13.04.2022

Can cats eat cake, or could it all end in tiers?

Many cat parents walk a tightrope of trying to keep their felines healthy with the best diet while staying in kitty’s good books through treats and tasty snacks.

Treating your cat to something delicious may be great for bonding, but sticking to appropriate food and avoiding potentially harmful nibbles is paramount.

Sweets, biscuits, and cakes are a human’s guilty pleasure, but can cats eat cake? Read on to find out how to treat your feline healthily.

Sugar and spice and all things nice—what is cake made of?

Humans love cake because it hits the sweet spot.

The sugar in most cakes:

• Tickles our taste buds
• Induces the famous sugar-rush
• Feeds our desire for self-indulgence

Apart from the sugar content, cakes don’t provide much in the way of nutritional value, though. Analysis of a typical cake reveals the nutritional content to be:

Seeing this, the sugar rush becomes understandable.

“This must be for me, right?”

Source: Pixabay

Is cats eating cake ok?

Cats don’t have the same nutritional needs as humans.

While humans are omnivores and can handle larger quantities of carbohydrates, a cat’s metabolism is not designed to cope with sugar or too much fat—both of which are present in abundance in a cake.

The likelihood of your cat wanting to eat cake regularly is fairly small as research has proven that they lack the receptors to taste sweetness. The only reason some cats seem to go mad for a piece of cake is for the fat content—cats can smell fat a mile off.

As we humans know, liking something for its fat content probably means that it’s not particularly healthy for us. The same is true of cats and cake. The dangers of your cat eating cake regularly are:

1. The risk of poisoning
2. Obesity and weight control problems
3. Diabetes and pancreatitis
4. Stomach upsets
5. Dental issues
6. Bladder problems

The risk of poisoning

Cats are allergic to chocolate, cocoa, and anything made with cacao beans.

Any chocolate cake you feed to your cat could cause toxic shock, resulting in:

• Breathing difficulties
• Heart arrhythmia
• Seizures
• Acute paralysis of the hind limbs
• Death

If the cake you are munching on and getting pestered for contains any chocolate flavouring, you should make a beeline for a private place to indulge yourself—leaving no crumbs in your wake.

Obesity and weight control problems

Carbs and cats don’t go well together. While carbs can provide a good source of fast-burn energy (for hunting or fleeing, as examples), many of the calories they deliver remain unburnt. Unused carbs are stored as fat cells for later use, so any food with a high sugar content runs the risk of sending your feline’s weight into the stratosphere.

Cats’ calorie intake should be regular but not too high to maintain optimum weight and should be primarily delivered through protein and fat. You should pay particular attention to weight management if your cat is neutered or lives indoors.

Diabetes and pancreatitis

Carbs release floods of sugar into the bloodstream, so your cat’s pancreas has to work overtime to produce enough insulin to avoid hyperglycaemia. Over time, the pancreas can become overworked and lose efficiency, resulting in acute pancreatitis and chronic diabetes.

Stomach upsets

Cats aren’t good at digesting sugar, and too much can lead to acute:

• Nausea or dry heaving
• Vomiting
• Diarrhoea

Long-term eating of too much sugar can also lead to chronic digestive problems, such as constipation or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Anything that makes it uncomfortable for your cat to eat is dangerous as rapid weight loss can have serious consequences. This is particularly important for kittens and senior cats.

Dental issues

Sugar is a dentist’s nightmare, and the resulting lesions, decayed teeth, and gum disease can make eating painful for your feline.

While dental problems can normally be cured quickly, a cat’s oral cavity can also harbour harmful bacteria that can invade the body and cause other diseases. The more sugar your cat eats, the more likely it is that the feline will have an unhealthy mouth, with potential knock-on effects throughout the whole body.

Bladder problems

If your cat is deriving energy from carbs instead of protein, there is a danger of urinary tract diseases, such as cystitis or bladder stones.

The amino acids in protein—such as taurine—help stabilise the acidity of the feline urinary tract. If the bladder becomes too alkaline, bladder stones can easily develop and cause your cat to suffer.

Too much cake can result in your cat turning this shape.

Source: Pixabay

What about a kitten eating cake?

If your kitten eats cake regularly, you should take immediate action to put a stop to the habit. 

Kittens have fundamentally the same nutritional requirements as adult cats but have not yet developed a fully mature:

• Immune system
• Organ function
• Digestive tract

Kittens’ bodies are still developing up to the age of 6 months, the crucial physiological milestones being:

• 6–8 weeks—Soon after weaning, kittens experience an immunity gap due to their mother’s milk not providing enough immune support and their own immune systems not being developed enough
• 2–4 months—The most rapid growth occurs in this period, meaning that a kitten’s calorific requirement is huge. Sufficient quantities of the right nutrition are crucial

Cake and kittens do not mix.

“Let them eat cake. I’m having Untamed!”

Image (c) Untamed

What should your cat be eating?

Cats are obligate carnivores, and their diet should be meat-based. As predators, cats’ eating habits have evolved to metabolise:

1. Animal protein
2. Animal fat

Animal protein

Protein is made up of amino acids that cats use to:

• Build muscle
• Maintain and repair organs
• Keep skin and coat healthy

If they eat non-meat-based food, there is a danger that they will need more to cover their requirements or even miss out on essential nutrients. This can potentially lead to serious health issues.

Cats can’t process vegetable protein with anything like the efficiency with which they can metabolise meat, as can be seen by the biological values (BVs) of various protein sources. The best vegetable proteins are considerably less usable than even the worst animal sources, as follows:

Cake offers almost no protein of any kind and is totally unsuitable as food for cats.

Animal fat

Fat is an excellent secondary source of energy for cats and also provides:

• Essential fatty acids
• Great taste

Cats have evolved to go wild about the taste of animal fat—such as that found in cat gravy or cat jelly, so it is an essential element in making the food you offer palatable.

The more your cat devours healthy food, the less likely you will be on the receiving end of begging headbutts whenever you eat cake.

Do cats need carbs?

Apart from animal protein and fat—and the vitamins and minerals that meat contains—your cat doesn’t need anything else.

Carbs, grains, and other additives are unnecessary and can even be harmful to felines. Regardless of the type of cat food you choose—whether wet, semi-moist, dry, raw, or homemade—the recipe should stick to the following proportions:

This is considerably healthier than the values you see in cake.

Can Untamed stop the cake craving?

Untamed is the way to give your cat the best nutrition and stop the urge to beg for more.

All our recipes are formulated to give your kitty the best nutrition in the tastiest form possible. Whether your kitty goes for Chocka Chicken, Tuck-in Tuna, or Full-on Fishy, the taste will be delicious, and you will be giving your feline:

1. High levels of exclusively animal protein
2. Vet-formulated nutrition
3. Human-grade ingredients

High levels of exclusively animal protein

Untamed cat food contains up to twice the amount of animal protein that you find in most commercial cat foods.

This means that your cat gets the energy and nutrition needed for a healthy and happy life, and even the fussiest or most sensitive of cats should go mad about the taste.

With so much meat in each tin, your feline should be happy to eat Untamed every day, even if wet food is something new to them.

Vet-formulated nutrition

Our food has been developed and honed by vets to ensure the maximum nutritional value. Untamed diets are free from known allergens and balanced to give your feline everything required in small, easily digestible portions.

Human-grade ingredients

The better the ingredients, the more benefit your cat will derive from them. At Untamed, we make sure that everything that goes into each tin is of the highest quality.

Cats can be fickle, but Untamed quality should keep them healthy and happy, with few of the health niggles you so often experience with lower-quality food. We also believe that Untamed should be ethical and good for your cat’s planet. To this end, we make sure that our:

• Meat and fish are sourced from sustainable, cruelty-free suppliers
• Packaging is completely recyclable
• Manufacturing processes are carbon-neutral

Fed up with feeding your cat the cake that you should be eating? Try Untamed and keep the cake where it belongs—in your mouth!

Untamed is everything your cat needs!

Image (c) Untamed

How can you have your Untamed cake and eat it?

Getting Untamed for your kitty is a piece of cake. All you need to do is visit our online cat food store and:

1. Give us some info about your kitty
2. Pick your cat’s meal plan
3. Order your trial pack

Once your trial pack arrives, you may be astounded at how your cat goes for it. Don’t worry—we’ll keep you stocked up with monthly deliveries of wet cat food, so you don’t run out of kitty’s new fave delicacies.

The effect should be quick, and happy Untamed cat parents tell us you can expect to see:

What should you do if your cat eats cake?

As a once-off, you shouldn’t worry too much about your kitty nibbling on a piece of cake, as long as it doesn’t contain chocolate.

Cake-eating shouldn’t become a regular occurrence, though. If your feline constantly pesters you for a slice of your cake, you may need to take action to break the begging habit. Your options to change your cat’s behaviour are:

• Ensure your cat is getting everything required in the regular food bowl
• Make regular mealtimes more exciting by allowing your kitty to hunt for food
• Enhance the taste and smell of dry food by mixing it with wet or adding warm broth—better still, switch to Untamed
• Alleviate your cat’s boredom by playing and engaging more regularly

Check out our other guides to what cats can or cannot eat: