Speaking of my cat. He can go either way with regular milk. But cereal milk, he loses his damn mind for.
He also loves whipped cream.
I know my cat isn’t the only one. So what gives?
Speaking of my cat. He can go either way with regular milk. But cereal milk, he loses his damn mind for.
He also loves whipped cream.
I know my cat isn’t the only one. So what gives?
Fat.
Hmm, that’s interesting. Cereal milk shouldn’t be much higher in fat that fresh milk… what kind of cereal was it? Maybe there’s some smell to it that the cat likes.
Cereals have some oil in them to keep them fresh. If you drink skim milk, the cat probably will be indifferent to it, but it will go for the oily cereal milk. Also, in my observation, cats like wheat, so while they may not be sensitive to glucose, there may be something about gluten that is appealing to them. If I spill flour when I’m baking, the cats will lick it up. They also seem to be able to taste dextrose. When my son dropped some candy on the floor, they licked the coating off of it, and left the core (prompting a call to the vet, but they didn’t get much of it, and there was nothing alarming in it).
I have been told that ibuprofen tastes sweet to cats which is why it needs to be kept away from them, and they will lick antifreeze just like dogs will, so it probably tastes sweet as well. They must have some residual ability to taste sweetness, they just are not very sensitive to glucose. What triggers their residual sweet-buds may be things you wouldn’t expect. It also may vary by cat, and may be related to their upbringing as well. Possibly kittens have some ability to taste sweetness, and cats that are consistently given sweet things from kittenhood might retain it, or maybe for some cats, tasting sweetness is a genetic ability, like a certain bitter chemical is generically encoded for some humans and not for others.
Just an observation … and I’m not saying this is always the case with cats …
My dog would beg at the dinner table for food … very annoying … one day I had the idea to spit in his kibble bowl … sure as shit he plowed through it like it was fillay magnum … I surmised it had nothing to do with taste, rather he wanted to eat exactly what alpha-dog was eating …
Now cats aren’t really known for this level of conformity … but I do believe some cats do have some of this behavior … so this is one difference between the fresh milk and the cereal milk … the smell of your saliva …
But I feel your pain … every time I sit down to a bowl of cereal … I’ve two cat two inches away telling me I’m done already …
How in the world does your cat even know what cereal milk tastes like?
I wondered about that because I have a cat that will eat frosting off a cake and leave the cake …she even tried to eat the frosting off a little Debbie brownie …
Interesting post. And I do indeed drink skim milk.
I’m still a kid when it comes to cereal though. (Cap’n Crunch, Fruit Loops. About the closest I come to an “adult” cereal is Honey Nut Cheerios.)
Froot Loops and other kids cereals probably have more potential things that would trigger a cat’s “like” than adult cereals, and they also probably have gluten unless they specifically say on the box that they don’t.
They have lots of artificial colors and flavors that are candidates for triggering some kind of pleasant reaction comparable to sweetness for cats, at least in some cats with a genetic predisposition, and they are also more likely to have dextrose.
One of my cats adores butter. She’ll go places she isn’t allowed to steal it if we leave it out. Most frosting is high in fat, which cats tend to enjoy.
I don’t like having animals beg while I’m eating, so none of my cats has ever tasted the milk from my cereal bowl. And I don’t usually give them any milk, because the lactose is supposed to be bad for them. But my daughter sometimes gives then her leftover milk (Which is Lactaid, and from her glass) and they are very fond of that.
Cats are weird. My cat enjoys pumpkin guts, green beans, watermelon, dog food and olive oil. No rhyme or reason that i can discern.
Every cat I’ve had liked cantaloupe. Unless they have some ability to taste sweetness, or the orange pigment is delicious to them, that makes absolutely no sense. Cantaloupe has flavonoids, that give it its own taste, but it’s mostly just sweet. I doubt they gobble it down for the texture. And they will eat it with plenty of access to water, so they are not cats dying of thirst eating it for the moisture.
Cats have no real need for a taste for sweetness, because the main reason we benefit from it is that we need lots of vitamin C, which is abundant in sweet fruitss, and we need two types of fiber, both of which are also abundant in sweet fruits. There are also lots of trace things in fruits that we need. There’s very little we can synthesize, on top of which, our brains need lots of carbohydrate.
Cats can synthesize C, and they don’t need much fiber. They need meat. So it makes sense that cats who were sensitive to sweetness had no advantage over those who were, and maybe cats who obsessively pursued sweet foods, were at a disadvantage, while those who especially liked meat had an advantage. But cats are probably descended from animals that could taste sweetness, so it probably isn’t the case that they have completely lost the ability, just that they have no reason to have much of an ability, so they are not good at it. The genes may still be there, though, so just like you sometimes get a person with a tail, or a horse with a toe, you might get a cat that can taste sweetness fairly well. Their ability to taste sweetness compared to ours might be like our night vision compared to theirs.
One of my cats loves chocolate ice cream, the other 3 don’t show any interest. I know it is not good for her, but I let her lick the bowl to get a taste. Other flavors do not interest her.
Dennis
My late cat was batshit for yogurt. Any wrapper with residue was like ambrosia to her.
I’ve never noticed that in cats.
Cats can taste sweet if you honey glaze them.
They’re still not kosher.
… a nice catmint sauce …
We have one who likes marinara sauce, even if it’s been nowhere near cheese. We also had one once with extreme lactose intolerance: he loved him some mozzarella cheese, but if he got even a tiny bit, he would projectile vomit, like he was possessed by Satan. Once he projectile-vomited from atop the pinball machine, and spewed over half the living room. Fun times.
Both the girls we have now love yogurt, even the fat-free kind, but definitely prefer my son’s full-fat type. Fortunately, it doesn’t make them spew.
One of ours likes rosemary. (Of the other two, one went into poke-it-at arms-length mode, while the other gave me a dirty look and stomped off.) She also loves roses; given the chance, among all those who think their shit don’t stink, she’d be right.