Cat Food Around the World

Prejudiced Palates

Each country has its own "palate prejudices" which affects what gets fed to domestic pets. In Japan, fish features prominently in the human diet and this taste preference is transferred to Japanese cats which are often fed clam-flavor or squid-flavor food. Although popular belief has it that cats instinctively adore fish, fish is not a cat's favorite flavor. A cat's taste preference is largely based on what it is accustomed to eating - and Japanese cats are accustomed to eating a fish-based diet that parallels that of their owners. In the same way, laboratory kittens fed on an experimental diet of cheese-flavored mashed potato developed a taste for the stuff.

In European countries meats such as rabbit and duck feature on the menus of both cat and human. Spicy foods are frequently rejected by European cats, but cats in places such as Mexico, where human food is spicy, often accept spicy foods, having become accustomed to scavenging spicy leftovers. Some Spanish cat owners add chopped peppers to their cat's food bowl to enliven bland canned cat food!

America, the home of the burger, is a beef-based culture. Lamb and mutton do not figure highly on the menu. Consequently lamb does not figure prominently in American cat food, except in "hypo-allergenic" feline diets. Because lamb is fed so infrequently to American cats, most have not had the opportunity to develop an allergic reaction to sheep protein. This would not hold true in Britain (for example) where sheep farming is an important part of the economy and where lamb-flavor pet foods are common.

So far, I have found that British cat food contains the most diverse flavors with ingredients including shrimp, prawn, lobster, crab, red mullet, pork, venison, pheasant and quail alongside the more standard varieties of tuna, trout, salmon (plain or smoked), pilchard, sardine, cod, chicken, turkey, rabbit, beef, lamb, liver, kidney and heart. Some cat food include cooked vegetable, rice, pasta, eggs, milk or cheese. Many accuse British people of being insular, but British cats have wide-ranging tastes and are willing to try anything.

In British cat food, pork and other pig products are uncommon. Horse, donkey, whale, dolphin, porpoise and kangaroo are not found in British cat foods. Whale, dolphin and porpoise is not permitted on ecological grounds. Equine is a cultural taboo. Kangaroo seems to be for environmental reasons, but mainly as a result of a scare story many years back. Floor sweepings containing sawdust are also not allowed and following the BSE outbreak, certain parts of animals must not be used in pet food. In some countries there are tales of euthanized cats and dogs being included in pet food, but this is not permitted in the UK.

My own cats' favorite (unanimous vote among my tinned-food eaters) is Whiskas Ocean Fish Platter produced in Australia and brought here by a friend with a sense of humor. Interestingly British Whiskas got a firm thumbs down despite "eight out of ten owners saying their cats prefer it". Sorry chaps, but they'll plough through endless bowls of supermarket own brands, but barely sniff at a plate of the purple-packaged stuff, a reaction normally only reserved for anything called "chunks in gravy" (any brand).