![]() ![]() In it she suggests that cats may not be getting enough protein in their diets, per the current National Research Council and Association of American Feed Control Officials guidelines. Martha Cline, a veterinarian specializing in clinical nutrition at Red Bank Veterinary Hospital, recently analyzed current feeding practices of cat owners for the upcoming book, "Feline Internal Medicine," directed at animal health care experts. How cats can detect this ratio remains a complete mystery for now. "Cats initially selected food based on flavor preferences, but after 'learning' (due to prior exposure) about the nutritional composition of the foods, cats selected foods to reach a particular target balance of protein and fat regardless of added flavors," Hewson-Hughes said.Īs a result, some felines actually ate more orange-flavored chow, which had the target protein to fat ratio, than they consumed fish and rabbit-flavored foods without such a precise nutrient ratio. The other experiments were designed to disentangle the influences of flavor and aroma from nutrition. The felines favored fish, with rabbit being their second choice and orange a very distant third. The foods had approximately the same protein to fat ratio. To explore factors affecting cat food choices, Hewson-Hughes, a senior research scientist at the Waltham Center for Pet Nutrition, and his colleagues conducted a series of experiments.įirst, they presented male and female cats with three flavors of wet foods that the researchers had formulated: rabbit, fish and orange. ![]()
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