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I have noticed that most of our cats enjoy trying to get into the groceries. Particularly bread and are very curious about other foods that are not a part of their natural eating diet. I do my best to keep my cats on a diet that is natural for them to eat (mostly just dry and wet food). Should I let them taste any human foods?

Other foods they will sniff and bite then play with and mostly I am speaking to the bread that is left on counters. Meats like fish and chicken sitting on the counter is understandable why they would try to go after it. My female cat in particular goes bonkers over chicken.

Why do cats try to eat food they are not supposed to like or eat? Does it mean they are missing something from their diet or do cats just like to eat anything that looks like food?

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  • Not certain enough for a fll answer here, but common sense tells me that "grocery bag = food!" will work it's way well into a cats mind, and looking at it evolutionary, it makes sense to at least check out new foodsources!
    – Layna
    Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 6:04

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In our house, the cats that tend to be bread eaters are the cats who lived outside (or otherwise had to scavenge for food; one cat lived in a hoarder's home) for some significant time while they were young. I've suspected that these cats learned to eat bread because they were just trying to find any food.

I've also suspected that cats fed dry food may associate bread with the cereals/grains in dry food and so believe bread is food.

We also had another cat who didn't particularly like bread (if you offered him a piece of bread he'd ignore it), but loved to chew on plastic bags. So, if a loaf of bread was on the counter he'd jump up to chew on the bag (and just happen to chew on the bread in the bag).

So there are a lot of possible reasons cats may try to eat (or chew) on your bread. It's not harmful to offer them a small piece (and may help narrow down if they're interested in the bread or the plastic), but it has minimal nutritional value so other than using it as a troubleshooting step I wouldn't advise it.

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Well, to start with, how can anyone say what a CAT is supposed to like or hate?

Some cats don't like TUNA. Cats will only want to eat things that their bodies can get a use of. Or things they were used to, such as milk. Cats do not need milk, but they like it because they were used to sucking it from their mothers, although milk isn't good for them.

On the other hand bread isn't bad for cats. So it's not a problem if they eat it.

I'd suggest to see this link for more information about cats and bread (source: allpetmagazine.com).

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