If cats are lactose-intolerant, how did we come to believe that giving cats milk is good?

"Kittens produce this enzyme in smaller amounts as they develop, and by six months of age, most kittens have adult levels of lactase. These adult levels are insufficient to digest milk and their bodies can no longer tolerate it. Basically, like some humans, most cats become lactose intolerant." - Hastings Veterinary Hospital

"Kittens ingest digestible carbohydrates (i.e., lactose or milk sugar) before weaning. Adult cats must rely primarily on gluco-neogenesis from glucogenic amino acids (ketoacids), lactic acid and glycerol for maintenance of blood glucose concentration". - Introduction to feeding normal cats

The answer to the questions is this: kittens eagerly drink their mother's milk - colostrum. Observers would understand that adult cats also drink milk. But in the early days of cat domestication there was less knowledge and they didn't realise that at 6 months of age young cats do not have sufficient lactase (lactase deficiency) to digest lactose and become intolerant of it.

Nowadays, things have changed thanks to the huge amount of education provided by the internet on millions of cat websites!

But there are still people in developing countries and even developed countries where they believe that cats should be fed milk as a treat.

When they do this their cat enjoys drinking the milk because it is fatty. Cats like fatty foods. But it would seem that the adult cat does not understand that they are lactose intolerant.

But they don't need to realise it because they have inherited their wild cat ancestor's character and that wildcat never has the opportunity as an adult to drink milk.

It is only in the human environment as domesticated wildcats that they encounter a bowl of cow's milk containing lactose which they cannot digest but which tastes good normally. Not all domestic cats take to drinking it.

What is lactose?

Lactose, or milk sugar, is a disaccharide sugar composed of galactose and glucose subunits and has the molecular formula C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁.
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Ginger tabby almost drowns himself in cow's milk. Diarrhea should follow.

Well, cats love cow's milk as it is fatty. And this little ginger tabby loves milk more than most cats as he almost drowns himself in it as he submerges his head in the stuff. He comes up for air with his head covered. I think he hasn't learned yet that cow's milk tastes nice but it isn't so nice for the digestive tract.

P.S. Maybe he is fishing around for something in the milk. I am unsure. I think this is about youthful exuberance in finding a food they love but not having experienced the downsides.

Back in the day, say around a hundred years ago and even more recent than that, hundreds of millions of cat owners thought that giving their domestic cat cow's milk was the thing to do. Not nowadays. These days we are more educated generally and in respect of the feline diet. Did I say that people are more educated nowadays than a hundred years ago? I am not sure that that is true but let's move on.

Certainly, the internet has educated hundreds of millions of people about cat welfare including their diet. We know that the large majority of domestic cats are lactose intolerant and therefore they are intolerant of cow's milk. This is because they lack the enzyme to break it down. It causes bloating and diarrhoea.

The same thing happens with people. Many humans are turning away from cow's milk which is the wise thing to do. I am one of those people. Cow's milk causes bloating for me. I use oat milk but there are many alternatives these days. You can buy specially prepared milk for cat but it is very expensive.

Other symptoms of lactose intolerance may include:

• tummy pain or discomfort.
• bloating.
• farting.
• diarrhoea or constipation.
• feeling sick or being sick.

The best solution is to give them water but ironically tap water sometimes doesn't taste very good for cats. That's why they tend to prefer rainwater in a paddle even if it is muddy compared to tap water in a bowl.

Tap water contains anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-parasite chemicals such as chloride. It cleans up the water but as domestic cats have very highly tuned senses including a great sense of smell, they don't like the smell of chlorine which they pick up but we don't.

Apparently if you leave it standing for a while it helps to allow the chlorine content to evaporate. I don't know if that is true but a good source told me that information.

Ginger tabby almost drowns himself in cow's milk. Diarrhea should follow. Screenshot.

If you eat cheese, you are actively supporting babies being taken from their mothers

If you eat cheese, you are actively supporting babies being taken from their mothers. Screenshot.

This is not about cats. I'm sorry. But sometimes needs must as they say. This is about cows and their calves. It's about the production of milk. You may know that farmers take calves away from their mothers at a very young age so that they don't steal the milk from humans. Farmers want all the milk that the mother produces to be processed and sold to humans which is a bit bizarre because this is cow's milk and it is designed to be drunk by calves. Cow's milk does all kinds bad things to humans such as bloat, diarrhoea and I'm told that it even weakens bones. A lot of people are lactose intolerant which is why they suffer from bloating when they drink cow's milk.

Putting calves in tiny enclosures after being torn from their mums is cruel and unproductive.

So, the end product is no good anyway. In the meantime, the mother suffers the emotional anguish of having her baby taken away from her which is an anguish matched by the distress suffered by the calf. Mothers will kill to save their calves. That's the depth of the bond. Calves are then placed in small patches or tiny enclosures (see image below) separated from other calves and of course their mothers which is more cruelty to animals because cows are social creatures.

The whole process is designed to make farming more efficient. It is relating to livestock as assets. In fact, inanimate assets pretty well because there is little regard to their sentience.

Screenshot.

The more you watch these sorts of videos the more you understand the way farmers handle their livestock and the more you are driven away from dairy and meat products. The reason behind the video is that PETA want people to think like that and give up these products and become vegan. I am on board with that campaign. I've not made it yet but I am heading towards being a vegan or at least a vegetarian.

Can cats eat cheese?

People ask Google: can cats eat cheese? Most people by now know the answer which, in short, is YES in small amounts because (a) cats like it for the fat content so it can be a treat and (b) in general, and to varying degrees, cats are lactose intolerant. Eating cheese or drinking milk can cause diarrhoea.

I use lactose free milk for my breakfast. I give my cat some. I suppose if there is lactose free cheese it should solve the problem mentioned above at (b).

All cat treats of human food are generally okay in small doses but check foodstuffs that are toxic to cats.

Cat Trivia: Domestic Cat Milk Contains Eight Times More Protein Than Human Milk

Domestic cat milk contains eight times more protein than human milk and three times as much fat. Did you know that? I think is an interesting bit of domestic cat trivia as I've called it. I also think it's pretty impressive.

Kittens grow rapidly (hardly surprising feeding on that kind of milk) as their mother uses her body reserves to produce milk. In one study it was found that mothers lost about 5.7 g per day when lactating. Kittens from larger litters are smaller and put on weight more slowly than kittens from smaller litters.

Female cat can give birth to between one and ten kittens. The average litter is about four or five kittens.

The largest litter ever recorded was 13 kittens. Each kitten weighs about 3% of their mother's body weight at birth or around 90 to 110 grams.

Source: Wild Cats of the World pages 108 and 109. Get this book.

Why do cats like milk?

The fat in milk is what cats like. Whole milk contains 3.5% butterfat (fatty part of milk) content. Cats like cream as well and medium cream contains 25% butterfat. Fats are part of a cat's diet. They provide energy. The average man has up to 24% fat in his body. Men are mammals. Mice are mammals. I can't find a figure for the percentage of fat in mice but it would be similar to humans, I would have thought. So mice, the primary prey of the domestic cat, has lots of fat in it. Cats like fat and like milk because of that.

Also milk is the kitten's food source immediately after birth. There must be a connection there because we keep adult cats in a state of kitten-hood due to the fact that we provide for them in every aspect of their nutrition. A cat is drinking mother's milk even when she is 15 years of age!

I realise that mother's milk (colostrum) is not supermarket milk but there are great similarities. The problem is that most cats are lactose intolerant (due to insufficient lactase) because the milk at supermarkets is cow's milk. We, too, can be lactose intolerant. Have you tried drinking lactose free milk or soya milk to see if it improves your health? We are not cows.....