Is Sugar Beet Pulp Too High in Sugar for Horses?
TheHorse.com | 15 January, 2018 } By Clair Thunes, PhD
Q. Last week in your article about helping horses stay warm in winter you mentioned feeding sugar beet pulp to horses in need of extra calories from a forage source. It doesn’t seem like that would be a good choice for a lot of horses. Isn’t sugar beet pulp high in sugar?
In human research white bread is used as the standard response against which other foods are compared. In horses we use whole oats, because oat starch is more readily digestible than the starch in other grains such as barley and corn. Oats have a glycemic index value of 100. This means that if a feed ingredient is fed and results in a higher blood glucose value then oats, it receives a higher glycemic index value, and vice versa.
Studies in horses have shown that plasma glucose levels peak about 90 to 120 minutes after a meal, depending on the ingredients. While products such as traditional sweet feed and oats have high glycemic index values, sugar beet pulp has a glycemic index as low as 34.
It needs to be noted that some sugar beet pulp sold for horses has added molasses to improve palatability and reduce dust. As expected, this will result in a higher glycemic index. Unrinsed sugar beet pulp with molasses might have a glycemic index higher than 70. Therefore, if you want to avoid adding sugar to your horse’s diet, be sure to buy unmolassed beet pulp or rinse it after soaking and before feeding.
