# What is it with the gravy??



## Straysmommy (Dec 23, 2010)

Aren't cats supposed to like what their ancestors liked, eg lukewarm raw meat? Why is it then than even my half-starving strays (and my house cat) will lick the gravy and leave the meat? What is so appealing about the gravy? My house cat won't even taste any meat I give it if it's not folded into commercial brand canned food gravy! It's not like prey comes folded in gravy in the wild...

I absolutely insist my cat eat chicken liver and hearts for the taurine and iron in them, so I need to make some homemade gravy that's as successful as the purchased stuff (which becomes expensive). That's why I'd really like to discover what exactly in the gravy it is that they love.


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## saitenyo (Nov 28, 2010)

Just like the human food industry, a lot of time and money in the commercial pet food industry goes into manufacturing flavor additives that cats go crazy over. The cheaper grocery store brands especially tend to use things that are not necessarily great for cats but make the food taste very good to them. In this expose of commercial pet food practices I read, the author stated that sometimes even leftover fast-food grease is sourced as an ingredient in the flavor-sprays that go on some kibble.

In the same sense that it's hard to make home made meals for ourselves that taste as good as the salt-and-sugar laden products we can get at restaurants or fast food joints, it'll probably be difficult to make a homemade gravy that drives cats quite as nuts as the carefully-formulated pet food flavorings, simply because you'd need to add ingredients that aren't great for cats (salt, grease, artificial flavors, etc.) to achieve the same result.

However there are a couple sites out there that have some good recommendations on how to bribe finicky cats to eat raw. This site has a lot of good ones: Answers: Transitioning Your Finicky Kitties


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## Straysmommy (Dec 23, 2010)

Oooh, I see! Thank you Saltenyo for the wonderful reply! I'm off to read those links.


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