{"id":12363,"date":"2021-10-26T09:30:36","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T14:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/?p=12363"},"modified":"2025-12-17T11:42:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T17:42:27","slug":"cats-cant-taste-sweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/blog\/health\/diet\/cats-cant-taste-sweet\/","title":{"rendered":"Peculiar Pet Facts: Cats Can\u2019t Taste Sweet Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to our Peculiar Pet Facts series, where we investigate the oddities of our pets and explore the science behind them. <\/em><\/p>\n

While the digestive system of cats isn\u2019t always peculiar, <\/em>exactly, there are a few things that make it different <\/em>when compared to other mammals. For instance, cats can\u2019t make the amino acid taurine. They also can\u2019t make active vitamin A, and they lack the enzyme that converts linoleic acid to arachidonic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But one of the facts that we think is<\/em> peculiar is that, unlike dogs<\/a> and people, cats can\u2019t taste sweet foods.<\/p>\n

Peculiar Things Cats <\/strong>Can<\/em><\/strong> Taste<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cats have relatively few taste buds (about 470) compared to humans (about 9,000). This means they also have a weaker sense of taste than us. Even though cats can\u2019t taste sweet flavors (we\u2019ll get to why<\/em> soon), they do have taste buds for things we don\u2019t, including water and peculiarly, the energy compound adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP supplies energy in living cells, and it\u2019s thought that a cat\u2019s ability to taste it signals the presence of meat to them. This is important since cats are obligate carnivores<\/a> and must eat meat to survive.<\/p>\n

Taste + Smell = Flavor<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The smell of food also influences what cats eat. Even for humans, about 70 to 75 percent of what we taste comes from smell, because it\u2019s the combination of taste and smell that creates flavor. So a cat\u2019s superior sense of smell can make up for their lack of taste buds, and they can still enjoy different flavors of food, like chicken<\/a> or whitefish<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Fake Gene and a Missing Receptor<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So why can\u2019t cats taste sweet flavors? Well it\u2019s due to their genes \u2014 more specifically, a \u201cfake\u201d dysfunctional gene. A study<\/a> compared the genes of cats to other species, like dogs and humans, that respond to sweet tastes. They looked specifically at two genes, Tas1r2<\/em> and Tas1r3<\/em>, that together encode the receptor for sweet taste. While Tas1r3<\/em> was the same as the Tas1r3 <\/em>gene found in dogs, Tas1r2<\/em> had multiple differences (flaws), and it was concluded that Tas1r2<\/em> is a pseudogene (a defective copy of a functional gene). This means that cats can\u2019t make the receptor necessary for detecting sweet tastes.<\/p>\n

But My Cat LOVES Ice Cream!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If your cat does like sweet foods (note: ice cream is not recommended for cats), it\u2019s the other flavors they are tasting \u2014 not the oh-so-yummy sweetness of ice cream that we<\/em> love.<\/p>\n

Remember there are lots of reasons to tell cats \u201cNo people food\u201d<\/a> including that the foods can be hazardous to their health. Sweet foods like candy are a nice treat for us, but not for cats \u2014 and they can\u2019t taste the sweetness that so appeals to us anyway.<\/p>\n

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\"An<\/p>\n

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RELATED POST: Trick? Or Treat? Why Pets Shouldn\u2019t Eat Chocolate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to our Peculiar Pet Facts series, where we investigate the oddities of our pets and explore the science behind them. While the digestive system of cats isn\u2019t always peculiar, exactly, there are a few things that make it different when compared to other mammals. For instance, cats can\u2019t make the amino acid taurine. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Why Cats Can't Taste Sweetness: Exploring Feline Taste Buds","_seopress_titles_desc":"Discover the fascinating reason why cats can't taste sweet things. Read on as we explore their unique taste buds, genetic factors & their flavor preferences!","_seopress_robots_index":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[239,28],"tags":[100,712,12,134,711],"class_list":["post-12363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diet","category-health","tag-cat","tag-cat-facts","tag-cats","tag-diamond-pet-foods","tag-peculiar-pet-facts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondpet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}