Found this one online while browsing for what cats shouldn’t eat. However I feel like this area is quite controversial and opinionated. Also feels like half the websites are written by AI and riddled with ads. So if anyone has a good source as to what cats should avoid then let me know.
Anyways, I found this nice illustration, but wanted to hear with you peeps whether you have any experience regarding these food items.
Also what’s your take on milk/sour milk for cats? My previous cat loved it so much, and she aged until she was 17 years old, and never seemed to have a problem with it. Also asked the vet at the time and she said it was OK. However every other website I visit tell to never give milk(dairy) to cats. So which is it? Does it just depend on the cat?
Okay but can cat have a lil salami? As a treat?
Yes a little(too much salt not that good for cats) but it should not contain garlic as it is toxic for cats
Yippie
A vet once told us, no fish bones for cats, but chicken and anything bigger was OK. No chicken or fish bones for dogs, bigger than a chicken was OK. It’s about the size of the bones, and whether they can swallow them and get them stuck in their throats.
I trust the vet’s advice over some random internet image.
Dog food? Dogs like cat food. Are they not interchangeable? I haven’t ever seen a cat eat dog food now that I think about it.
Cat food is enriched with the amino acid taurine, which they can’t produce themselves. Dog food is not. Feeding cats exclusively on dog food will kill them eventually, via blindness and heart disease.
Not a disaster if they steal it from the dog once or twice, but it cannot be their long-term diet.
Yeah, it doesn’t really belong in the ‘no’ column. It’s not an appropriate cat food because it’s not nutritionally complete.
So it’s rather like how just eating bread or cornmeal that don’t have added vitamins will give you scurvy or pellagra. But obviously they’re not poisonous or anything and most of the world eats them without a problem.
A few other posts have pointed out cats are obligate carnivores so they need to consume meat to survive, as well as the general lactose intolerance.
One addendum to this is cat saliva lacks enzymes that break down carbohydrates. Cats consuming carbs consistently without proper teeth cleaning tend to have dental issues. Often regular eating and chewing scrapes carb build up, but it is something to keep an eye out for.
Thanks, this is what I came to the comments for, as my cat tries to steal any lemon pastry while I am eating it. Usually a little cat treat snack keeps her away.
Sure - AN ENTIRE FUCKING TURKEY
I’d argue grapes are worse than onions and garlic.
Yeah… don’t pay any attention to this kind of nonsense. Cats are obligated to carnivores. They don’t have the machinery to process a lot of non-meat foods. If they occasionally get into some things, it shouldn’t cause a problem.
Ultimately, just listen to your vet.
So far as the milk and cats thing… I think the issue is that they love it, they’ll almost always go for it, but many if not most are lactose intolerant… so too much will cause issues. If you had a cat who could process it, then great!
I mean, this is mostly about treats, so…
Cats being obligate carnivores means most of their calories must come from meat because they e.g. can’t synthesize taurine like a human or dog can. But eating a bit of cat grass isn’t gonna kill them.
Just for clarity, not trying to be a pedant:
Cats are obligate carnivores
Cats must eat meat to live. Like you said they can’t really process other stuff.
Damnit… that’s what I get for trying to sound smart, lol.
My cat is in LOVE with ice cream from a specific ice maker ( with high percentage of milk of course ). We only give her like a finger tip of it and she doesnt have any problems ( the cat is 17, soon 18 ). We know its not so good to give her ice cream, but she annoys us until we give her a little bit.
I love what spellcheck did to ‘obligate carnivores’ here. 🤣
Ugh… I really try to keep shit like that from happening. Autocorrect bonked on “carnivore” too, and that’s what grabbed my attention.
I was going to say that my cat must be broken, none of them eat anything that it’s not cat food/treat or meat. One of them likes lemom pie ans coke, but she’s an orange, she’s weird
Seconding the lactose intolerance, I’ve also heard that most cats can’t tolerate it well. My baby girl (11) loves to beg for yogurt but she gets a dime-sized dollop at most, otherwise I’m cleaning up kitty barf within the hour.
It’s also true that kitties (and dogs) shouldn’t eat onions or garlic as alliums are toxic to them, in a single large enough quantity or over time. And we don’t want to feed any animals cooked chicken bones as they are way too brittle and can break into dangerous shards.
That said, a cat wrote this infographic and put turkey and shrimp in the top section 😅
That said, a cat wrote this infographic and put turkey and shrimp in the top section 😅
🤣
Yet my cat loves pumpkin and olives. Omg, will she go crazy for some pumpkin and olives.
We gave our elderly cat ‘cat milk’ from the pet food isle as a treat and she loved it. I suppose it’s lactose free or something and it was a great way to get her to take her meds.
Chicken bones??
My cats will sometimes steal our chicken and the chicken bone/meat connected to the bone gets stuck in the teeth and they walk around with a chicken bone hanging from their mouth until we can get it off.
It can be difficult because they kinda panic.
Chicken bones don’t just break, they often shatter in sharp pieces that can cause internal damage if swallowed.
I think that is only true for cooked chicken bone. In nature cats eat birds all the time without a problem
Because chicken bones are small, and when they break, they tend to splinter, and the sharp edges can cause damage.
Having said that, my grandma’s cats in the countryside have been living eating raw chicken scraps, leftover human food, and chicken bones. They have never been to the vet and never tasted canned cat food. They’re fine.
Yeah I think the raw chicken thing also varies from country to country depending on what the local agriculture is like. I’m in Australia, we’ve fed our cats raw chicken necks every day for 10+ years and they’ve never had any issues with it. It’s great for their teeth.
I understand some countries’ poultry industries have more pathogens that are potentially harmful. Cats obviously evolved to eat raw meat, just not farmed raw meat, so it depends on how clean the farms are.
Worth noting as well that cooked chicken bones are significantly more dangerous than raw ones
Had a dog once years ago who managed to get at a piece of bone from KFC. The bone got stuck in her jaw and it was horrifying trying to get it out while she was choking on it.
Yeah don’t give them raw chicken because cats that kill chickens in the wild will always cook them first.
Animals in the wild die of food poisoning all the time; that doesn’t mean that we should have our pets doing the same. It’s a bit like playing Russian roulette, the risk is better than outright starving, but it isn’t riskless.
Also, I’m not sure but I think that battery farming increases the proliferation of salmonella.
Don’t let your cat eat lithium
My cat is bipolar, OK? Her vet prescribed lithium and she’s getting it! Otherwise she becomes like the feline equivalent of that squirrel from Over The Edge.
yeah. until it eats the wrong chicken, gets sick and dies.
some stuff is fine until it isnt.
I stand here defeated. You my sir are the true king 🙇♂️
It’s bc of how our meat is processed/what bacteria may be one it. Cats are not immune to salmonella nor most other foodborne pathogens.
Yeah, but that’s not a chicken-specific thing. The actual infographic is utter horseshit, of course. Especially with recommending so many greens, as if cats can do more with that than pass them unprocessed and then demand more food as they expelled non-trivial amounts of energy on it.
oh yeah fs, the infographic sucks ass but i thought id chime in on specifically why chicken sucks
It kind of is. You know how it’s fine to eat a rare steak, but not rare chicken? It’s because of higher contamination levels.
Glad to see blueberries on the Sure! list.
Those are my cat’s favorite. I was as surprised as you!
My cat loves corn, chickpeas and 4 cheese pizza.
Just listen to a vet instead. Cats can eat a lot of things, but they can process only very little. They’re carnivores through and through, and evolved to deal with a diet consisting entirely of small animals they’ve hunted down, but also all of them (not just the selectively removed meat parts we as humans consume).
But my cat only eat raw meat. He just kicks all other ready to eat cat foods.
Im noticing a distinct lack of catfood on this chart…
I have a cat who loves pistachios. I’m not going to tell him no.
