Hello! My vet recommended I stay away from grain free with legumes due to the HCM risk showing up in dogs and some cats. I took her advice because she thought she noticed a mild heart murmur during her first visit almost 2 years ago (but hasn’t noticed it since) and at another appointment she commented my cat had a lower heart rate (around 108 bpm despite her being nervous). So, I wanted to ensure I wasn’t putting her heart at risk while giving her the best and most cost effective diet I can handle.
I’ve been feeding her Wellness Digestive Health Chicken and Rice dry food and a good variety of wet food brands (Rawz, Stella and Chewys, Koha Pet). I wanted to find more variety for dry food, but holy cow is that near to impossible when you want high protein and NO PEAS! I recently gave dr elseys clean protein a shot and she loved it. I loved it. We were happy, and then I find out the only Canadian retailer that sells it is discontinuing it (PetSmart), so so much for that idea! Lol
So, I’m back to square one and she continues to eat the same wellness brand. I’ve ordered Rawz Turkey and Chicken dry food to try, but it does have pea fibre and pea starch in it. I chose it as overall the amount of fillers seemed to be less than other brands, and those ingredients were #7 and #9 on the list I believe. Most other brands had peas, pea fibre, chickpeas, red lentils, potatoes, etc in one bag lol.
I am still worried I may be putting her at risk again with peas, but I feel like I made a good choice in a very limited option selection.
My question is:
if I only feed her the Rawz dry food with peas in it as part of her diet, yet keep the other half of her diet with high quality wet foods that include more taurine (Rawz dry has taurine but it’s very low on the list of that means anything), then is my concern unreasonable?
Thank you in advance to those who can help put my mind at ease! 😊
Hi Cassandra, happy to help you out if I can! My understanding of the DCM and grain-free diet topic is that concerns focus on grain-free diets where peas and legumes provide most of the recipe's protein. Pea fiber and pea starch aren't used as protein sources and, like you said, there's only a little bit in the food. It's likely used as an ingredient binder. If I'm looking at the same product you're using, though, I do see dried peas on the list too.
Even so, I'd say you're on the right track. If you're going to feed dry food at all, it's great to alternate with high-quality wet foods like the ones you've chosen. I wouldn't worry about where taurine falls on the list, it's not added to cat food at all if the ingredients already supply enough to meet AAFCO minimums.
If you still want to shop around for dry foods, have you tried FirstMate? It's based in British Columbia and has a chicken & blueberries recipe that doesn't contain peas or legumes.
@kate thank you for your reply! You are correct - dried peas, not pea fibre! I got mixed up lol.
I did start her with First Mate, but the grain friendly version. She did okay with it but eventually got bored of it and had some tummy issues. I will consider the Chicken Meal and Blueberries recipe if potatoes don’t have the same effect on the heart. I can add it to my rotation :).
For now I will stick with the Rawz food since I have it. I feel more confident now with your response and knowing the Dried Peas are the 10th ingredient on the list (as opposed to the first 5 ingredients), so what I’m doing should be okay for her and hopefully not harmful. She will have her annual checkup in a few months, so I can see if there’s any changes then.
Thanks again!
Hi Cassandra, I'll add in my two cents here too, because I think it’s important first to straighten out the types of heart disease and what causes them. That might make things a little easier to understand (and a little less scary).
HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) is predominantly the type of heart disease cats get. This is suspected in most cases to be a genetically inherited disorder.
Similar heart disease changes in terms of thickened heart muscle can be caused secondarily in cats by hyperthyroid disease and high blood pressure.
Dilated cardiomyopathy, or DCM, can be caused in cats by deficiency in taurine. This was common up through the 1980s before the dietary taurine link was recognized, but it is now very rare as taurine is regularly supplemented in commercial diets for cats.
That’s not to say it’s impossible for a commercial diet to be deficient in taurine, but certainly rare. This research paper from 2020 that looked at DCM in two cats highlighted that one cat had been eating dog food (dog foods do not contain sufficient taurine for cats), and the other had been lost outdoors for over a month, likely eating a substandard diet of whatever they could find.
DCM is also seen in dogs as a genetically inherited disorder, similar to HCM in cats. However, in 2018, cardiologists began to see DCM in atypical dog breeds. Through some investigation, grain-free diets appeared to be a risk factor. Some dogs also had taurine deficiency, but this was not in a majority of cases. Grain-free diets themselves are not a known risk of heart disease for cats. You can read the page from Chesapeake Veterinary Cardiology Associates (CVCA) which is the cardiology group that first began to recognize the atypical DCM pattern in dogs. Cats have not been a part of that specific discussion to my knowledge.
But taurine deficiency can be something to keep an eye on. The minimum requirements for commercial diets according to AAFCO are 25mg/100kcal of dry food and 50mg/100kcal for canned foods.
While it’s questionable how much benefits of their own grain-free diets really provide, you shouldn’t have to stress considerably over a diet containing peas. It doesn’t hurt to double check taurine levels, as that is the most significant risk that could contribute to heart disease in cats.
Flow murmurs can be very common in cats. Sometimes a cat will have a high heart rate from stress and develop a small murmur that resolves when the heart rate drops again.
On the other hand, heart disease can be present without a murmur in cats too. The best way to screen for heart disease is the NT-proBNP blood test, which detects heart muscle enlargement. An echocardiogram with a cardiologist can get very specific information on heart function and is going to be the test of choice to determine the cause of a murmur.