Can People Safely Eat Cat Food?
Simon Allison, professional pet food taster, eats pet food for a living…and loves it!
This week, Popular Science Magazine asked “Can People Safely Eat Cat Food?”
With the price of cat food what it is, I won’t soon be arm wrestling Skeezix over who gets the can of Fancy Feast. But if cat food were my only dietary option, it would be fine for short periods, according to the article. The ingredients in a typical can of cat food: meat by-products, chicken by-product meal, turkey by-product meal, ash, taurine, are “nothing too horrible, but in general, these things don’t constitute a healthy human diet,” said Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian with the American Dietetic Association. She added, “I’m fully confident that your body can handle kitty chow.”
According to Blatner, the worst stuff in cat food is the high mineral content in the ash, but that can be cleared from the body fairly quickly.
If you are going to share Fluffy’s repast, go organic. Newman’s Own canned beef formula uses only free-range beef from Uruguay, is 95 percent USDA-certified organic, and is chock-full of vitamins. Probably much healthier than my normal diet. Blatner says that organic cat foods are “OK to satisfy the occasional craving, but you shouldn’t make it a staple of your regular diet. It’s cat food for a reason.”
(OK to satisy the occasional craving??? Help me out, here. Do any of you sneak downstairs at night to pop open a can of Newman’s Own?)
Apparently, there are some who do. Here YouTube proof:
In a reader? Click here.
As is often the case, the best part of this article was one of the comments:
My X-wife put canned cat food in my dinner one night after I had won an argument. Chicken Vittles if memory serves. It was easy to tell it wasn’t people food. There were small bits of ground up bone and an overall sort of slimy texture. I think “By Product” is the tip off there to tell you that these are things you wouldn’t eat if you knew what part of the animal it really came from.
In case you are wondering, I never ate anything she ever made ever again never.
Hi Skeezy, We don’t think we will try any cat food soon. It may not be bad for humans, but the smell of some of it would be a trun off. The “wet” varieties are the worst. Bosco says the smellier to humans, the better the flavor to him! The costs of cat foods make them even less attractive, considering how much a human would need to consume for a meal. The cat can keep his food and we’ll keep ours.
My Mistress says “Eeeeuuuuuwww!!” I don’t know why she said that, I don’t really care for canned food, but I’ll eat it now and then. She says it smells nasty, but I think it smells yummy! She says she’d have to be almost starving to death before she even considered eating cat food. But she’s heard of little old ladies who don’t have much money eating pet food, we know the economy is horrible right now, but she wouldn’t go that far!
My person says she will not be trying my food any time… however is she is forced by circumstances to taste test, she might get down some of the Solid Gold tuna as it doesn’t look all that much different from regular canned tuna…
Mama just wishes to inform Karen… she too had dog food issues as a child… Purina Puppy… looked like it was covered in powdered sugar or something and she loved to dip her hand into the bag and nibble… mol!!!
OK, full disclosure here too:
1. My Mom ate some cat food recently thinking it was peanut butter. She really needs to wear her glasses AT ALL TIMES. However, a doctor pal told her that with the salmonella problems, cat food was probably healthier than peanut butter.
2. She ate a Milk Bone dog bisquit not long ago “for fun.”
3. She liked paste in kindergarten and traded her sandwiches for same.
4. None of us like people food.
5. Correction: Ray is addicted to olive oil
I hope Skeezix’s and Taillee’s Mommies don’t have deep emotional issues from eating dog food – MOL! I eat Newman’s canned chicken and it is pawsome but Mawmee says the smell about gags her!
My momma accidently licked a spoon with wet food on it when she was little. She says it scarred her for life, since everytime she opens a can of Fancy Feast for Sasha and I she remembers it. MOL
When my daughter was younger, about 10, she wanted to know what cat chow tasted like. I wasn’t about to find out, but told her to go ahead and try a piece if she was brave enough. Well, she was! She said it tasted like a pickled pretzel. So there you have it. At least that’s what it tasted like about 20 years ago…
Once mommy accidentally bought can of Alpo dog food with our catfood. It was ribeye flavor or something…she discovered it and went ahead and gave it to us and she thought it smelled really GOOD! I told her it tasted really good too but she wouldn’t try it.
Mom was a vet tech and very experimental. She and another tech tried some Waltham canned food. It was good. Tasted like beef stew she said. I don’t think she would eat it all the time though.