Avocado Meal: A Novel Dietary Fiber Source in Feline Diets

As the pet population continues to rise with the growing human population, the need to find new ingredients is more immediate. Oil and pulp of avocados are consumed by humans, but there has been limited use of the peel and avocados that are not fit for human consumption. This experiment tested avocado meal, the processed remainders of avocado processing for oils and human consumption, as a novel and sustainable dietary fiber source in extruded diets for felines. Three diets containing either avocado meal (AM), beet pulp (BP), or cellulose (C) were formulated to meet the AAFCO (2016) nutritional requirements for adult cats. Dietary treatments were formulated to have similar nutrient concentrations. Eight neutered male cats (mean age 10.8 ± 0.8 years, mean BW = 5.31 ± 1.7 kg, and mean BCS = 5.13 ± 0.4) were randomly assigned to 1 of the 3 dietary treatments using an incomplete replicated 3x3 Latin square design. Each period was 3 weeks long with 17 days of diet adaption, followed by 4 days of fecal and urine collection period. All animal procedures were approved by the University of Illinois Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Food intake and fecal and urine output were measured and sampled for macronutrient analysis and digestibility calculations. Each fecal sample was scored on a 5-point scale (1 = dry, hard feces, 5 = diarrhea). Blood samples were collected at the end of each period for serum chemistry and complete blood count. The data were analyzed using MIXED procedure, SAS, version 9.4. There was no dietary treatment effect (P > 0.05) on total fecal output or daily fecal output. Daily food intake (dry matter basis) did not differ (P > 0.05) among dietary treatments. Similarly, apparent total tract digestibilities of dry matter and organic matter were not affected (P > 0.05) by diet. Apparent total tract digestibility of crude protein differed (P < 0.05) across all diets, with diet C having the greatest digestibility (87.35%), followed by BP (82.82%) and AM (78.00%) diets. Fecal scores for BP (2.48) and C (2.18) were significantly different (P < 0.05), whereas AM (2.44) did not differ (P < 0.05) from BP or C diets. Blood work results were not impacted by the dietary treatments. In conclusion, AM diet appears to be an acceptable dietary fiber source for feline extruded diets.