#Cats #PetCare #ObligateCarnivores
Hey everyone! 🐱 Let’s dive into a question that’s been on a lot of cat lovers’ minds: If our feline friends are obligate carnivores, why do we see so much cat food filled with things like rice, peas, and other non-meat ingredients?
Here’s the scoop:
- Obligate Carnivores: Cats are wired to thrive on meat. Their bodies are designed to digest animal proteins effectively, and they rely on certain nutrients found primarily in meat for their overall health.
- Carbohydrates: Unlike dogs, cats can struggle with carbohydrates. Their liver and pancreas can get stressed out trying to process these extra non-meat ingredients.
- Filler or Nutrition?: So, you might wonder, why the filler? 🧐 The answer often lies in the balance. Some manufacturers include these ingredients to provide:
- Texture: A better mouthfeel that some cats might enjoy.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Cheaper ingredients can sometimes lower the price of cat food.
- Fiber: Non-meat items can add fiber, which some pet owners believe can aid digestion.
- Nutritional Balance: Certain non-meat items can provide some trace nutrients that help complement the overall diet.
But yes, it’s important to be mindful of how much of these non-meat ingredients are in your cat’s food and to prioritize high meat content. 🥩
What do you all think? Have you come across any cat foods that balance non-meat ingredients well? What do you look for in your cat’s diet? Share your experiences and tips! 🐾
The same reason we feed dry food exclusively, because its cheap and convenient. We switched over to highly processed dry food diets for dogs and cats because it’s cheap to make, easy to portion out, and convenient to store for the average consumer.
To feed a cat nothing but meat would be expensive, and would be less shelf stable than us feeding the processed dry food.
Even carnivores in the wild do not eat purely Meat. They also eat small amounts of other plant based stuff for the missing nutrients. They’re not great at digesting raw plant matter (neither are humans, we suck at digesting cellulose as well). They can eat plant protiens and other processed nutrients just fine as long as it’s a measured amount, And based on the amount of exercise they do. It’s mostly filler in manufactured food to make sure they still feel full, but aren’t getting the equivalent of a human 2500kcal while sleeping all day
I don’t know what you feed your cat, but you shouldn’t feed it those things….
But yes, if you see it, it should be a small percentage, and just filler, or a cost saving tactic in cheap food.
Because money.
There are plenty of cat foods out there these days that are very high meat content. You won’t typically see them in supermarket pet food aisles, but vets will often recommend them.
My cat gets Applaws or Untamed. It’s expensive, but I’m happy to spend the money on her. Still far cheaper than feeding a small human!
Obligate carnivores mean they have to eat meat to get all their nutrients but they don’t have to exclusively eat meat. They can still digest other stuff, they just need meat to get certain amino acids.
But yes, a fully meat diet is healthier. It’s also a lot more expensive.
The main reason why cats are obligate carnivores is due to taurine. Most mammals produce taurine in their system but not cats, so they have to get it from their food. That doesn’t mean that anything other than meat holds zero nutritional value for them but their guts are not capable of digesting just anything. Pet foods is a very nasty rabbit hole where profits and prioritisation of low cost have driven misinformation about what our animals actually need, but on a basic level most pet foods are digestible and provide the essentials to animals. It’s not much unlike humans in that regard. Most animals produce vitamin C for example but humans have to get it from food. That’s why we either need to eat fruits or at least animals rich in vitamin C or we get scurvy.
Unfortunately most pet foods do use a lot of fillers, including carbs, which can be harmful long term. There are better options but they’re more expensive. Diabetic food is usually low on carbs and it’s not harmful for non diabetic cats to eat it.
Convenience. My cat has a clean litter box, toys to play with, a water fountain, and a bowl of friskies/9 lives. Whenever I cook myself some fish I give him some, also when I am making a sammich he gets some cold cuts.
It would probably do my gut health better if I started my day with a seared tuna steak over tender greens with a miso reduction but I have to be at work in 20 mins so bacon egg and cheese from the deli it is.
Cats can safely eat vegetables in small amounts. It’s just not natural for them to do so, unlike dogs who are true omnivores
Dry food, regardless of the details, needs to be a complete food. No other supplements required. As long as that is the case, they can put all the peas they like in it. If it’s complete, from a nutritional perspective, and the cat likes it then it’s all good.
A processed cat food diet is probably why they all die before they hit 20. Reminds me of the Price is Right when Bob Barker used to always say at the end: Help control the pet population have your pet spayed or neutered. Population control
I think you’re just misunderstanding the term. Obligate carnivore = must eat at least some meat and cannot eat zero meat.
It does NOT mean they have to or should eat *only* meat.
The “obligate” part means they can’t get all required nutrition without at least some meat as a part of their diet. That’s it. It doesn’t mean “meat only” it means “not veggie only”. So including non meat items like peas is fine, and much less expensive.
Who tf is feeding their cat vegetables? What?
“Obligate carnivore” means that in the wild, cats have to eat meat in order to survive. With modern food science, we can process non-meat ingredients in a way that makes them nutritious for cats.
Just because they’re carnivores doesn’t mean they can only eat meat. While yes they do need meat and feeding them exclusively meat is better, they aren’t going to die from a bit of vegetables.
Even wild cats do occassionally ingest plant matter. Mostly from the guts of their prey, but they would also nibble on grass or other plants.
Obligatory Carnivore does not equal Exclusively Carnivore. Many, perhaps even most, obligate carnivores are not exclusively carnivores.
Obligatory Carnivore means they have to eat meat or they will die. There are certain things their body needs that they cannot digest and extract out of non-meat sources. They can still eat other things, and some even like eating others things, cats love eating a bit of grass for example, but meat is the main component and they must get enough of it or they will die. Exactly how much of their diet has to be meat varies by animal.
But that classification is based on behavior in the wild. In the realm of human processing, it is theoretically possible to extract the things an obligate carnivore needs out of plants and give that to them in a way they can process it, essentially using a factory as a giant industrial pseudo-stomach to do some of the digesting they can’t. So you could theoretically feed even a cat a “vegan” diet, but it would be expensive and probably not work very well.
Because obligate does not mean exclusive. They can and do eat plants but other than humans they also need a substantial amount of meat.
Obligate carnivore means required to eat meat, ie. you can’t put your cat on a vegetarian diet.
However, there are actually important nutrients that cats get from vegetables and some grains that they can’t get from meat. I recently looked up if grain free cat food is better for them, and it turns out that it isn’t any better. Just a marketing ploy.
I think the other responses have done a good job covering the question but as a veterinarian I’ll add a side note. While there’s a fair discussion to have about the role pet foods play in animal health, we really don’t have to deal much with nutritional *deficiencies* or toxicity (overdosing nutrients) from daily feeding. Any well-balanced, reputable pet food matched for your cat’s life stage is at least getting your cat what it needs.