"Understanding" - from where please?
Cats have a simplistic liver NOT capable of digesting ANY plants or herbs. Their liver simply lacks the enzymes to break down the cmplex plant chenicals nto usable smaller componebets, leavubg hte large and complex antioxidant molecules to act as toxins.
In most cases any plant eaten by a cat is a toxic substance that depletes their antioxidants, in order tot ry to detoxify it. You can hardly feed a worse cat diet than all those "holistic" human styled foods sold as cat food, containng blueberries, potato, garlic, rosemary, yucca and whatever sounds good for a human antioxidant diet - as these destroy cat antioxidants instead of adding to them, and they predispose struvite crystals and they destroy kidney tissue. Not great! It's one reason kidney failure is the leading cause of death )except for wild cats - they are smarter and do not stalk blueberries and potato - not grass.
Cats are designed to use gut bacteria to manufacture the things that omnivores and herbivores get from plants.
In the wld, cats will run the guts of prey through their teeth to get the contents out. Those contents contain the essential prebiotics and probiotcs they need - VERY much after digestion and absorption of the food elements by the prey - there is NO raw plant in sight to cause pH changes, struvite, kidney damage, or to deplete antioxidants due to undigested antioxidants. The prey takes care of all that before it gets to the gut.
No they do not "get plants" - much less 5% of the diet!
They get the leftover bacterial mush of well digested leeftovers only. t's a VERY dffernet pcture for the dangerous raw plants. (dangerous to cat health)
That is becasue they are craving the folic acid that their gut bacteria are NOT making but should be making.
They chew grass to get some folic acid. They cannot digest the grass. The juice contains water-soluble folic. The grass itself is either vomited out or passed through the gut to the outside. It is not digested.
They would do better to feed them a suitable diet. Their gut NEEDS the prebiotics and probiotcs MUCH more than humans do - they have NO other source of many nutrients - unlike us.
In the wild, cats get plenty of prebiotic and probiotcs from prey - and nobody is feeding them herbs and other toxiins out there to kill the essential gut bacteria or add poisonous veg, herbs, and fruit to destroy the nutrients they do have. So they make plenty of B vits and do not crave them and consequently do not need to eat grass in desperation for missing gut health products.
Lucky to survive - that - and most house plants - are very toxic to cats.
To protect the cat actually!
It is a fermentable fiber - helps to cook it very well - and use SMALL amounts. It's just to feed bacteria, - not a food for cats. It is good becasue of its carotene content whih is very accessible to cats in well cooked squash/pumpkin (unlike carrots). Cats need 12 times as much carotene as dogs need - they get it from prey guts in the wild - you may have seen how birds eating blueberries etc, practically pooop predigested blueberry - the predigestion being important - as it is toxc to cats undigested.
It's telling you what is missing in the cat's diet.
When they are forced to get gut bacteria products from other sources, their short chain fatty acid manufacture in the gut, goes into backup mode and the cat is doing survival rather than being healthy - the butyrate production goes down way low and the immune system is very vulnerable, as propionate and acetate in high amounts do not support healthy metabolism as butyrate does.
Potatoes have three cat toxins in them.
I do not know what to say about spicy tastes in cats.
Except I had one cat who just LOVED to eat ants. He knew they were full of formic acid (stuff used to etch glass by the way!) and he'd stalk an ant in the floor cracks, nab it, - and bite it while scrunching up his entire face, eyes closed tight shut and shuddering his head at the taste - then swallow, look very pleased with himsef - and stalk the next one.
I figured - he's a carnivore - it's low volume - they need a very acid metabolism - I HOPE he knows what he is doing!
I sure did not.
I also had a cat who stole an entire very large slice of a rich fruitcake - she ate the whole thing I presume - I never found a sign of it anywhere, nor did she show any indigestion. She also liked to taste my very spicy curry meat.
Maybe our indoor cats tend to experiment with what the local "topcats" on two legs eat.
We learn more as research moves S L O W L Y forward with cats. Nobody has a financial reason to do the research so it is little and seldom - but the answers always start with the words - We THOUGHT(such and such....) .....but it turns out "CATS ARE DIFFERENT..."
Namaste,
Irene
REPLY TO: only
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Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."
