Although cats can technically eat bread, it is not ideal to feed it to them on a regular basis. In fact, cats have difficulty digesting such high carbohydrate foods such as bread, corn, and/or wheat and it can lead to a number of digestive problems such as diarrhea, vomiting, etc. Not only that but while bread may not necessarily be harmful to your cat if only given in moderation as a treat, a cat does not really have any use for bread, so why risk it?
As a general rule of thumb any certain food should never make up more than 5% of your cat’s diet. Carbohydrates are also a huge trigger for obesity in cats as felines cannot properly digest the high levels of carbs found in certain foods like breads, dry cat kibble, etc. Many dry commercial cat foods contain high levels of carbohydrates because they are made with things like corn, soy and grains because it’s cheaper to produce.
One last and very important thing to take note of is that cats should never eat bread before it is baked. Think about yeast dough. What does it do? Before it is baked, bread dough needs to rise. Unfortunately this is exactly what it would do if it were in your cat’s stomach. As it swells inside, the dough can actually stretch kitty’s abdomen and cause severe pain and discomfort. In addition, when the yeast ferments the dough to make it rise, it produces alcohol which can actually lead to alcohol poisoning, an even more lethal situation to cats.
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