cats

Yeah… don’t pay any attention to this kind of nonsense. Cats are obligated to carnivores. They don’t have the machinery to process a lot of non-meat foods. If they occasionally get into some things, it shouldn’t cause a problem.

Ultimately, just listen to your vet.

So far as the milk and cats thing… I think the issue is that they love it, they’ll almost always go for it, but many if not most are lactose intolerant… so too much will cause issues. If you had a cat who could process it, then great!

#FeelTheBernCats

Yeah don’t give them raw chicken because cats that kill chickens in the wild will always cook them first.

That list gets a few details right but is also full of nonsense. Grain is not appropriate food for cats. Fruit and anything else that contains sugar is also not appropriate. High quality cat food with at least 90 percent meat and no grain, no sugar is best. I sometimes serve fresh meat and fish too, like chicken hearts or cod. Just make sure there are no bones or bone fragments in the meat or fish and also that it has been frozen to make sure there is no risk of any infection.

Edit: removed a few details which I am not sure about

It appears to be missing the major food groups of random house plants, spiders, and fluff

Xylitol, a sugar substitute found in some sugar-free products, including certain brands of peanut butter, is highly toxic to cats (and dogs).

Lol, my cat eats a diet of chicken, prawns, some beef, and organs like liver, heart, kidney, and brain. He is extremely healthy and does not look his age (13). He started on kibble but we transitioned him to meat because of hairball and general health issues. His teeth are clean and strong, his coat is shiny, and his eyes are clear.

Honestly, cats are predators. They eat meat. Feed a cat mice and you are close to what mine eats. It would be really strange if they were ok eating rice, corn, and brocoli.

A vet once told us, no fish bones for cats, but chicken and anything bigger was OK. No chicken or fish bones for dogs, bigger than a chicken was OK. It's about the size of the bones, and whether they can swallow them and get them stuck in their throats.

I trust the vet's advice over some random internet image.

A few other posts have pointed out cats are obligate carnivores so they need to consume meat to survive, as well as the general lactose intolerance.

One addendum to this is cat saliva lacks enzymes that break down carbohydrates. Cats consuming carbs consistently without proper teeth cleaning tend to have dental issues. Often regular eating and chewing scrapes carb build up, but it is something to keep an eye out for.

Im noticing a distinct lack of catfood on this chart…

Just listen to a vet instead. Cats can eat a lot of things, but they can process only very little. They're carnivores through and through, and evolved to deal with a diet consisting entirely of small animals they've hunted down, but also all of them (not just the selectively removed meat parts we as humans consume).

I give the community cat a slice of ham on occasion, if he's good

Okay but can cat have a lil salami? As a treat?

I'm not too informed on that, but that table looks sensible as long as you keep in mind that their diet is mostly meat-based, so watch out for amounts. And it fits well what I've read across the internet.

The main problem regarding dairy is the lactose; it isn't poisonous but they don't digest it well. So dairy in small amounts as a treat is probably fine, just don't overdo it. Soured milk is probably better than plain milk, as the souring likely consumes some of the lactose. Or yoghurt, one of my cats is crazy for that.

Past that, as a general rule:

• OK: gourds (pumpkin, cucumber, watermelon)
• OK: apple, banana
• never OK: alium (onion, leek, garlic) is outright poisonous
• treat it as "not OK" by default: other botanical fruits, unless you know that it's OK
• OK, but don't overdo it: non-meat animal protein (cheese, eggs)
• probably OK in small bits, don't overdo it: if it has too much sugar, salt, or fat (ice cream, peanut butter)
• not OK: if it could give you food poisoning (raw chicken)
• not OK: if it could mechanically harm you once chewed (chicken bones)

Why can't they have raw chicken assuming it's been deboned? They would naturally eat chickens in the wild and I pretty sure they're not cooking it first. I've given my cats scraps of raw chicken (along with other meats) my whole life and it was never an issue.

Grapes are toxic to cats (and dogs). Onions and garlic are both toxic, and will absolutely kill your cats. Ice cream usually has small amounts of antifreeze in it; it's safe enough for humans, but not safe for cats. Raw chicken with bones can be given to cats if it is finely ground so that there aren't any bone shards or fragments. You can get frozen turkey and chicken chicks from raw food suppliers, and those are safe enough for cats to eat because the bones are mostly too small to harm them. (Raw food is not suggested for most cats; it's hard to get it balanced so that they aren't malnourished in some way. A very, very few cats will do better on a raw food diet if they have something like IBS.) Lots of common house plants can be deadly to cats too. One I know off the top of my head is everything in the lily family.