%

* Labeled 'Grain Free'

I've noticed that all of the cat foods that have 'Grain Free' on their front
labels substitute one or more of the following ingredients for grains:
potatoes, potato starch, sweet potato, peas, pumpkin, carrot.. EVC happens
to contain the last three, which I doubt are good for cats to be eating. So
this is not a sales pitch for EVC.

With regards to digestability, insulin spikes, toxicity, etc.-- Does anyone
out there know whether these alternatively starchy catfood fillers are any
better or worse for cats than are grains?

actually the rescue i work at feeds (canned or fresh pureed) pumpkin to
cats frequently. the fiber in it helps their digestion a lot, they've found.