| My Cat Likes Earwax! | | | | determination of smell and taste in deciding the |
| This information is brought to you by Secrets of | | | | palatability of their food. |
| Cats at | | | | It follows then that cats rarely reject food simply |
| Does your cat eat earwax from people? | | | | on the basis of its taste. Using their sense of |
| Fascinating, isn’t it? Actually it’s | | | | smell, the cats subconsciously realise that earwax |
| perfectly normal behaviour…for your cat | | | | is good stuff - by the scent of the fatty acids, |
| anyway. | | | | the cholesterol, and also the dead skin cells |
| Here's why... | | | | (mostly protein). Cats are specifically keen on |
| You see, cats don’t have as many taste | | | | the scent of animal proteins, hence why they like |
| buds as we humans do i.e. around 10,000 against | | | | meat – and why they hungrily devour earwax. |
| their 500. You’ll notice that your cat tends | | | | The ratio of smell receptors to taste receptors is |
| to sniff her food before she eats it. That’s | | | | virtually reversed in cats and humans. Therefore if |
| because she goes by the nutritional value rather | | | | something smells good but tastes like old socks |
| than the taste which she picks by her sensitive | | | | then we won't eat it. However, cats will eat |
| sense of smell. | | | | almost anything if it sure smells good! |
| Cats still have the four basic taste types of sour, | | | | |
| bitter, salt and sweet like we do - their response | | | | So, with our increased sensitivity to taste, we will |
| to sweet being the weakest. It is also our sense | | | | generally reject eating earwax because of its |
| of smell which determines why different foods | | | | sour, bitter taste (I’m told!) and hopefully for |
| 'taste' different (although have you noticed that | | | | the sheer yuckiness of it. On the contrary the |
| some foods smell better than they taste?) | | | | sour and bitter flavour of the earwax is barely |
| Anyway, back to your cat – it’s | | | | noticeable to our not so fussy cats in this regard, |
| reasonable to assume that cats use a similar | | | | in comparison to its wholesome, nutritious odour. |