Asked my GF who’s an aspiring crazy cat lady:
It’s because (proper) cat food is engineered to contain all the nutrients they need. While it looks like a bland mush of only one thing, it’s more like the cat equivalent of having several full nutricious meals run through a blender. The required variety is built in.
I’m convinced you could create such a food for humans too, it’s just not many people want that.
There are powdered meals that are supposed to offer balanced nutrition. I’ve heard of people living off Soylent, Huel, etc. I don’t think it’s good long-term, and the lack of chewing could cause problems. But it is feasible in principle.
I ate only soylent for a long time, and the lack of chewing did cause me some issues: first was bad oral hygiene. I brush and floss twice a day (after breakfast and before bed), yet I still got a cavity. Chewing normal food also cleans off plaques on your teeth, so when you’re not chewing anything those plaques just sit there fucking your shit up. Second (*and this is just my conjecture) chewing causes activity in a certain part of the brain to spike, so if you’re not chewing anything that part atrophies and causes depression. I forget where I read the chewing part though. So, along with the cavity, I also felt generally sad about everything. I would still definitely have it for lunch everyday because the nutrients are there, but yeah, unfortunately you have to chew stuff. I thought about just chewing gum, but those are all chock-full of microplastics so…
I did a long period of time where Solyent was my main nutrition source and I ate different food if I went out to eat socially with people (which to be fair was several times a week). As far as I can tell, the only problem was getting used to the high amounts of fiber
Isn’t that basically what Huel is?
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That’s true, but we’re not cats.
It’s can be difficult to change a cat’s food. You have to gradually introduce the new food mixed in with the old food, or the cat may just refuse to eat it.
Oh ho ho ho. They will eat. Eventually. Then they get more. Then they complain it’s not enough.
Its called soylent. Been around for at least a couple decades.
They have.
We don’t. Burritos exist.
Damn you. Another new white t-shirt with coffee and snot stains. Take my upvote.
need a variety of food to survive?
It’s not true.
Boredom feels terrible while it lasts, but it doesn’t kill you. In the end, humans usually start to get creative after boredom.
Oh, and yes, some food industry has found out things and told you things… yes, they were creative :-)
What about the British? They were starving, and they didn’t get creative. They just kept eating brown goo for centuries.
I like British food. I live in Germany now and if I see another Maultasche I’m going to scream.
We like carbs which are often brown and make for a good hangover food. Not sure about goo though?
I suppose that’s why we added mild pain to our diet. Mix things up a bit.
Cause we force them to
Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
To add on to other peoples answers regarding the complete nutritional makeup of pet food; many animals can make a variety of the amino acids they need to survive with just a few inputs (like deer and cows eating only (mostly) plants), but some, especially predatory animals, cannot. They get those nutrients from the prey they eat, which in turn got them from the plants.
It essentially comes down to which enzymes any given organism can create, which ones their DNA codes for *or which microorganisms are allowed to exist within their system. Humans can’t make a bunch of these amino acids themselves. Many (maybe all of them, not that far into my class yet) of the reactions taking in place in any living organism are entirely reliant on enzymes to catalyze them; that is, without them these reactions would take millions of years to complete.
BTW there are appr. 37x1017 (3,700,000,000,000,000,000) reactions happening in your body every second. All of them (or at least a great majority of them) require enzymes to complete.
Daily reminder that pet food is a more recent industry and before it existed pets mostly ate table scraps.
We do not “need” a variety of food. We eat it because we can afford it and it makes us healthier and happier.
You as a human could also live with the same food every day if it covered every dietary need. Especially if you depended on someone else to acquire it and had no choice.
There is an evolutionary push for a rich variety of nutrients obtained from a variety of sources, but the mechanism driving that daily “need” for variety is force of habit and desire for novelty. On top of that, some people are happy to eat nothing but junk and have very narrow tastes. How come?
Also, I can assure you, a lot of cats will periodically stop eating a certain brand or flavor and go through cycles. Does it mean the food isn’t really covering their needs or are they just bored of the same flavor every day? Hard to know, but I would argue your assumption about humans being too different from their pets when it comes to variety in their menu.
I’m a living proof that you can eat the same thing every day for decades and be just fine.
If the food you’re eating doesn’t contain all the nutrients you need you’re unhealthy as fuck and it will come back to haunt you.
What do you eat daily?
Not the other guy but i have been eating the same thing every day for lunch for a yearish now. Chicken, carrots , potato. I found a great seasoning mix that works great and its a decent lunch. I have really bad stomach issues and this keeps that mostly in check. Mostly.
I’ve been eating the same thing for almost a year at this point as well.
How can I survive off of that, if they’re out of stock for half the year? ;-;
Buy double in the half year when it is available
Usually can’t afford that much upfront, wish I could tho.
I did make the comment in jest, though I appreciate the candor lol
That aside, I don’t have an idea if it’s even a viable approach considering the potential expiration dates and storage condition requirements, assuming one would even be willing to pay the exorbitant price to buy it as their main source of nourishment
Im just pointing out we can make a human food just like we make cat food and dog food and indeed have. Soylent sorta started it but there are a variety of other things now doing the same thing with twists (all vegan or organic, etc) and even before then we had meal replacement shakes and bars and actually there is this emergency food called plumpy nut that is actually made to nurse someone back from severe starvation. All sorts of bunker survival ration bar things to which are fairly common as boat things.
Animal food is usually balanced to contain all the nutriens the animal needs, or most.
Ofc if it’s proper
Well. We always have Soylent green …
…why the fuck did i waste time reading all that
We don’t
There are lots of dogs and cats who crave variety in their diets, too. Like humans, it’s a behavioral thing rather than a nutritional necessity. My shepherd will simply stop eating regularly unless I vary her diet. I usually have three or so options I rotate through to keep her interested in eating. Lots of people add toppers and mix-ins when they have dogs like mine, but I find that only increases food rejection, as smart pups learn to hold out until we sweeten the deal enough.
I worked for a pet food manufacturer, and it amazed me what customers would do to try to entice their picky pets to eat. One guy was giving his dog lasagna, and he was shocked that his dog didn’t want to eat kibble anymore. Imagine that.
We don’t need a variety of food to survive. But, generally, we have choice, so we choose to vary our diet because it’s more interesting.
Pets do not have a choice. They eat what they’re given. Or they choose not to and die (a lil cat I was sitting chose that route).
