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Can Cats Eat Bread?

Bread is one of the common foods that we often eat while having our daily diet. Though constituents of different breads are not same, most of the people are quite familiar to those varieties.

In fact, bread is a very cheap food, and it is much simple to manufacture. Whether it is any occasion or a usual day, we often store breads in our household, and it becomes very easy to offer this food to someone at any point of time. That is why many people also like to give bread their pet cats. But, it is not yet clear to some pet owners whether bread is a suitable food to a feline animal’s digestive system.

Bread- Not as a suitable food

Many vets have expressed their views that bread cannot be incorporated as the main part of cat’s diet because cats are carnivorous animal. Under any circumstance, they are likely to find all their nutrition from a prey that they have killed. But, it does not mean that cats never need any amount of vegetables and grains. Usually, they gain these things by consuming the intestinal matters of their prey. In fact, it is better to keep away from giving bread to your cat, because it is not much important thing, to be included in a feline’s pet diet.

Consumption of bread doesn’t lead to any hazardous or dangerous result, while your pet gobbles only some bread. Thus, do not be concerned when your furry little cat takes a piece of bread from your hand to take pleasure in it as its snack.

Rising Dough – It’s risky

If your cat has eaten bread dough that is not baked in oven, there is a risk of suffering from severe results. The hazards of consuming raw bread for your feline animal become double. First of all, it is to be noted that bread rising inside your pet’s body may lead to the blockage of the intestinal system.

In addition to it, the yeast, which appears on dough, may lead to the fermentation of sugars in cat’s body. As a result, there may be a possibility of experiencing alcohol poisoning. While your cats also show some symptoms of this alcohol poisoning because of consuming raw dough, you may get in touch with a veterinarian without delay. Surgery is also essential to take out the consumed part, which keeps on growing inside the pet’s body.

Some kinds of bread may be dangerous

It is already said that bread is available in a variety of forms, though some of these types of breads may be risky to the health of your little fuzzy pet. Popular kinds of breads, for example, garlic bread and raisin bread may be highly unsafe to any cat. You know that grapes are actually the crinkled raisins, and if these are given to your cat, it may potentially lead to deadly failure of kidney. This fact is applicable for your dogs also. Each of the cats reacts in a different way, thus it is good to be cautious in advance. Garlic as well as some other related foods, like chives and onions destroys red blood cells of cats and causes serious anemia.

Lack of Taurine – Another reason of avoiding bread

Bread cannot be considered as the major source for getting nutrition. Cats are found to be really carnivores; they may not be able to live on a diet, which is mainly made of grain or wheat. They need animal protein to stay well. The most significant component, which is not found in bread, is taurine.

For every cat, it is important to consume adequate taurine in regular diet, as they are not able to generate it on their own. Lack of taurine isn’t a condition, which happens at once; however it will slowly cause loss of hair and decay of tooth. It may also lead to difficulties with their cardiovascular and reproductive systems.

Cats require more amount of fat

The major reason for which breads are accepted among many of us is that it usually contains extremely little amount of fat. The fat content in every slice is almost 1 gram. The nutritional requirements of feline animals are mainly based on meat; they also need a huge amount of fat. In addition to it, dog food is not a good alternative to your feline pets’ food.

Stick with food for cat

From the above information, you have perhaps realized that though cats may consume bread technically, it isn’t perfect to feed any bread to them regularly. In fact, your feline pet has intricacy in assimilating high carbohydrate containing foods, like corn, bread, and wheat. It can cause some digestive issues, including vomiting and diarrhea.

In general, any kind of food should not constitute over 5 percent of the diet of your cat. Carbohydrate is one of the items, which may increase chubbiness in cats because felines are not able to properly absorb the high carbohydrate content, available in some foods, which include kibble and breads. Some of the dry commercial foods, intended for cats, also contain much carbohydrate as they’re manufactured with some things, such as, soy, corn or grains since it is cheap to prepare.

Can we give store-bought bread?

In most of the cases, we buy sliced breads from stores, and these breads contain high amount of preservatives in order to keep the food completely fresh. Sliced breads may have excessive level of sugar and salt, and thus, high consumption of this bread is always avoided in case of our cats.

If you still like to feed cats with bread, a small piece is enough. And do not get confused with some misconception that organic bread or some other bread is a healthy option. The high amount of the preservatives may do harm rather than doing any good.

Thus, bread is such a food, which cannot give all the nutrients to your cat. Moreover, if any bread dough is left on the floor on the kitchen room, you must cover it with some to keep the cats away from it. Greens are not necessarily a healthier alternative. Cats can eat kale, but not too much or it might cause harmful effects.