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Courtesy link: Is there benefit to feeding my cats cat food that incorporates fruits and vegetables?

Nutrients found specifically in vegetables/fruits aren't digestible by cats, and the nutrients that they need are found in animal tissue (usually muscle or fatty tissue). So the inclusion of these ingredients in their food is not poisonous, but adds indigestible mass that they don't need.

A plant really is not part of the normal feline diet, and a cat cannot be a vegetarian without serious dietary supplements.

My question here is:

What does the manufacturer do to meet the cat's well-known needs?

Arunabh Bhattacharya
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    Normal feline diet is mostly small animals; exactly which depends on what's available and what the cat can catch. Petfood manufacturers rely on dietary studies that have given pretty complete indication of what quantities if what nutrients provide a balanced diet for an animal's needs, just as human nutritionists rely on similar studies of humans when making recommendations for humans. More detail would quickly go beyond the intended scope of this stack. – keshlam Mar 13 '24 at 05:14
  • @keshlam Twice I have submitted to the reopen queue, but it does not reopen. Now, instead of submitting to the reopen queue, I have asked the community to decide. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Mar 14 '24 at 07:06
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    You have completely changed the question. Now it would get closed because it is multiple questions rather than a single question. These are also more biology questions than pet questions. You could try separating this out into three new Questions, which is what you should have done rather than replace the existing one, but I'm not sure they're really within the scope of this stack. – keshlam Mar 14 '24 at 13:19
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    The quote you've added is also incorrect. – keshlam Mar 14 '24 at 13:21
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    @ArunabhBhattacharya the reason it "does not reopen" is because the community votes whether or not to reopen a question after an edit. Editing isn't a free pass to reopening; you still must pose a well-formed question that doesn't already have an answer elsewhere on the stack. – Allison C Mar 14 '24 at 13:41
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    Cats don't have the same needs for vitamins and minerals as humans. Those they don't get from their diets, their bodies just produce on their own. Humans are not-quite-obligate omnivores. We can survive on extreme diets (otherwise veganism wouldn't be possible), but we have to be careful of malnutrition. For example, many animals make their own vitamin C, but we do not, so we get told to eat plenty of fruit. – Kai Mar 15 '24 at 14:04
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    Please see the answer to this question on how manufacturers create a food that meets a cat's nutritional needs: Dog eats the cat food, cat eats the dog food – Allison C Mar 15 '24 at 15:10
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    Ok, you've reduced it to one question. That solves one problem. But now it's likely to be closed as essentially a duplicate of past questions. And the more correct action here on Stack Exchange would have been to ask this as a new question rather than overwriting your old question with a new one. May I suggest abandoning the effort to get this reopened and just finding a new question to ask that hasn't already been addressed? – keshlam Mar 16 '24 at 00:21
  • @keshlam I cannot ask this as a new question now. I have to edit this old question for the following reason: I have asked this question on January 26th on the day when the Pets site has been the Today's Featured Site. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Mar 16 '24 at 03:39
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    Uhm... that shouldn't be a concern. Featured site on stack exchange means nothing but "Hey, were you aware this one existed?" No bonus points or any other reason to feel constrained to that date. – keshlam Mar 16 '24 at 04:22

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Cats are obligate carnivores. That means they must eat animals; taurine in particular is an essential part of their diet and can not be found in plants.

Since they eat organs we don't (including the digestive system and bones), they get the full benefit of all the vitamins and minerals the prey needed to keep itself alive. That is a pretty darned complete diet for a cat. Not scientifically perfect, but most of us don't eat a perfectly balanced diet either; it just means they need to eat a bit more to cover their needs.

Cats will sometimes eat plants. But they can't taste sugars, and they don't have all the liver enzymes we herbivores and omnivores have to handle the toxins plants produce to discourage critters from eating them, so most plants are more interesting for cleaning teeth or to prevent hairballs than as food.

But there are exceptions, on a per-cat basis, especially when it's a food their human eats. I've known cats that liked broccoli,. I've known one who was absolutely wild about white bread (but not the crusts). My own little old lady wants to sample my graham crackers; I think she likes the texture, since it isn't that far from her dry food. Decades ago, a friend's cat would sit under the high chair to grab any cheereos the toddler dropped. Cats is weird little alien minds...

But to get back to the question, plants really aren't part of the normal feline diet, and a cat can't be a vegetarian without serious dietary supplements (and probably would not appreciate your trying to convince them). Carnivore means meat eater, but for a broader definition of meat than just muscle. This doesn't mean that cat foods which contain plants are evil, just that they are carefully balanced by the manufacturers to meet the cat's well-known needs, which may indeed involve adding supplements -- just as many packaged foods for humans do.

keshlam
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