For humans, cheese snacks are not only healthy in moderate levels, they are also extremely tasty and offer lots of vitamins, proteins, and calcium which are vital for our bodies.
So you’re probably wondering if you should share a piece of your Swiss cheese and ham sandwich with your kitty or if you should treat it with a yummy slice of yellow cheese as a way to give it a little bit of protein boost.
Is It Safe For Kitty To Eat Cheese?
Short answer: You probably shouldn’t feed them cheese. Unless it’s a specially formulated raw food diet, feeding them food you’d eat from your own kitchen usually ends badly (obesity or illness).
Let’s start with a widely known fact – cats are carnivorous creatures by nature. As such, their main nutritional sustenance comes from meat. High quality cat food already offers all the essential nutritional requirements your kitty needs.
But you still can’t say no to that wide-eyed pleading stare whenever you’re snacking on some cheese! So, can you give your precious furball just a bit?
By default, cats don’t need cheese as they get all those essential ingredients from their cat food. Cats don’t really need human foods, just like we, humans, don’t need cat food in order to grow and thrive.
Nevertheless, many cat food items actually offer some cheese. If you read the label on some of Purina’s products, for example, you’ll see that cheese is among the rest of the tasty and beneficial ingredients, even though it’s present in the package only in insignificantly small amounts. Pretty sure they just do it for the marketing angle and the taste.
Cheese is abundant in cream, milk, and fat. The fat in cheese isn’t healthy fat or omega fatty acids, which cats require, especially indoor cats. It can lead to obesity and a number of other health-related issues.
So, Cheese Has High Fat Content And Is Full Of Lactose
Cats shouldn’t have much milk or milk-products since they contain so much lactose.
The reason for this is that many felines lack the lactase enzyme, which breaks down the lactose in dairy products. If your own feline pal happens to be intolerant towards lactose, the cheese snacks will make it feel nauseous, vomit, or have diarrhea.
If your furball happens to tolerate the cheese, it will like it, but that doesn’t mean that you should make a habit out of treating your pet with it on regular basis.
If you do wish to include cheese in your kitty’s diet, make sure to test its metabolism with a tiny slice and if everything’s good, stick to cat foods that offer cheese as part of their ingredients list instead of pure cheese treats.
Can Cats Eat Bread?
Bread is an essential part of the human diet in many places in the world. However, it’s quite dangerous to felines.
Bread consists of carbs, fiber, and other types of grains. Most high-quality cat foods lack grain and wheat because they can be harmful to your kitty. Plus, felines don’t need as much fiber as humans or dogs. Therefore, your kitty won’t benefit from eating bread and other dough products.
Furthermore, it can suffer from severe health-related problems if it swallows some bread dough, especially before it’s baked.
The reason bread dough is lethal to cats is the fact that their stomachs offer an ideal environment for the bread to keep rising. This can stretch and block the kitty’s abdomen and intestines, and affect its breathing and blood flow in various negative ways.
Not only that, but the yeast will also affect the sugars inside your feline’s stomach. As you probably already know, sugars can be fatal to a cat, which is why you shouldn’t give chocolate, candy, and other types of sweet treats to your precious furball.
Summing It Up…
Cans can technically eat bread and cheese without immediate consequences, but you should NOT feed them to your cat regularly, or even at all, since there’s no reason to.
These types of foods and the ingredients in them won’t harm your feline pal if it snacks on them in tiny, occasional bits. However, they can cause truly nasty symptoms and diseases in the long run if they are being offered as regular treats.
If you think your pet needs a bit of a boost, you should opt for cat vitamins and supplements. Cheese and bread don’t really offer enough nutritional value to be beneficial to your kitten, so it’s better to keep them away from your cat’s reach.
By default you shouldn’t be feeding your feline with human foods because high quality cat food items have enough nourishment as they are specially designed to meet your kitty’s nutritional needs.