Cat food flavours

[Paul_UK]

I was just wondering when I was feeding Duke.... When is the last time anyone has seem a cat killing and eating a cow in the wild? Or a lamb or a chicken?

Surely cats would prefer sparrow, mouse or goldfish flavour if they had the choice? I bet humans wouldn't buy it though.

Sorry, that was rather random......

[Trumpetplyer23]

...I've thought about this stuff too. Or, like the sticker on the bag that says "New and improved taste", does that mean that a human actually tested the cat food before and after they improved it?

I honestly don't know why it's beef flavored. Maybe they think the cats are too stupid to realize that they're eating cow instead of sparrow? Maybe sparrow tastes like beef?

[MeskElil]

Hmm....
Well, if they were raised housecats, meat is meat.
But you're right, that does seem a little weird...
We feed our cats Friskies "Mealtime", because we have no idea what's in it but they like it .

[Paul_UK]

The Felix one I gave him earlier was not just beef, but "beef in a special carrot jelly". In the same range there is also "chicken in a special tomato jelly" and "duck in a special spinach jelly".

Carrot? Tomato? Spinach? I though the only non-meat cats ate was grass, and that was just to help them be sick on the carpet! He seems to like it though. And it doesn't make him sick.

[Trumpetplyer23]

Originally Posted by Paul_UK

The Felix one I gave him earlier was not just beef, but "beef in a special carrot jelly". In the same range there is also "chicken in a special tomato jelly" and "duck in a special spinach jelly".

Carrot? Tomato? Spinach? I though the only non-meat cats ate was grass, and that was just to help them be sick on the carpet! He seems to like it though. And it doesn't make him sick.

My cat only eats one flavor, and it's like turkey and duck. He only eats one kind, with one flavor because of his kidney disease....

I think why companies put carrots and stuff in there is they have special vitamins and minerals to help the cat be healthy...stuff they wouldn't get in just a bag of 'sparrow flavoured' cat food.

[Helen]

My Biscuit eats a salmon flavoured cat food called Snappy Tom. She seems to like it, but judging by her hunting habits, I think Snappy Tom should manufacture a beetle flavoured cat food XD

[InaRut]

Originally Posted by Paul_UK

The Felix one I gave him earlier was not just beef, but "beef in a special carrot jelly". In the same range there is also "chicken in a special tomato jelly" and "duck in a special spinach jelly".

Carrot? Tomato? Spinach? I though the only non-meat cats ate was grass, and that was just to help them be sick on the carpet! He seems to like it though. And it doesn't make him sick.

Well the way it's advertised is that it helps with natural development or maitence of blah blah blah blah. >_> So carrot, tomato and all that is suppose to make your cat healthy. But yah a cat in the wild would get these vitamins and neutrients from the animal it killed but because that clearly isn't the case with processed crap I think they just add it in.

>_> We actually got our cat gourmet cat food for christmas. How sad is that? That they have gourmet cat food!

[Louise]

Talking of sad, Whiskas commercialise 'cat milk' special little bottles of milk 'designed' for cats! Can't they just drink cows milk like the rest of us!!!

Mind you I prefer giving my cat shop bought food than for him to drag in half eaten mice with their entrails hanging out... ugh

[Trumpetplyer23]

Originally Posted by Louise

Talking of sad, Whiskas commercialise 'cat milk' special little bottles of milk 'designed' for cats! Can't they just drink cows milk like the rest of us!!!

Mind you I prefer giving my cat shop bought food than for him to drag in half eaten mice with their entrails hanging out... ugh

Cats and dogs are actually lactose intolerant, which means they can't digest the milk and just puke it back up.

Oh, and a shameful secret of mine, everyone ready? I don't drink cows milk or even goats milk.........I drink soy milk.

[joeyconnick]

Why is drinking soy milk a shameful secret? That's what I drink.

As for cats, our cats growing up were raised eating a lot of beef liver (like fresh) and they seemed to like it quite a lot.

That being said, it's a great question, and probably has much more to do with us than with cats. After all, we're doing the purchasing, so most people can relate to beef, chicken, and fish as being tastily edible, whereas sparrow, mouse, or goldfish is unlikely to see well.

As for vegetable jellies... hmmn... I guess now that I think of it, cats don't go around digging up potatoes and carrots and I haven't seen any munching on spinach. Still, can't be bad for them, given that veggies are super-healthy, so it would likely be for the vitamins and nutrients that maybe they'd be more likely to get if they were eating fresh-killed meat of some kind, rather than the processed garbage we like to call "meat" (not to mention the processed stuff we call "cat food").

[Trumpetplyer23]

Originally Posted by joeyconnick

Why is drinking soy milk a shameful secret? That's what I drink.

As for cats, our cats growing up were raised eating a lot of beef liver (like fresh) and they seemed to like it quite a lot.

That being said, it's a great question, and probably has much more to do with us than with cats. After all, we're doing the purchasing, so most people can relate to beef, chicken, and fish as being tastily edible, whereas sparrow, mouse, or goldfish is unlikely to see well.

As for vegetable jellies... hmmn... I guess now that I think of it, cats don't go around digging up potatoes and carrots and I haven't seen any munching on spinach. Still, can't be bad for them, given that veggies are super-healthy, so it would likely be for the vitamins and nutrients that maybe they'd be more likely to get if they were eating fresh-killed meat of some kind, rather than the processed garbage we like to call "meat" (not to mention the processed stuff we call "cat food").

I was being sarcastic, because Louise said "why can't they just drink cow's milk like the rest of us.". It was an attempt at being funny that didn't work out to well.

They put the same stuff in dog food, processed vitamins, to try and keep them healthy. So it's not really a matter of the animal's original diet to the companies, but trying to keep them healthy, I guess.

[joeyconnick]

Originally Posted by Trumpetplyer23

I was being sarcastic, because Louise said "why can't they just drink cow's milk like the rest of us.". It was an attempt at being funny that didn't work out to well.

Oh that's okay... I figured it was something like that but I wasn't totally sure if you were secretly ashamed of soy.

Soy drinkers: come out of your closets!

[Alexander]

I totally thought of that too! I would definitely buy chipmunk flavored catfood.

Weird though, cause my dog adores swiss chard and spinach. It's one of his favorite foods

[panda]

They put those flavours in cat foods to fool stupid humans into thinking that it must be good for the cat. That's not true.
A lot of poor pensioners eat cat food cause it's cheap and sounds tasty.
My guys eat Science Diet Prescription kibble,they also catch mice,sparrows,and pigeons.
Years ago I fed one of my cats a diet of raw chicken livers which ended up killing him because it wasn't the proper balance.

[TriBi]

Being somewhat of a cynical realist - I think that the reason that pet food companies bring out all these little tins of of 'gourmet' stuff with supposed fancy ingredients is so they can con gullible consumers into paying far more for a product - and make heaps of profit.

[Alexander]

Originally Posted by panda

They put those flavours in cat foods to fool stupid humans into thinking that it must be good for the cat. That's not true.
A lot of poor pensioners eat cat food cause it's cheap and sounds tasty.
My guys eat Science Diet Prescription kibble,they also catch mice,sparrows,and pigeons.
Years ago I fed one of my cats a diet of raw chicken livers which ended up killing him because it wasn't the proper balance.

science diet!