# Do cats eat pork? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 23, 2006, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893 "2006-09-23T22:30:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/21 "2006-09-25T13:13:56Z")
I would venture to say that cats like ham and bacon for the salt. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/22 "2006-09-25T13:25:40Z")
In a previous life, I was heavily involved in making a leading brand cat food. The “meat-by-products” found on the label was largely made up of pig stuff. I’ll go into more details if you want. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/23 "2006-09-25T13:47:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Good point with the ham. Mine will eat it, but it definitely doesn’t seem to be tops on the list. All the cats I’ve known would _kill_ for ham. Itv was The Food of the Gods. Midnight actually cries “Ham!” when she wants any lunch meat. All our cats will gladly eat Pork, too. It clearly has nothing to do with what animals “a Cat Will Eat in the Wild”. I can’t imagine even a troop of cats downing a wild pig. But they love the meatr. And that argument doesn’t explain the many Beef and Steak cat foods. Or Deep-dea Tuna, for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![indecisive1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/41988e/32.png) [@indecisive1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/indecisive1)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/24 "2006-09-25T14:10:54Z")
[QUOTE=Sigene] In a previous life, I was heavily involved in making a leading brand cat food. The “meat-by-products” found on the label was largely made up of pig stuff. I’ll go into more details if you want. [/QUOTE] Please do! This could make an interesting “Ask the” thread! ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/25 "2006-09-25T15:56:48Z")
basically there is dry vs wet food. I’ll just provide some details of the wet stuff. There is a large table that has workers throwing frozen meats into a huge grinder. Usually fish (cheap tuna types) would get thrown in here if the recipe called for it. Large vats of “poultry-by-product” would then get added. The bins are about 3000 gallons and can be anything except feces, feathers, beaks or feet. Here also is where the vats of cow or pig parts get added. The pig stuf is usually a slurry of left over pig…just like the poultry above. Also if a slurry wasn’t called for, actual organs got added; livers, spleens, lungs. It got all cooked togther with a bunch of other materials for consistency, taste, and general health of the cats (vitamins, minerals, gaur gum, TiO2); then loaded into cans and cooked with a huge pressure cooker (the one I worked with was 6 stories tall). THe cans were then dumped on a conveyor to be properly labeled, packaged and shipped. I got more details, but you get the idea. ---
**Author:** ![indecisive1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/41988e/32.png) [@indecisive1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/indecisive1)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/26 "2006-09-25T16:06:32Z")
[QUOTE=Sigene] basically there is dry vs wet food. I’ll just provide some details of the wet stuff. There is a large table that has workers throwing frozen meats into a huge grinder. Usually fish (cheap tuna types) would get thrown in here if the recipe called for it. Large vats of “poultry-by-product” would then get added. The bins are about 3000 gallons and can be anything except feces, feathers, beaks or feet. Here also is where the vats of cow or pig parts get added. The pig stuf is usually a slurry of left over pig…just like the poultry above. Also if a slurry wasn’t called for, actual organs got added; livers, spleens, lungs. It got all cooked togther with a bunch of other materials for consistency, taste, and general health of the cats (vitamins, minerals, gaur gum, TiO2); then loaded into cans and cooked with a huge pressure cooker (the one I worked with was 6 stories tall). THe cans were then dumped on a conveyor to be properly labeled, packaged and shipped. I got more details, but you get the idea. [/QUOTE] Well, yuck! I guess the slurry part is the animal byproducts on the label. I usually don’t gross out about odd cuts of meat but someting about having it all dumped into a huge vat gets to me. Do you have cats? Do you feed them the food you helped to make? If not, what do you feed them? ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/27 "2006-09-25T16:12:27Z")
[QUOTE=indecisive1] Well, yuck! I guess the slurry part is the animal byproducts on the label. I usually don’t gross out about odd cuts of meat but someting about having it all dumped into a huge vat gets to me. Do you have cats? Do you feed them the food you helped to make? If not, what do you feed them? [/QUOTE] I don’t have any now, but when I did, I fed them the brand I worked with (I didn’t get any perks, discounts, cut rates or whatever). The cats loved the stuff. The large vats of pinkish white meat slurry was interesting to see. I wasn’t grossed out by it, and it didn’t have a particular odor. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/28 "2006-09-25T16:13:56Z")
I’ll check when I get home, but I’m pretty sure one of my cat’s food is pork-based (it’s [prescription](http://www.hillspet.com/zSkin_2/_refacing/minisite/MinisiteTopNav.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=1408474395181457&bmUID=1159200716547), one flavor only!). I can’t find an ingredients list on the website, but I know it’s on the cans. ---
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/29 "2006-09-25T16:30:14Z")
Were there bones in the slurry? ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/30 "2006-09-25T16:37:10Z")
[QUOTE=MikeG] Were there bones in the slurry? [/QUOTE] There’s not supposed to be any large bone chips. I don’t remember seeing any (not that I looked hard) in the slurry. THere probably was ground up chicken bones in the poultry slurry, less likely in the pig stuff. Again, I can’t be for sure. Any bones in the final product were usually pretty small and would get cooked down to a very soft consistency during the pressure cooking. If large chips were found during quality checks, the whole lot could be tossed. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/31 "2006-09-25T23:35:14Z")
The Neville kitties are Jewish, so they don’t eat pork. They do eat (and love) gefilte fish. Well, their food isn’t kosher, so they aren’t eating anything that is _obviously_ a pork product. If there were pork- or ham-flavored cat food, I wouldn’t buy it for them. And they aren’t going to get ham or bacon that we’re cooking, since we keep kosher. I do cook Morningstar Farms veggie bacon, but I’m not sure that’s OK for cats, so they don’t get any. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/32 "2006-09-26T17:05:02Z")
[This opinion](http://www.askmoses.com/article.html?h=277&o=1352) from a Chabad rabbi seems to imply that it would be OK to feed your cats pork-based cat food even if you kept a kosher home. I avoid feeding them anything that’s too obviously non-kosher. If it says in large type on the bag or can that the food contains non-kosher ingredients (shellfish, pork, or a mixture of meat and dairy), I won’t buy it, though I don’t read the ingredients list to check for those things as I would if I were buying human food. I don’t buy them special food for Passover, either. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/33 "2006-09-26T17:18:23Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] The Neville kitties are Jewish, so they don’t eat pork. . [/QUOTE] I can see how \*you’re \* Jewish, so you wouldn’t want pork in the home. But I am curious- how are the _cats_ Jewish? I see my cat as Zen, so I don’t think you’re crazy, but still I am curious. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/34 "2006-09-26T17:22:09Z")
Our cats certainly eat pork. We had some last night, and the voraciously ate what we gave them. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/35 "2006-09-26T17:34:14Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] I can see how \*you’re \* Jewish, so you wouldn’t want pork in the home. But I am curious- how are the _cats_ Jewish? I see my cat as Zen, so I don’t think you’re crazy, but still I am curious. [/QUOTE] They get Hanukkah presents instead of Christmas presents, and love gefilte fish, so they’re Jewish kitties 😃 They might be kind of Ju-Bus (who practice both Judaism and Buddhism to some degree), though. I think the “meatloaf” position, where they tuck all their legs under them and stare off into space, might be the cat equivalent of the lotus position. I like to think they’re meditating when they do that. ---
**Author:** ![Bob55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Bob55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob55)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/36 "2006-09-27T14:58:08Z")
The other thread had two possibilities I liked: 1. every part of the pig is used, the extra bits go into sausage 2. pigs and cats both are carriers of toxoplasmosis, which can harm babies\* in utero. \* ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893/37 "2006-09-27T16:50:16Z")
I checked the can, and the food I linked to above is indeed pork-based. The first two ingredients are pork, and pork bi-products, IIRC. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cats-eat-pork/373893.md?page=1)