Over the years I have bought a LOT of cat food. I reckon I have seen every kind. There is cat food made from chicken, cat food made from turkey, cat food made from beef, cat food made from lamb, or tuna, or salmon, or trout, or … In short, cat food made from damn near every variety of meat or fish – except pork.
What’s the deal here? Don’t tell me cats keep kosher, or maybe halal; I’m not buying. And it isn’t that they won’t eat pig meat. I have seen cats eat pork products (from my table scraps) on many occasions. So why doesn’t anyone make cat food from the pig?
I can imagine, if my cat were left to fend for herself with her “natural” hunting skills, that she could kill a chicken, or catch a fish, but it’s hard to imagine her taking down a pig…or a cow…or a sheep. I know she’ll eat this stuff (and other “unnatural” stuff…like the occasional Wheat Thin), but it still seems kinda weird to feed a cat pork or beef…
A lot of cat food features tuna. Even albacore tuna get as big as 60kg. I’m trying to imagine my brood managing to capture a fish ten times their size.
[url=http://www.aafco.org/Parenthetical_example.pdf]This site (warning: it’s a pdf file) lists the ingredients for a pork-based cat food. I’ve also seen cat food that has bacon in it. I agree it’s not that common. I wonder if it has to do with how thoroughly they cook the meat for cat food, since pork tends to carry pathogens when raw.
One of my cats eats IVD food in flavors like venison, duck, rabbit, and lamb, which are also pretty odd. At least IRL my cats might eat duck or rabbit. I wonder why they don’t make mouse or moth flavored cat food. My cats would love it.
I’ve just had a look at a tin of cat food and it says “meat, including chicken, lamb, beef and pork”. Unless you’re buying something other than supermarket cat food, the chances are that the meat or fish component of the food is really a combination of rendered protein meal of all sorts, including pork.
The “chicken” or “lamb” or whatever is on the label is misleading, unless you’re buying very high end product the label will say something like, “with chicken” meaning that there might be a bit more chicken meal in the meat meal, but the food is certainly unlikely to be all chicken.
Perhaps there is some historical reason why Americans are uneasy about tinned pork, even for cats?
I’d wager that pork is just too darn useful to put in catfood. There’s not much of the pig that can’t be used, from the bristles to the skins to the ears to the feet to the lard – once you get all the human and chemical uses out of the way, not much left but the squeal; whereas there’s a lot more waste in chicken, turkey and beef.
And the best catfood flavor? Cat-butt. I’ve seen those little guys lick down there for hours, why not put it in a can? Or “Whatever my owner is eating.”
heh-heh, nice try- ne-xt