If cats are obligate carnivores, why do we feed them rice and peas(among other non-meat things)?
To my knowledge, while dogs can have some carbohydrates, a cats liver and pancreas will be overly stressed dealing with carbs. They need to eat meat and exclusively meat to survive and be healthy. So why do I find so many different cat foods with things *other* than meat or fish? Is it filler?
In: Biology
The main reason why cats are obligate carnivores is due to taurine. Most mammals produce taurine in their system but not cats, so they have to get it from their food. That doesn’t mean that anything other than meat holds zero nutritional value for them but their guts are not capable of digesting just anything. Pet foods is a very nasty rabbit hole where profits and prioritisation of low cost have driven misinformation about what our animals actually need, but on a basic level most pet foods are digestible and provide the essentials to animals. It’s not much unlike humans in that regard. Most animals produce vitamin C for example but humans have to get it from food. That’s why we either need to eat fruits or at least animals rich in vitamin C or we get scurvy.
Unfortunately most pet foods do use a lot of fillers, including carbs, which can be harmful long term. There are better options but they’re more expensive. Diabetic food is usually low on carbs and it’s not harmful for non diabetic cats to eat it.
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