Updated: August 11, 2022 by Kristen Chapple
Baby food is designed to contain all the nutritional elements needed for a small infant and, since they are highly sensitive, a lot of care is taken to make sure that everything chosen is of a high quality. With this idea in mind you might think that this should be helpful for your cat too so you might ask yourself can cats eat baby food? Let us find out together!
Different Ingredients
There is a large variety of choices when it comes to baby food and their ingredients can be quite different so among the things that you should pay careful attention to are the onion or garlic powder. These two vegetables are really toxic to cats and you should never give them a dish which contains any of the two because you will probably have to rush to the veterinarian after that.
Another ingredient that poses a threat is avocado because persin is toxic to cats and you can find a lot of it in these fruits so keep your cat away from them. Other ingredients to avoid are macadamia nuts, chocolate or raisins but these are rarely found in baby food.
If the baby food you chose has more meat then the cat will certainly like that choice but even in that case you should remember that it isn’t a proper replacement for cat food.
Sometimes A Last Resort?
If your cat is sick they might not be willing to eat anything at all since they have an upset stomach and they think that more food will just make it worse. The problem is that the lack of food will decrease their immunity even further and will cause more problems but you can use baby food as an alternative since many of them love the taste it has. Always get a product with lots of meat though and treat this choice as a last resort when they won’t eat anything else.
Sole Nutrition
The baby food products are designed to supplement their diet with breast milk and to aid them transition to the normal food so even for babies these aren’t designed to be their sole nutrition. You have to pay a lot of attention to what each product has to offer and choose the ones which contain the key nutrients needed.
One of the things that cats need the most is taurine since they cannot produce their own and without it problems like tooth decay, hair loss and even damage to their reproductive and cardiovascular systems might ensue. This is one of the main reasons why it is a bad idea to switch your cat’s diet completely to baby food and it’s a much better idea to just keep it for desperate situations.
Short Answer:
Yes, it should be harmless to them if it doesn’t contain some of the ingredients that are toxic to cats, but you shouldn’t replace the cat’s regular diet with this.
