Can Cats Eat Potato Chips? Is it Harmful to Them?

Can cats have potato chips? The short answer is no; cats cannot and should not eat potato chips. As a matter of fact, potato chips do not offer any nutritional value (even for us, to say the least).

Potato chips are ordinary junk food that is made from potatoes and usually contains too much salt. Feeding something to your cat with a lot of salt can be unhealthy, and it can also lead to other health problems, including diarrhea.

However, potato chips will not kill your cat, assuming you are giving a tiny share from one of your chips to your cat.

Wait, so should you feed potato chips to your cat or not? Are potato chips safe for your cat?

Let’s find out!

Can You Feed Potato Chips to Cats?

The short answer is no, cats cannot safely eat potato chips, and feeding them to cats isn’t recommended. In fact, potato chips are not suitable for cats as they contain too much salt and seasoning. Plus, they offer no nutritional value. However, if you catch your cat nibbling on a chip, especially a plain one, you don’t have to panic.

Just monitor your pet and make sure they didn’t make themselves sick.

But do cats even like chips? Well, yes, your cat may love a bite or two; this might be due to the presence of salt in the chips that are attracting your kitty. While cats cannot taste sweet things, they are capable of detecting sour tastes.

However, they might not give a monkey’s about the chips, but they will lick the chip for the salt content.

And if your cat likes to eat potato chips, then you may be thinking of discouraging her from eating. A cat shouldn’t have more than one or two small pieces of chips, assuming the chips are plain and unsalted.

Potato chips are not life-threatening if your cat gulps down just one or two chips; however, adding them to your kitty’s regular diet will not be a good idea.

Potato Chips — Not So Good for Cats

Are potato chips good for cats? The answer: no, potato chips are not good for cats. As previously mentioned, potato chips don’t offer any nutritional value. Potato chips are junk food; they are not even good for us humans, let alone cats.

Further, potato chips contain a lot of salt. And as for adult size cats, they only require a recommended upper limit of 40 milligrams of sodium in a day to maintain good health.

This is relatively low compared to us humans. So, if you feed more than two or three chips to your cat, things might start to get ugly as the sodium level goes past the recommended daily allowance.

It can also lead to health problems for cats in the long run, such as sodium ion poisoning. And the symptoms can be:

• Diarrhea
• Poor appetite
• Lethargy
• Seizures
• Excessive thirst
• Vomiting

And before you give your cat a small piece of chip, you might want to know what it comes with.

1. Potato Chips has Potato

As for regular potatoes and potato products, when served plain-boiled, mashed, or baked, they can act as an occasional delicious treat for your cat. Such properly cooked potatoes are not toxic for your feline. However, potatoes in potato chips are nutritionally empty, which is unhealthy.

Even if your cat twines around your leg while you are eating chips, do not feed more than a few broken chips pieces. Just don’t make feeding chips to your cat a habit, then you are good to go.

2. Salt Is at Fault

The next dangerous stuff in the potato chips is the salt content. Potato chips contain high sodium content, not to mention saturated fat and carbohydrates.

Cats have a very low requirement of daily sodium intake. And similar to us humans, excessive sodium intake can lead to heart problems in the long term. Even a few potato chips can be enough to cause to show up light symptoms of sodium ion poisoning, such as excessive urination and thirst.

3. Zero Nutrients

The standard process of making potato chips includes slice washing, blanching, and then deep-frying. After this process has been completed, the potato has now lost all the nutrient content, making the potato chips unhealthy.

They do not possess any good qualities except for how they taste. Overall, the potatoes in the chips offer zero nutritional value, and your cats don’t need that. And on top of that, the flavorings and seasonings in the chips can be toxic to your cat.

4. Your Cat Is a Carnivore: Remember?

It should not be a shocker for you that cats are obligate carnivores. However, some domesticated have matured by eating fruits and vegetables.

Nevertheless, our feline friends need their daily dose of meat in their balanced diet to meet their nutritional needs. Feeding meat to your cat is better for their digestive system, as they are mostly adapted to that.

Your cat needs essential fatty acids that neither potato nor tortilla chips can provide.

Further, ASPCA also reports that cats can’t do good on plant-based diets. Deprive your cat of their daily meat requirements, and you will end up with a cat with health issues, including nutritional deficiencies.

This means that feeding your cat anything other than meat-based cat food more than often is not going to suit her eating behavior.

5. Too Much of Processed Fat

Do cats need fat in their diet? Yes, they do. Fat can be considered a concentrated energy source for felines. Moreover, fat can offer double the amount of energy as protein and carbs. Cats will be enticed to foods that are high in fat. And this might be one of the reasons why you find your cat sneaking up on the bag of chips.

However, potato chips are junk food and full of processed fat. Moreover, potato chips have been linked to health problems such as high blood cholesterol levels, heart disease, and obesity.

But cats do not have to be too concerned about saturated fat as much as we do. Felines naturally have more good cholesterol than bad ones, and as for the part of calories, they can use them as fuel.

Don’t go anywhere, there is more to can cats eat potato chips!

Can Potato Chips Kill My Cat?

Can potato chips kill a cat? No, unless you feed a bag full of potato chips to your cat all at once. Doing this can be lead to serious health problems for the cat.

However, offering a small bite of a potato chip to your car on rare occasions is not going to create any sort of emergency that you will have to run to your vet immediately. At last, there really aren’t any “safe” potato chips for cats that you can feed your furry friend.

Instead of feeding potato chips as a treat to your cat, you can look for a better, healthy substitute. There is plenty of other healthy cat treats that your cat will appreciate.

You should skip the potato chips and stick with the healthy cat treats instead. Likewise, you should make sure that the calorie amount from the treats should not make up more than 10% of your cat’s diet.

Conclusion

So, can cats eat potato chips? The answer is no, your cat can’t and shouldn’t consume potato chips. It is a “high-calorie, low-nutrient” snack, and usually contains high levels of sodium. While this can make a great junk food snack for humans, it’s best not suited for cats to feed on it.

But if your cat ate one or two small pieces of Lays potato chips, you don’t have to worry about that too much, as potato chips are not toxic in small amounts.

Similarly, feeding a tiny bit of a single potato chip to your cat is not going to cause a run to the vet. However, it is best recommended that you do not feed chips to your cat. Instead, you can look for better treat options that are nutritious and safe.

Approved by Veterinary – Anthony Brooks, DVM!

References

1. Can Cats Eat Potato Chips – Stalking Cats
2. One Major Side Effect of Eating Potato Chips, Science Says – Eat This, Not That
3. Sodium in feline nutrition – Wiley Online Library