Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

To understand how to best develop palatable food for cats one must raise the question:"What is palatable to a cat and how do we evaluate a cat’s experience with a food item?”. The behavior and facial expressions performed by cats have been reported to be visibly affected by the perceived taste quality of a food item (Bartlett et al., 1999; Berridge, 2000; Van den Bos et al., 2000). In the present study, the cats’ consumption of different taste solutions as well as the cats’ behaviors were evaluated.

Goals of the present study:

• To assess consumption of L-proline and quinine monohydrochloride (QHCl) to confirm preference or avoidance for the different taste qualities.
• To assess how cats react to pleasant and unpleasant tastes.
• To assess how cats react to mixtures of solutions with pleasant and unpleasant tastes.
• To assess if it was possible to mask an unpleasant taste with a pleasant one.