Kittens learn food preferences and identification of what qualifies as food in the first couple of months of life. In general, cats prefer foods high in moisture, protein, certain amino acids, and fat. To make sure cats get what they need, Mother Nature drives cats’ taste preferences accordingly. Many other mammals don’t need to consume these finished products in their diet. Other mammals’ bodies can create these nutrients out of their components to meet their nutritional needs. They need to get the finished product of taurine, arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine from the meat they eat. In short, your cat may be overeating in total calories to be able to get enough protein.Ĭats need to get more than a dozen vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, and amino acids directly from their food. If the food your cat eats is higher in carbohydrates and lower in protein, your cat may eat more volume of that food to get enough protein. Cats’ bodies must have animal protein to convert into energy. Nutritionally, their daily energy intake needs to be about 52 percent protein, 46 percent fat, and only 2 percent carbohydrates, which are sugars and starches. Cats evolved as hunters that consume only their prey.Ĭats’ prey, such as mice and birds, are high in protein, moderate in fat, and very, very low in carbohydrates. But why? Couldn’t your cat be a vegetarian just like you? No. You may have heard that cats are “obligate carnivores.” This means that cats must eat meat. What we call finicky is absolutely normal for a cat. As a result, we often interpret normal and innate cat feeding behavior incorrectly. But cats behave differently and crave foods differently than people. We simply can’t imagine that our cats are not best cared for when they are served three meals a day, just like us. Humans sometimes have a hard time understanding that any way other than the human way of eating could possibly make sense. We evolved to eat a variety of foods served three times a day with the company of others.
For example, humans are a social species, and we are omnivores. To survive, creatures are designed to crave the food and behavior that they need to be healthy.
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