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what cat food tastes like
- Thread starter tnyc
- Start Date
I was going to say "then she discovered what grocery cat food brands are made of", but then it looks like she knew what they are.
Cats do not have the same tasting abilities as humans - so not sure what the point is of the experiment, and any interpretation of cat food from a human standpoint is merely a curious fact, not really useful. For example, they have no ability to taste "sweet", see here:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-cats-cannot-taste-sweets
The ability to taste sweet (see article) is important for omnivores that need carbs. Since cats don't need carbs....anything that tastes sweet to us would have no taste to them.
I would expect cat food to taste like pennies (copper) as I would imagine that is somewhat like the taste of fresh blood.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-cats-cannot-taste-sweets
The ability to taste sweet (see article) is important for omnivores that need carbs. Since cats don't need carbs....anything that tastes sweet to us would have no taste to them.
I would expect cat food to taste like pennies (copper) as I would imagine that is somewhat like the taste of fresh blood.
I had read that cats can't taste sweet. They also have a heightened 'sense' of bitter taste. That would make sense in the wild, things that are bitter are often poisonous. That is why metro which is often given to cats for digestive problems is difficult to give. It has a bitter taste.
Cats may have a different sense of taste, but they also have a far more sensitive sense of smell. Lazlo can take forever to eat his food. He'll sniff around his dish over and over again, and pick out one bite of meat, eat it, and sniff each one over and over again, and pick out another one. All from the same cut of chicken or pork or whatever. :lol3:
...though I did love the first comment I saw. "Cat people are sooo weird. Get a dog."
...though I did love the first comment I saw. "Cat people are sooo weird. Get a dog."
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #8
Good point, I hadn't thought of that.. when I read pennies I was like whaaa... but what you're saying makes total sense!
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- Oct 18, 2013
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Why? Unless you're a vegetarian, most of the stuff in your cat's food is the same thing that you eat. It's just different in flavor, quality and form.
After hearing about using our dinnerware to feed the cat for the bazillionth time, I shoveled a spoonful of cat food in my mouth to make a point. Fancy Feast Gravy Lover's Chicken to be exact. Didn't taste very good... kinda like blah liver, really... but it didn't make me sick or kill me.
Some low-quality cat foods are made from 4Ds - diseased, dying, dead and disabled animals. This includes euthanized pets and roadkills.
Fhi09 hit the nail on the head. It's scary enough what's allowed in our food, but pet food pushes the envelope a little too far for my taste.
I admit, I tried a little bit of Weruva Paw Lickin Chicken. It was actually not that bad.
:lol3: As others have pointed out, the key word there is "quality." What goes into pet food is what is not fit for human consumption. If it were an issue of flavor and form, that would be one thing. But I personally don't even want my cats eating commercial cat food any longer after having learned more about it.
I am familiar with that one...basically chicken breast, broth, and vitamins. It was while reading Weruva ingredients I realized: "Heck, I can make THAT at home...."
The smell of most cat food is enough to make me gag. I figure that could be because I don't eat meat but, sadly, I think it's more to do with the quality of most cat food. Surprisingly some smell ok, but it's few and far between. But when I was in high school a friend and I were feeding her cat some kibble and dared each other to taste it. I think we only put it to our tongue but man was it salty!
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I guess I'm not as disturbed as I probably should be by the thought of my cat eating someone else's Fluffy.
I suppose it's detachment from the situation...
That said, I don't really feed the cat anything worse than Fancy Feast... and even that is only in a pinch.
