Is it safe to give Innova Evo dry cat food to my slightly overweight cat that's on longterm steroids?

Question

I have 2 4-yr old indoor only male cats. 1 of them has a chronic autoimmune disease and gets a corticosteroid (Prednioslone) daily.

I've been feeding Iams canned and dry food, but recently read a book about cat nutrtion and found that the dry food is horrible. Yahoo Answerers have said that Innova Evo dry food is the best, and I looked at the ingredients and thy do seem good. The only thing I'm concerned about is the high fat content.

Do you think this is OK to give? Are there any other brands that are better?

About how much does Innova Evo cost?

Thanks for your help!

THanks for the info so far. I noticed Innova also makes a reduced fat variety-- it's 32% protein, 5.5% fiber, but I calculated the dry-matter carbs and it's 47% (not good!). The Innova Evo is 17% dry-matter carbs.

Answer 1

i used to feed my cats Evo. it is the best dry food on the market but all dry foods are bad news. good for you for doin gsome research but now it is time to do a little more. the reason evo is the best is because it contains no grain. a high fat content food is not going to make your cat fat. actually a diet with carbs is what causes obesity in cats. i personally feed my cats a raw food diet. search for aunt jeni's homemade for life and check out their website. i love to hear that people are concerned with their pets nutrition. please please please go to aunt jeni's. if you still insist on feeding a cooked diet then try a canned food. if you like evo then try their canned food. as far as canned food goes evo is good and so are Wellness and Instinct the important part is that it is NOT dry food and there are no grains. i also think it is important to feed human grade ingredients and humanely killed meat. you will love aunt jeni's and so will your cat after the transition is over. the absolut best thing you can do for your cat is get them off of dry food. evo is the best dry food but it is still a dry food. it would really really make me happy if you checked out a raw diet. your cat will not get diabetes or cancer and essentially all of the problems caused by commercial pet food will be resolved. i have two cats and they are NEVER ill and look healthier than any cat i have ever seen. this is the case with any cat that eats a raw diet. it is wonderful that you are looking into nutrition for your cat. do some online research and check out aunt jeni's but make up yourown mind. just to let you know Aunt Jeni is highly educated in animal nutrition. i still cannot get over how wonderful it is hta you care because so many people will not listen to reason good luck. also your cat may be able to get taken off steroids eventually if you begin to feed a raw diet. ask a holistic vet what they think.

Answer 2

I got a bag, I think it was 6 pounds, and cost $13. The dry is 50% protein which gave two of our five cats diarhea because it was so rich, and they all gained weight on it (they were free fed).

While it IS a good food, it's very high calorie. If yours is already putting weight on with the prednisone (as is common with that steroid) you may not want to use it.

See if you can find Wysong brand food (dry, in silver bags) and look at the ingredient/content list for the Vitality selection Wysong puts out. I believe it's 38% protein. It's $8 for a bag.

You can also try Royal Canin Siamese 38 which we've had very good luck with. It's 38% protein and runs $11 for the bag.

There's also a brand called Raw Instinct, which is grain free, no potato, and 50% protein, but our guys didn't like it. It ran $12 for the bag.

Answer 3

Hi

I am the last person to defend any dry foods but innova is the best dry out there with the lowest carb content of any. Also, in order to do the calulations, you have to call the compnay to get the as fed values as the ones on the labels are minimums.
The regular evo is the lowest carb dry food out there.
In any event, I agree with the book and why would you want to fewed any dry at all. Even good quality dry foods don't have the water needed and can dehydrate cats. Why not feed just canned foods.
This list gives you the breakdown of stuff including carbs and fat content. Keep carbs under 10% and keep fish under 25% of the meals you feed.
http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/canfood.html
If you want quality canned, go grain free with wellness or
merrick

Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingrdiant a muscle meat like chicken or meal or other things?
http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Read_a_Pet_Food_Ingredient_Label
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms
The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process them. Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in
Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bpo_ch4a.php

Please read about cat nutrition.
http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics.html
http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.htm
http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm#Dry_Food_vs_Canned_Food.__Which_is_reall

Answer 4

The Innova Evo has the least carbs out of all of them. besides the undeniable fact that, once you have that plenty meat compressed right into a kibble you will could diploma it out for them. initiate out with out greater then a a million/2 cup consistent with cat and then regulate from there in the event that they lose or income weight. For what it quite is worth, canned Innova Evo will certainly value you much less then dry Innova Evo and could help them shed extra pounds greater definitely..