Improving cat food flavors with the help of feline taste-testers | Hacker News Reader

Improving cat food flavors with the help of feline taste-testers

phys.org

36 pointspolitelemon56 comments

My two cats don't appear to care what flavor food I give them so long as there's a lot of variety. Giving them the same flavor for a few days results in untouched food. I have to cycle a few different brands and types to keep them from wasting a lot of food. Which I do, of course, because they're in charge.

Cats are so intelligent they managed to hack humanity's need to serve for their own self interests. My cats show me fleeting amounts of affection and it just makes me want to do more things for them.

Compared to my dog, a cat's independence creates an unspoken understanding that they are only here as long as I keep them happy.

> unspoken understanding that they are only here as long as I keep them happy.

This is a big misunderstanding people keep repeating. You expect cats to act like dogs and then assume the reason why that isn't the case is because you don't keep them happy, which is only partially true. Think of this differently, cats are like people, they consider themselves in a social relationship with you.

If you have a friend over but don't entertain them, spend time with them or give them foods and drinks that are tasty, then they may not want to hang out at your place a lot in the future right?

Also,similar to humans, they don't show you their personality right away, they are very guarded and won't reveal themselves and open up unless you do the same. Cats have a very high emotional intelligence compared to other pets. They are the only animals that have domesticated themselves. They consider themselves our partners not our servants (unlike dogs), and historically speaking they would be right, since cats living indoors has only been a thing since the cat litter was invented 40-50 years ago. Before that, they had lots of uses like chasing mice and other pests or keeping humans entertained,a mutually beneficial relationship if you will. in many ways they were useful to humans more than even most other humans at times.

In short, you get from having a cat what you put into that relationship, just like with people and each cat has it's own personality. Don't compare them to your dog, dogs are domesticated by humans and heavily bred with a purpose. Think of having a cat being more like befriending a wild animal instead of having an obedient servant.

Beautifully said. Too many people look at cats as dumb, defective dogs rather than simply a different type of creature. The differences in the origin and agency of the domestication is lost on people.

William S Burroughs wrote about cats too, and in similar ways. If you’re not familiar it’s worth looking up.

Thank you for writing this, notepad0x90.

I'd like to add that some cats have a much greater need for companionship and corresponding tendency toward demonstrating their 'love' when you've proved to their satisfaction that you care about them, whether or not they allow you to pet them (don't skip to picking them up).

If you want a cat that acts more like a dog, first gain a whole lot of practice getting strange cats to like you[1], then adopt a young stray (~1yr max I think, though all cats are individuals), or (easier, but with a lower ceiling of 'bondedness') an older cat that seems friendly. It won't be quick or easy, but (in my experience) you'll get a very puppy-like relationship... without the barking and picking up **.

I love dogs, and dogs love me[2], but they are the most malleable of mammal species in human history, and the most adapted to our need for companionship, as notepad0x90 touches on.

In short, to me, cats (and dogs) _are_ people[3], and they can tell that I feel that way.

1. If you didn't have many opportunities to try and fail among friends and family, or with stray cats in your neighborhood, try working at a no-kill shelter (if you can find one), or a cat café (the rare ethical one like Cat Town in Oakland, or any other) - many different paths, all opportunities to learn how to socialize with cats.

2. I was once walking down the street, when a gorgeous woman came up behind me, led by her large mutt, who was very interested in me. She said something like "Wow, he's not usually interested in people; you must be very _aware_!" I promptly ran into a telephone pole.

3. Let's not get into diet, because I'm a hypocrite.

> Think of this differently, cats are like people, they consider themselves in a social relationship with you.

Definitely. Although I wonder if they think we’re all just weird, bald cats.

I do wonder about their theory of mind though. My cat knows how to close doors but not open them. Last time he closed the bedroom door while I was in there, and then realized he was trapped, so he came over to me, looked at me, looked at the door, and waited. I played dumb but eventually opened the door for him. So I wonder if he knew I knew what he wanted or was just hoping I did.

Doubtful we'll ever know for sure, but sometimes it's difficult to discern with cats whether they know what to do but are just letting us do the work for them or if they genuinely don't know.

I suspect the answer is somewhere in between. Our cats have an approximate model of the house and if they see something outside the window, they'll run out the door and to that window knowing where the object of interest was in relation to the interior of the house. But, this comes from years of conditioning. They've been upstairs and have looked out the windows, but when I've spoken to them while they were immediately below the window they've sat on, they started crying apparently having no idea a) how I got up there and b) where in relation to their known "map" of the house I was. (In complete fairness this could be because they spend very little time upstairs since, unlike most cats, they absolutely love commotion and socializing with humans.)

Oh, cats definitely know you can open the door for them. When I feed our four cats, one of them (Inky) usually joins me in the cat bathroom to provide supervision services. Of course, this process must be done behind closed doors, otherwise there tends to be too much interference from some of the other cats.

Once he’s satisfied that everything is proceeding according to his plan, he looks at the door. And if I don’t open it immediately, he looks at me to try to figure out why I’m not already opening the door for him.

Every time.

He’s also the engineer who figured out how to open doors on his own, just by reaching up his longcat body, wrapping his forepaws around the door handle, and pulling. So, we had to childproof all the door handles in the house. Which is why he now has to wait for me to open the door for him.

His sister Mimi is also super smart, but she is too FOMO and doesn’t have quite the same methodical engineering mindset that Inky does.

> Compared to my dog, a cat's independence creates an unspoken understanding that they are only here as long as I keep them happy

I had a fussy beagle and have a gregarious cat. They both followed me around the house with similar frequency, were similarly food motivated and both enjoy(ed) tagging along with me in the car while I ran the day’s errands.

There are certain fundamental differences between the species. But there is more personality variation within them than there is between, in my opinion.

My elderly cat has to be on a limited-protein diet because of food allergies. Rabbit is commonly used since none of the commercial foods have it as an ingredient (it's stupid expensive). I recently added a new kitten to the household and she is being fed a good quality wet food with lots of variety.

When the older cat smelled it, it was like the Best Thing That Had Ever Existed and she learned to push the kitten away from the bowl and eat it all herself. And naturally vomit it up shortly afterwards.

I had to buy a couple of the microchip feeders to keep their diets separate. They work, but are expensive. But where they get you are the cost of the stainless steel bowls, because of course you need more than what came in the box.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_and_blades_model

Yeah, if those are the surepet feeders, I was shocked to see they had gone up in price by a factor of 2.5.

I love cats and this way of thinking. I had a pet rabbit for some years and often wondered why the food seemed to be more geared towards what humans would like (e.g. cream strawberry candies), rather than what would be nice for a rabbit.

Off topic, but I wish there was a way to marry the desire for a feline partner and the survival of native bird species. Here in the suburb of Utrecht in the Netherlands they do wreak havoc on the local bird population. I like to feed the magpies to keep the cats a bit at bay as they are so aggresive towards cats. Sure, magpies also eat birds but they're so far inferior in hunting (and already well fed) that I'm sure their presence is a net positive for the smaller bird species in the neighborhood. I don't see another way cause forcing your cat to remain inside is also not fair towards the cat, but introducing them in a foreign hunting game walhalla is also not right.

> The researchers found that most cats preferred and ate more of the foods sprayed with their attractants, particularly the sprays with proteins that were further broken-down by the enzymes and contained more free amino acids.

Even-yummier premium cat food would probably sell quite well.

OTOH: Of the cat owners I've known, quite a few have described their cats as overweight - to degrees which were of concern for their cats' health. But unless some major health problem was the root cause, I can't recall a single cat being described an unhealthily underweight.

Some cats will self regulate intake to maintain a healthy weight, but a large fraction will not. If your cat is one of these then you need to regulate it's intake. But I think it's also a bad idea to reduce abruptly.

> But I think it's also a bad idea to reduce abruptly.

Why? That’s usually the advice from vets. Immediately take away free feeding and switch to portions that result in a calorie deficit until they get to a healthy weight.

Reducing a cat's caloric intake too quickly will result in hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver). This only takes days and is very likely to result in death without immediate veterinary intervention.

Do you have a source for this, even Wikipedia doesn’t seem to name a cause for this disease.

Not the GP but https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/liver-disease-fatty-l...

I have never personally heard that a cat could get fatty liver disease from undereating, but I have heard it's a risk if they don't eat anything all for 24 hours.

In greater than 90% of cats, an underlying disease has caused the inappetence. These may include inflammatory bowel disease, other types of liver disease, cancer, pancreatitis, anxiety, respiratory disease and diabetes mellitus.

So in 90% of these cases, cats were very ill with some other dosease, causing them to forgo food, and this additional symptom sets in.

It should be noted:

* the other 10% could be due to unidentified other issues

* this has nothing to do with withholding food, but with cats purposefully not eating food

So cats die in the wild, if they cannot catch mice for a few days?

No mammal I know of dies due to food interruptions of a mere few days. This sounds wildly inaccurate.

Cats hunt 20-50 times a day, with approximately a 50% success rate. No cat in an environment with any available prey goes more than a few hours without eating something. They're not like lions or other climax predators, who eat much less regularly.

There are droughts, there are dry seasons and yes for wild cats, and cat ancestors too.

Cats can go weeks without food and manage to survive, and going days during tough times is a certainty.

They'd almost never go from a full diet back to zero instantly though. If you reduce their intake over time, even a few days, they don't develop liver issues.

They usually won't be starting from obese though.

I agree with the sibling comment about small cats hunting very very frequently, and I'd also add that animals cache food for exactly the reason of avoiding starvation. Small mammals also have quicker metabolisms, and their surface-to-volume ratio is worse than a large mammal so they need a steadier supply of food just to maintain their body temperature.

Plenty of mammals also hibernate, and they have to fatten up ahead of time to survive it.

Cats cat go weeks without food and survive. This is non optimal, but we're in the context of "do cats die without food for a day". No. Nada.

Hibernation is for months, and few mammals do it. All mammals fatten up for the winter (or dry season).

Rabbits can’t hold long with empty stomach, not sure if it’s a rare condition among mammals.

Deficit doesn’t mean 0 calories. Don’t be dramatic

That's not the advice I've got.

I've heard a vet advise reducing only 10% a week for a very overweight cat.

For my (not very overweight) cats, the advice was not to go to deficit, but to switch to an amount that would be a maintenance amount for the correct weight. Which was presumably not very different to their previous intake.

I don't have strong evidence here (hence "I think" above). I'm not a vet and I'm definitely not YOUR vet .

A maintenance amount for their correct weight is a deficit.

Indoor cats are often under-stimulated and depressed and have nothing to do to pass the time except to eat and sleep

I agree inside a house is more boring than an alley, but have you seen how much time big cats spend sleeping?

I have had a few cats that had cat flaps, so they could come and go as they pleased. They slept indoors, often on the warmest lap they could find, a lot. However, they also disappeared into the trees and bushes in the neighborhood for hours at a time and often came back grubby and spent ages cleaning themselves. Pretty obviously a sign they had been doing something engaging.

When I visited my friends who had indoor cats, they always seemed either timid or bored, spending hours just sitting looking out windows or sleeping.

I always found it hard to watch a cat staring out at the world, with their only stimulation/interaction happening in the small amount of time each day when people were at home and not busy with something else or sleeping.

It's that choice between a short but fulfilling life, or a long and mediocre one. A lot of humans disagree on which they prefer too.

No cats would disagree, though, except those already conditioned to captivity. Any cat, given a free choice from birth and treated well, will choose to spend time both indoors and outdoors.

I’d argue the same about humans, frankly. The only ones content to stay indoors all day are those conditioned to, and damaged by, the captivity.

Two of our cats died in their mid-teens of old cat illness, and we chose to have them put to sleep at home, purring on someone's lap. The other medical options the vet suggested in each case would have given the cats a bit more time, but it would have been a poor quality of life for them and nothing we wanted to see them put through.

The only cat that lived a short life had nothing to do with being allowed outside. He was the most unique cat I've ever encountered. He'd could use door handles, play fetch, come and get you if he wanted to go out and the cat flap had been locked for whatever reason, would wait for me at the end of my road when I walked home from work and would then wait for my to start running and race me to the front door. Sadly he was born with a condition that meant he passed away before he turned 5, but he was happy and playful every day. Losing him impacted me more than I would have believed possible.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that it's not such a binary choice. As long as you don't live right next to a road with lots of traffic, cats that can come and go as they please don't necessarily live short lives.

It's just idiots who think all cats can learn to live alongside fast cars that end up with young dead cats.

Traffic isn’t the only problem. Housecats are also prey animals if you live anywhere near where foxes, coyotes, large birds of prey, etc… are around.

As it so happens, a lot of places in this country, even in many cities, may be near green spaces and preserves where these kinds of wildlife can be found.

Sure, traffic and horrible people who think it’s fun to torture animals to death are an additional concern in more densely populated areas, but they can also be a threat in less densely populated areas.

The problem is that especially nowadays where there are just not as many mice and people have cats for emotional reasons rather than us working animals, cats are responsible for killing off local songbird populations and otherwise damaging if not collapsing ecosystems because they are effectively invasive species in most places of the world. Famously, Australia is probably the best example, where cats are/have devastated the ecosystems, including pushing around 30 species near extinction, along with all the other problems due to invasive species.

Unless you have a barn where mice thrive, it is not advisable to let them out to eradicate the local songbird or amphibian populations.

In some parts of the US, the outdoors can also be very hazardous. In the suburb I live in, on top of the usual risks that come with developed areas like traffic there's also large predators like coyotes, owls, and bobcats that are out in the darker hours and will make a meal of a cat (especially smaller ones). The stream of missing cat posts online is constant.

...unless they are entertained by other cats and dogs in the family, we have found. in that case, and "mileage my vary", one can end up with Looney Tunes style frivolity sideshows all day.

Anecdote: I’ve got an otherwise healthy cat who requires an appetite stimulant to stay at a healthy weight.

Is it "inhumane" to feed cats (or other animals) the same thing every day? Should one try to give them as much variety as humans prefer?

I've given my cats the same food for years. I don't think that's abnormal, but I don't think I would enjoy being fed the same thing (aside from occasional treats) for my entire life.

> Is it "inhumane" to feed cats (or other animals) the same thing every day?

Plenty of people eat the same thing every day. If your cat is fine with it and you’re fine with it I don’t see the issue. (I say this as someone who loves food, eats a variety of it, and so does my cat and did my dog.)

My cat ate fillet steak for dinner every night, the only complaint would be if it was not chopped fine enough and he would send it back with orders to try again.

Are there really people that eat the same meal, breakfast/lunch/dinner, for the vast majority of their lives?

I don't think anyone would choose that, though I'm sure one could do it if the circumstances demanded it, e.g. due to poverty or being Dr. Mark Watney.

> If your cat is fine with it

How would one know? My cat's options are to:

* Eat what's available

* Starve

They do like variety. But if they get the same food every day for a long time, they may be unable to accept other food, which could be a problem if you need to change their diet due to a health condition. (But this is from a book I read 30 years ago so there is likely more recent advice)

Do you give them a food which has different flavours? That might be enough. I tend to switch mine occasionally.

I feed them a fairly nice brand that's kibble + freeze dried chicken. They do seem to like it.

I just can't help but think I'd hate my life if I ate the same thing day in and day out. Being an (indoor) cat sounds really boring -- eating the same thing every day, sleeping 16 hours a day, and being unable to mate or hunt.

I wonder if animals feel the need for a sense of purpose like humans do.

If there's no health reason not to, try a different food. A fish based one maybe. Give a little bit at first to avoid upsets. If you keep two types in stock you can switch frequently rather than just feeding the same one and switching when the bag is empty.

They probably don't have the abstract concept of purpose, but they have various drives, like we do, some of which may be unsatisfied. May be worth reading a few books. Catwatching by Desmond Morris is good, but quite old now.

However I think even the wild cousins sleep 16 hours.

In my experience, it depends on the cat(s). Many cats prefer stability, so the same food all the time is what they would prefer. But some cats seem to prefer variety.

I don’t know if this comes from us trying out various different things to see what they like best, and they decide what they like best is the variety of trying different things, or what.

But, based on my personal experience, you need to be able to know and understand your cat.

Switching my cat to raw food has been the best thing I could have done. It’s not cheap but it saved his life due to IBD. Wish it was more wide spread to bring the price down.

Our little guy gets a mixed diet of half dry kibbles, half raw food. He loves it and his digestion is so much better than when he is on kibble only.

I have managed to keep the cost down by buying it in bulk. We get 1kg frozen bricks of minced turkey/rabbit meat/bones/offal/blood that I defrost in the fridge and batch into containers that hold 2 days worth and refreeze.

I don't know where you live but this is the website I use in the UK https://www.kiezebrink.co.uk/

Fun fact: pet food is professionally taste tested by humans.

I have a friend who tasted dog food and cat food (don’t ask) and swears that cat food is a hundred times worse ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I can confirm.

I agree with your friend that it tastes worse, but only like 3 times worse. :)

Some cat food is basically canned tuna. Tasted fine to me. But the stuff we normally serve smells vile.

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