Cat dietary taboos

Allium plants (onions, garlic, leeks, etc.), caffeinated foods, xylitol, grapes and their products, and highly toxic anthelmintics/insecticides are the absolute red line that cats should not touch. Ingestion of these can range from vomiting and convulsions to direct acute death.； Leftovers and high-sugar and high-oil human snacks are high-risk categories that are not recommended for feeding. Controversial foods such as milk, raw meat, and small amounts of fruit have never been answered uniformly. It depends on your cat’s physique and feeding conditions.

Last fall, I fried onions and eggs and put them on the dining table. As soon as I turned around to grab some chopsticks, he picked up the edge of the table and took a bite out of the edge of the egg. I was so frightened that I rushed to the hospital with my cat bag. Fortunately, the amount was very small. After I induced vomiting, I hung up two bottles of water and it was fine. The veterinarian repeatedly emphasized to me that allium species, whether raw, cooked or powdered, even a little bit can destroy the cat’s red blood cells and induce hemolytic anemia. If you eat too much, it will be difficult to save the cat. Just as dangerous as alliums are grapes and raisins. The academic community has not yet figured out what ingredients cause cat poisoning, but based on existing cases, even eating three or four of them may induce acute kidney injury. A veterinarian I know said that he has encountered three cases of cats poisoned by grapes in ten years of practice, and two cases were not rescued. Don’t take chances. There are also caffeinated foods such as chocolate, coffee, and milk tea. Cats’ metabolism is particularly poor. Cats will have tachycardia, nervous excitement, and severe sudden death if they eat them. Don’t think that your cat will be fine if he takes a lick of milk tea out of curiosity. If something goes wrong, it will be too late to regret it.

Even less noticeable than these is xylitol, which is added to many people’s sugar-free chewing gum, sugar-free baked snacks, and even some children’s toothpastes. As long as a cat eats 0.1 grams per kilogram of body weight, it will cause a sudden drop in insulin, acute hypoglycemia, and in severe cases, liver failure. Last time, a pet hospital owner dropped half a piece of sugar-free chewing gum on the ground. The cat licked it, and he collapsed within half an hour. It took him three days to be rescued, and it cost him nearly 20,000 yuan. It was really an unforeseen disaster.

After talking about these untouchable red lines, there are also a lot of "taboos" that are hotly debated on the Internet. In fact, they are not so absolute, and there is no need to follow the list one-size-fits-all. For example, it really depends on the cat whether the milk that I have been arguing about for 800 times can be fed: My Daju loves to drink fresh milk with zero lactose. There is nothing wrong with drinking half a plate at a time. My colleague's puppet took a sip of the ordinary pure milk that I drank and had diarrhea for three days. In fact, the essence is that most adult cats do not secrete enough lactase and are easily intolerant to ordinary milk. However, not all cats are like this. If you want to feed it, try giving it a spoonful or two first. If there is no reaction of loose stools, then give a small amount. There is really no need to rush up and scold others for abusing cats when you see others feeding milk.

There is also the controversy over raw meat and bones. Friends who keep pets around me are directly divided into two groups. One group is a staunch raw meat party, saying that cats are inherently carnivores. Cats fed raw meat and bones have shiny hair and less smelly poop, which is much healthier than eating puffed food.； The other group is firmly opposed, saying that Toxoplasma gondii and salmonella in raw meat may not be shared by humans and cats, but may cause problems. I didn’t try it myself because I thought it was troublesome, and the vet gave me a very neutral opinion: If you can ensure that the source of the meat is reliable, it has been sterilized by low-temperature freezing for more than 72 hours, and you can have a good nutritional ratio such as calcium and phosphorus ratio, then feeding raw meat and bones is absolutely fine. ； If you can't even figure out the origin of meat, and you spend three days fishing and two days drying nets and feeding them random pieces of raw meat, then it would be safer to feed your cat food honestly.

Oh, yes, there are also many pitfalls that novices tend to overlook: I always feel that feeding a cat something that I eat is painful. The last time I met an old man in the hospital, he had been raising a cat for three years. He usually ate the same food as humans. He said, "It loved to fight for braised pork with me. I couldn't bear to give it to me." Later, the cat was diagnosed with chronic renal failure and passed away in less than two months. The old man squatted in the corridor of the hospital and cried very uncomfortably. In fact, the ability of a cat's kidneys to metabolize salt is only a fraction of that of a human. If you eat high-salt foods for a long time, your kidneys will have problems sooner or later. There are also those seasoned processed snacks, such as potato chips, cakes, and preserves. Even giving the cat a lick will increase its metabolic burden. If it really hurts it, it is better to buy a special canned cat strip.

In fact, there are really not so many black and white rules when it comes to raising cats. The core is to avoid those red lines that must not be touched. For the rest, just observe your cat's reaction. After all, every cat's physique is different. Don’t blindly believe in the so-called “standard answers” ​​on the Internet, and don’t feed them based on your own preferences. After all, cats can’t talk, so it’s him and you who will be the most uncomfortable if something goes wrong.