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Title: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: FreedomB on Sunday 14 October, 2007 Bet you didn't know that! You may or may not know that there are five different tastes - sweet, sour, salty, bitter and the recently described 'umami' (Japanese for 'delicious) - and that different areas of our tongue have the specific taste receptors, more commonly called taste buds, to detect each of these tastes. But cats completely lack sweet taste receptors!
It is believed that about 40 million years ago, which seems like a really long time but, evolutionarily speaking, isn't that long, the genes coding for sweet taste buds were lost from the feline genome - so this applies to lions, cheetahs, panthers... right down to our domestic cats. This may also explain why they tend to be such fussy eaters! rofl On a related note, did you know the panthers and jaguars are the same animal, but panthers have a genetic mutation causing them to black all over rather than patterned - similar to an albino animal, only black! Title: Re: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: Sweetpea on Sunday 14 October, 2007 But cats completely lack sweet taste receptors! I'll tell my cat that next time she begs for chocolate and sweet vanilla ice cream rofl My cat would eat pretty much anything if we let her. There is a very good reason why she is known as "roly poly fatguts". Even making your kale salad the other night, she got up on the kitchen bench, stuck her head in the bowl and emerged with a piece of kale between her fat little chops. I once put bird seed out for the parrots and she tried to eat that. Title: Re: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: Shells on Sunday 21 October, 2007 Hi Freedom
Thanks for that. When I was an oats for breakfast person, I had to be careful to put my breakfast up high otherwise it would be devoured by my sneaky cats- who seemed to really have a thing for porridge! Title: Re: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: Kitteh on Wednesday 05 December, 2007 Well I just offered my kitties rockmelon and mango. One did the squinty eye look at it as if it smelt or was awful, the other gobbled it up!
Title: Re: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: RawGreenGoddess on Sunday 09 December, 2007 my little baby loves sweet corn....too cute rofl
Title: Re: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: Kitteh on Tuesday 11 December, 2007 Haha the morning after that, I offered one watermelon (yum), corn (more yum) and banana (yuck).
This morning she ate papaya, she is too cute. They're not allowed in the kitchen *wink* but now whenever she hears me chopping or blending, she's sitting beside me licking her lips! Title: Re: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: Michaela on Tuesday 11 December, 2007 Quote One did the squinty eye look at it as if it smelt or was awful This is what is referred to as an *ick*spression!!! rofl Title: Re: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: FreedomB on Wednesday 12 December, 2007 Michaela, that is funny! Thanks for starting my day with a laugh! rofl
Title: Re: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: Kitteh on Monday 17 December, 2007 Quote One did the squinty eye look at it as if it smelt or was awful This is what is referred to as an *ick*spression!!! rofl Haha. Myena's been sharing a mango w/ me once a day now, she gets so excited and comes running into the kitchen giggling, too cute. Title: Re: Cats cannot taste sweet Post by: RawGreenGoddess on Monday 17 December, 2007 KittehKat,that is gorgeous
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