Ronnie wrote:
>Dogs will eat sweet stuff, but I don't see cats going after bananas and
>apples and tangerines (dogs either for that matter).
 
Well, first, a rather unscientific answer ;-) , but...well, it's a stunning
mental picture:
 
Thursday I bought a pot of honey from the local Oriental Market.  The
container was glass, covered with bees and honeycomb, with a snap-on plastic
lid.  The glass part looked like it would live out a second life as an
interesting vase or such, so I took it to show my boyfriend (who was
relaxing in front of the TV).
 
Fatal error:  the honey pot was forgotten on top of the coffee table.
 
Several hours later, I stumbled across this scene: Two ferrets, covered in
sugary glue, twisting over each other like a pair of serpents, and shaking
their feet because they were sticking to the table.  One had the phone bill
stuck to it like a post-it note.  There was a lake of honey on the table,
tacky footprints everywhere...honey had seeped into the rest of the bills.
The quantity of honey available seemed to have overwhelmed them: so they
were not so much eating it as playing with it.
 
The great insult: There was a cat sitting at the corner of the table,
diligently lapping up honey footprints.  Haha, and I had been regarding the
cats as these "noble agents of justice", patrolmen of the livingroom, the
ones who valiantly beat the ferrets out of my plants ;-) (The cats like to
sleep in a large window stocked with greenery, and therefore defend their
"space" with determination).  Obviously the system had been corrupted ;-)
 
Cats commonly DO appreciate sweet canteloupe, honeydew melon, peas, starchy
potatoes, and such.  This is a thread that has been beaten to death in the
rec.pets.cats.* usenet groups ;-)  For all those who believe that cats have
better judgement than dogs or ferrets ;-) well: One of mine likes to lick
the glue on envelopes, and the other has a great attraction to garlicy
Hoisin sauce.  (just like Petromalt?) Also, a dangerous *and* sweet-tasting
fluid poisons many cats: radiator fluid.  Yes, the "why"...that's another
story.  I don't have an answer to that, just a few thoughts.
 
Plants are truly *chemical cocktails*, and the relationship between animals
and the plants they eat is really intreguing...AND hideously complex ;-)
 
One simple example with humans: a lot of times we are eating foods not
because they are exactly what we want at that moment, but, instead, for the
biological effect that we are expecting from them.  Coffee and tea to waken,
cranberry juice for bladder infections, stewed prunes that need no
explaination ;-P
 
The compounds in the plants could be considered to be labelled by their
tastes...tannins are antibacterial, and have a pronounced dry fuzzy taste:
you'll relate to that if you think of cracking open an underripe
(tannin-loaded) banana peel with your teeth.  Gack!  You might recognize
that same effect in (real) cranberry juice.  So, it may not be impossible
for an animal to relate a compound though a taste or texture to an effect.
 
The intent to "self-medicate" may be a part of an animals food choices...
certainly only a part, though.  If the recent spate of commercials featuring
men rhapsodising about the effects of their bran breakfast cereals may be
held up as an example, you'd guess that there is some biological pleasure
*aside from the taste* to be had, ha!, through some of an animal's "strange"
food choices.  Some plant material is anti-helminthic, i.e. de-worming...
while I've never had the pleasure of having worms ;-)  I'm sure that the
effects of those plants or fruits, too, would be satisfying.  Perhaps,
altogether, domestic animals seek out not natural foods, but components of
familiar tastes from those foods with positive associations (via their
effects).  (This is *not* fact, it is thought.)
 
I'm only mentioning that because it seems kinda neat that some animals
manage to pick out odd foods that are also incidentally beneficial to
them...for some cool examples, check out the essays in _The Ecology of
Arboreal Folivores_, Smithsonian Inst., 1978.  (No, this is not just limited
to "tree-dwelling leaf-eaters", lots of interesting asides.  I remember
reading of really BIG cats, lions, enjoying melons, too.)
 
I suspect it may be a red herring to search for a "natural" or "beneficial"
justification in all cases, i.e. a correlation with "natural" diet and
activities and effects and so on.  My boys used to adore roast bones as
kits, even barking if I took away one while they were still working on it.
Now, they are totally uninterested in most non-kibbleform foods, and I am
left scratching my head as to why the stinkrats want to eat my soap.  I
personally feel that most creatures are motivated by a quest for some sort
of pleasure.  Yeah, the question of soap: "It's like a party in your mouth"?
Well, for how many years has Cheez Wizz been on the market, huh?
 
You can't rule out pure pleasure...and you can't rule out "impure" pleasure
;-) either: I suffer greatly here from theft of hot peppers, due to the
addictions of one of my ferrets.  Now, they are the first things I hunt out
of the grocery bags when I come home.  Once, it was only the spectacle of a
ferret barking at his butt that alerted me to the existance of a half-eaten
scotch bonnet under the couch ;-) Just like those weirdo hot pepper addicted
humans, this little guy has his opinions...and the "flaming hoops" effect is
no deterrent.  (Hot pepper worshippers claim that they get a kind of "high"
from the heat of these satanic vegetables.  Yeah, I don't get it either ;-)
but I wonder if my ferret does ;-) )
 
Anyhow, my opinions only.
[Posted in FML issue 1911]