A Michael Broad Blog
I guess by now a lot of us know that dogs are very different to cats in tasting sweet substances, usually foods. The infographic below explains the difference if you were unaware of it. The underlying cause of this difference is that the dog is an omnivore in practice while the cat is a …
A lot has been said about the inability of the cat to taste sweetness. According to Bing’s Co-Pilot it’s artificially intelligent bot, it’s because “unlike most mammals, cats lack 247 base pairs of the amino acids that make up the DNA of the Tas1r2 gene which is essential for sweet perception.” This was due …
This is about the science – which is about the genetics of all the cat species – behind the failure of cats to detect sweetness in their food. We know that cats can’t detect the taste of sweetness in their food but what happened? It is a bit strange when you think about it …
Domestic cats have the required ‘umami’ taste receptors on their tongues to respond well to an enzyme called inosine monophosphate and an amino acid called free L-Histidine which combine to produce a strong umami taste. Cats enjoy these taste receptors thanks to the inheritance of Tas1r1-Tas1r3 genes. The umami taste is described as the …
