Cats don’t have a sweet tooth

Image made using Grok

I spent some time with my cat recently. When I offered her a taste of my vanilla ice cream, she sniffed it, then licked it, but just briefly and then walked away from it like it meant nothing to her, something so sweet for me. This really got me thinking about whethe cats even like sweets at all. I did a little research and was surprised to find out that cats do not have the ability to taste sugar.

By all accounts, cats are obligate carnivores, that is to say they only eat meat which makes it unnecessary for them to detect sugar. In other words, their ability to taste anything sweet was not part of their development as a species. According to the research I found out that, cats have a broken Tas1r2 gene which is the gene that makes other mammals capable of being about to sense sweetness. This is why they lack the receptor that detects sweet things. This explains why my cat will not eat candy, but will go crazy for tuna or salmon.

Cats can, however, detect salty, sour, bitter and umami tastes. Umami is the flavour derived from protein rich meats, and it makes perfect sense that cats are able to detect this flavour since they evolved as predatory hunters. When a cat eats a sweet food product, it is the fat content or texture that attracts them, not the sweetness.

I find it amusing to even envision a world without sweet tasting foods. I could not live without chocolate, I would not be able to survive. But this is normal for cats. If you are a cat owner, the next time you tease your cat with food try offering them something meaty instead, yes they might eat a little of the other stuff but not much.