I just heard on NPR about a groundbreaking study finding that cats can’t taste sweet. Looks like that chromosome was deleted early on in cat evolution. They made a big deal about what an amazing discovery this was, and that now they know why cats don’t like lots of foods, and can try to formulate new cat foods that sick cats will find palatable.
Only, I remember having a cool science book as a kid that talked about cats not tasting sweet. They said to make a batch of cookies with no sugar, and that’s how it would taste to your cat.
So what’s up with this? Is it just the news reporting got it skewed and the chromosome deletion discovery was the real story, or what?
Also, if anyone can ID the science book, I’d love to get one for my daughter. It had great stuff like how to make your own ginger ale, making your arms “float” by pressing them against a door frame, cool kid stuff.
Huh. If cats can’t taste sweet, how does my cat tell the difference between a croissant and a donut and find the one to lick all the sugar off of? He also goes absolutely insane for frosting of any sort.
Odd. I remember my grade twelve biology teacher, in a discussion about enzymes, telling us that you should give someone alcohol if they’ve consumed antifreeze to avoid poisoning. Which led to a tangent about always keeping antifreeze locked away because children/cats/dogs like the **sweet ** taste of it.
He was prone to relaying many urban legends as facts though. At least once a week, a student would show up in class with a printout from Snopes. “No, Mr McGill, Coca Cola was never green.” So it’s entirely possible he pulled the whole story out of thin air.
I - I - I - I gotta call BS on the cats not tasting sweet idea. My cat can’t seem to taste anything ELSE. He’s nuts for ice cream, chocolate, canteloupe, apples, bananas, peas, frosting, the SUGAR bowl, soda pop, honey… In short, this little guy would lead me to believe that the main ingredient in mice is sugar.
Could it just be that cats in a laboratory setting are a bit stressed and are largely unwilling to display an affinity toward anything at all?
Most humans I know love sweet things, yet we don’t have much variety in our sweet-sensitive taste buds. I think we only have, like, one type. And it delivers a rainbow of sweet varying in strength and flavor.
Actually, the article was about *why * cats can’t taste sweet, rather than *that * cats can’t taste sweet. A chunk of the DNA encoding one of the two sweet receptors is deleted in cats and other felines. This is the explanation *why * they can’t taste sweet. We already knew *that * cats can’t taste sweet.
In everything but pure sugar there are many other flavors preent other than sweet. I have a friend who is a food scientist and brought an herb to a party once (no not that kind of herb). When mixed with water and swished in your mouth it would COMPLETELY block all your sweet receptors. Sugar tasted like nothing. It was like eating disolving sand, but candy and other normally sweet things showed a great deal of other flavors, and a surpising amount of sour and bitter that are normally masked.
So, it may be that your cat is responding to these other things rather than the sweet (except for the sugar, only thing I guess is that it has learned that it likes sugar highs).
Also, that rainbow of flavor comes mostly from your nose, not from your mouth. Interesting, eh?
On NPR, they made it pretty clear that while a cat could like the taste of a sweet object, they are not actually tasting “Sweet”. Seems like a fine line, but these fine lines are what makes scientist happy/crazy.
My cat loves Ice Cream and licking gum wrappers. Even sugarless gum wrappers.
Makes me wonder if the study is confusing missing the common sweet gene with not being able to taste sweet. However, I do not have the inclination nor lab to do a scientific study.
This is really interesting. I would welcome more information on this subject, if you can check with your friend, or from anyone else who recognizes the herb in question.
Hasn’t stopped Maggie from chewing through a plastic bakery bag to get to donuts. (And yes, she’ll eat from the sugar bowl. I think it’s because Nor did it stop my old cat, Fluffy, from licking the maple syrup off of pancakes.
