11/02/2017
https://www.facebook.com/TheLaminitisSite/photos/a.293674977425951.68748.243107699149346/1121652151294892/?type=3
Look at the analysis, not the marketing!
We noticed an advert for a muesli-type bagged feed on Facebook recently. It claimed that the feed was healthy, with no added sugar or oats, and highly suitable for horses prone to laminitis and insulin resistance. We’re always looking for low sugar/starch feeds that we can suggest for horses with laminitis and EMS, so we had a look at the analysis… and found that it contained over 35% starch, with combined sugar/starch levels of almost 40%! Starch is digested by the horse to glucose - a sugar. Both sugar and starch increase insulin and pose a risk to horses with insulin dysregulation.
Given that the ACVIM Consensus Statement on Equine Metabolic Syndrome
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1939-1676.2010.0503.x/full
recommends that the NSC (starch plus WSC/sugar) content of the diet should be below 10% for horses with EMS, we would not consider a feed with such high starch levels to be suitable for horses prone to laminitis or insulin resistance!
Even feeds that carry an “approval mark” suggesting that they are suitable for horses prone to laminitis may not comply with the EMS Consensus Statement recommendations. The Laminitis Trust’s Feed Approval Mark appears only to require that NSC (which they define as hydrolysable and rapidly fermentable carbohydrates – e.g. sugars, starch, pectins, fructans) does not exceed 40%, and sugar does not exceed 7% - so there would appear to be no guarantee that a feed with this “approval” contains less than 10% combined sugar and starch. http://www.laminitis.org/approval.html.
Feeds described as “high fibre” do not necessarily contain low sugar/starch levels - one brand of high fibre cubes that carries an approval mark suggesting that it is suitable for horses prone to laminitis declares over 14% combined sugar and starch on the label.
When you are buying any feed for a horse with laminitis, EMS and/or insulin dysregulation, forget the marketing, always find out what the actual sugar and starch contents are, and try to avoid feeds where the combined sugar and starch amount exceeds 10%, as recommended in the ACVIM Consensus Statement. The only exception to this might be for feeds that are fed in small quantities to provide essential nutrients, such as balancers, which will often have combined sugar/starch levels a little over 10%, but as long as they are fed with a low sugar/starch mixer such as unmolassed sugar beet or an umolassed chaff, they can be part of a bucket feed that is under 10% sugar/starch.
It is not a legal requirement for feed manufacturers to put the sugar and starch content of a feed on the bag. However, if manufacturers want to sell their products for horses that have to watch their sugar/starch intake, they need to make this information easy to find. So vote with your wallet – buy products that are clearly labelled with the sugar and starch content (and this should ideally be the actual amounts for that batch, not averages or typical amounts – you need to know what the sugar and starch levels are in the feed, not what they might be. Also, ideally "sugar" should be shown as ESC, with or without WSC). If you can’t find it, contact the manufacturer and ask for this information before buying the feed - you might tell them that if they can’t be bothered to put this vital information on their bag, you can’t be bothered to buy their feed. For a laminitic pony, the combined sugar and starch content of the feed is likely to be the single most important piece of information on the bag, and in some extreme cases, it could be a matter of life or death. It’s time manufacturers realized that owners care about their horses, are informed, and won’t be fobbed off with glossy marketing – they want the facts and figures necessary to enable them to keep their horses and ponies healthy.
For more information about diet, see http://www.thelaminitissite.org/diet.html.
Friends of TLS are welcome to discuss their horse's diet in our support group - see http://www.thelaminitissite.org/join-friends-of-tls.html to join.
