Here's the reason why cats prefer meaty wet food to dry kibble, and disdain sugar entirely - cats lack the gene that permits mammals to taste sweetness!Sugar and spice and everything nice hold no interest for a cat. Our feline friends are only interested in one thing: meat (except for saving up the energy to catch it by napping, or a round of restorative petting…) This is not just because inside every domestic tabby lurks a killer just waiting to catch a bird or torture a mouse, it is also because cats lack the ability to taste sweetness, unlike every other mammal examined to date.
All cats — lions, tigers and British longhairs - lack 247 base pairs of the amino acids that make up the DNA of the Tas1r2 gene. As a result, it does not code for the proper protein, it does not merit the name gene (only pseudogene), and it does not permit cats to taste sweets.
Link & Image: Scientific American
Tags: Cats | Taste | DNA | Sweet
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