Percentage protein in a raw diet?

Does anyone know the approx percentage protein in a raw diet? I remember reading that the assumption is that raw food is high protien but that it's a lot of water and isn't as high as you'd think?

I'm researching 5-htp as a supplement for Cain but a paper I read said it should be used with a low protien diet (14-16%) and I'm wondering if a raw food diet might be counter productive if the protien is too high?

Where did you read this?

And was it regarding tryptophan being added to a diet for aggression of a particular type?

Here was the paper I read (I'll admit I haven't read it all thoroughly as it's late and I'm tired)

http://csuvets.colostate.edu/pain/Ar...Tryptophan.pdf

This site is not a reliable source and has a lot of old tosh, however it also suggests a low protien diet which was where I read about the percentage
http://www.2ndchance.info/aggressivedog.htm

ETA: I also saw an episode of It's Me or the Dog where she started an aggressive weim on it. She suggested a high carb meal of rice and carrots to boost serotonin too - which is also opposite of a raw diet

I could not open the first link, I read the pertinent part of the second.

First of all I would say that the level of protein he is suggesting feeding is very low.

Secondly he makes no mention of its bio availiblity.

Thirdly he makes no reference to complete v incomplete

Fourthly he made no reference to the KEY factor in calculating protein content of food, ie moisture!

The way to calculate the ACTUAL protein levels in dog food is as follows:


First of all you remove the moisture content because water does not contain protein.

Each food has a different moisture content. Wet food is generally around 75% water and dry food circa 10%. The moisture content will be on the label; it has to be by law.

So when you remove the moisture content from the food you are left with "dry matter", so if a food was 10% moisture it would have 90% dry matter.

If the CRUDE protein content on the label is say 21% you divide the %age of the protein by the dry matter and multiply 100 (to arrive at the percentage overall)

ergo

21/90x100=23% ACTUAL protein by dry matter.

It is essential to understand the dry matter formula as otherwise you can be fooled into thinking that wet foods such as Natures Harvest contains very little protein (as the label says 11%) however when this formula is used it has a 44% protein content and so is higher than most dry foods!

The same applies to raw foods, once you have removed the moisture from the meat, you have the ACTUAL protein content.

Each raw meat will have very similar protein levels, depending upon the fat content etc.

Does this help?

Blimey! Not sure I can get my head around that at this time of night Thank you though, I'll re-read it in the morning and I'm sure it'll make sense them.

I dont know why the first link isn't working Maybe because it's a PDF? I can't get it working, sorry. It's a much better source, an actual vet article, not just someone's website. If you did want to have a look then cut and paste the link into google and it comes up top of the list.

Just taking the weight/weight% protien not removing the water and doing the maths because then you are not compairing like with like
Most of the raw meats you will be getting your hands on are about 20% protien - then there are some fats, vitamins and minerals and mostly water
Kibble are often around 20% protien, some fats, vitamins and minerals and mostly carbs

Although I know what SB is saying about the dry weight and all that as the actual VOLUME of food you are likely to be feeding raw is similar to what you would feed with kibble then the actual amount of protien is about the same

although in manufactured foods it does not all come from meat, some may be veg protien

Thanks for your replies My vet is researching this for me. She hasn't commented on the low protein diet yet but her initially research into L-tryptorphan isn't looking good as apparently it can cause neurologically damaged She's doing more research into it but I may not need to worry about protein levels for now.

I think you need to make sure she is looking up CURRENT research as old research implicated L-tryptophan with some dangerous side effects when, after research, it was found to be a contamination issue.

So the advice is to take pharmaceutical quality supplements with no danger of contamination from a reliable source such as Healthspan.

Most concerns about 5 HTP revolves around historical data based on flawed science.

Thanks, I'll pass that on to her. She's waiting for papers from a colleague who was given the research by a "well known veterniary behaviourist", although I don't know who that is! I'll get her to check how current the research is and mention about contamination

I,ve had protein levels checked by an DEFRA approved laboratory and results are as follows per one pound of meat. Minced chicken-15.9%, Minced tripe-17.7 %, Best beef-19.1 %, lung-18.5%. Hope this helps!