Is your pet a fan of bread? Are you worried that your cat might get sick because of eating bread? It may be a shocking fact, but cats love eating bread. There have been so many stories shared by people showing how cats adore the delicious evergreen bread.
But we need to know if eating bread is bad for your cat or not because several food items such as breaded fish that humans eat might not be favorable to feed your pet. Cat owners are baffled upon seeing various viral videos of cats sneaking bread and eating them, which made them wonder whether they could feed their own.
We have researched for the sake of cat owners whether they can feed their cats a piece of bread or any item with bread on it, such as bread crumbed fish. Fish is known to be a portion of popular fish food and is considered to be loved by cats. But is your cat better off without it? Read on further to know whether you can feed your cat a breaded fish or not.
Can a cat eat bread or breaded items?
Technically yes, cats can eat bread; however, it isn’t recommended. Usually, cats do not require a lot of carbohydrates because it is considered as just empty calories and zero nutrition. Since slices of bread have loads of carbohydrates, it may not be nutritious for a cat to eat them.
A cat can have a simple piece of bread; however, one should not feed a flavored bread such as garlic bread, fruit bread, chocolate brad, or even fish sticks. Fish sticks are heavily breaded and fried a few times, which is not recommended for your cat. Half of these mentioned things can be harmful to your cat’s health. But are you wondering why breaded fish sticks are not favorable for a cat considering that cats love eating fish? Read on to know more about it.
Can you feed your cat fish or fish stick?
Cats are known to be big fish lovers; as you might know, they can eat any kind of fish, and the most common one they eat is tuna. Canned tuna is the most famous type of cat food. However, fish is not counted in a cat’s normal diet but can be considered as a snack that is served on very rare occasions. You can feed your cat a chunk of fish sticks or seafood items but only as an occasional treat as they might not be considered to be the healthiest option.
Another thing that needs to be considered is how the fish is prepared for the cat. If you feed your cat raw fish, you risk your cat getting food-related diseases, and if you fry the fish or add too much spice can cause a cat’s stomach to go haywire. A cat’s digestive system is very sensitive.
Fish sticks are just fish cut in finger size batons that are breaded, i.e., coated with bread crumbs and egg and fried. These are highly processed food items made of whitefish and in a frozen state. You can find this in your supermarket under the frozen section. All you have to do is either fry, bake or grill them.
Now that you know what a fish stick is, you can understand why it is not appropriate for a cat to eat it. Therefore, cats should not eat fish sticks or breaded fish as it is very harmful to their health. It is not only a load of carbohydrates and spices that they would get; frying would accentuate the bad properties of the fish fingers. Click here to see why it is dangerous.
Why a fish stick is considered dangerous for a cat?
- Cats should be fed oil-free, carbohydrates free and spice-free food as they do not get much exercise to get it all digested. Cats have a very weak digestive system. Cats can even develop very dangerous gastrointestinal diseases, which could lead to loss of appetite, diarrhea, dehydration, and pain in the abdomen.
- Spices can even lead to ulcers leading to a very bloody form of diarrhea. If you feed your cat too much amount of salt, it could lead to poisoning, and too much sugar can lead to obesity and even, in some serious cases, diabetes.
- Fish sticks even have various sorts of artificial additives, preservatives, and even some kind of coloring that could be such a health hazard for the cat. Not only is that, among so many diseases, but there is a big risk of cancer.
- Since you cannot feed your cat raw fish, you will have to cook it. But upon cooking fish, it will lose all its important nutritional aspects, and, the addition of problematic ingredients such as oil and spices will degrade its quality even more.
Therefore, it is never recommended to feed your cat a breaded fish stick.
What is the perfect way to cook a fish stick for your cat?
Even though nobody would recommend you to feed your cat a fish stick, if you are out of cat food and cannot find any alternative, you can simply feed some amount of the fish sticks. However, you must carefully prepare them so that they don’t ruin their health as much as they can. Follow the steps given below to carefully make fish sticks for your cat:
- Get your fish sticks out of the freezer and thaw them properly. Once they get thawed, get prepared for the next time.
- Now, you must scrape the breadcrumbs off the fish stick as much as you can as they are not advisable to be fed to a cat.
- You should rinse them and put them in boiling water for a few minutes.
- Now get them out and let them get cold for some time.
- Now you can feed the boiled fish sticks to your cat. This step was done to ensure that your cat only gets the meat of the fish stick so that their hunger can be satisfied without actually risking their health.
This is the only way a cat should be fed a fish stick as this way you get rid of the bread crumb and its dangerous properties.
Conclusion
After such a long article, it must have become clear to you why you should never feed your cat a breaded fish or a fish stick. Even though fish is a portion of very popular fish food, it isn’t very nutritious for a cat to begin with. You can occasionally feed them any kind of fish for their change of taste but only that.
Cats do not derive any health benefit as such from the fish. The cooking method plays a big role in deciding how the fish is fed to your cat. Baking, frying, or grilling is not recommended; however, you can boil it for some time. Fishes should not be fed anything cooked in oil or spices as they could lead to various gastro diseases.
Therefore, we can conclude here that cats should not be fed breaded sticks as they are very harmful to their health and can cause diseases like ulcers, gastrointestinal diseases, and even cancer.