Milk is the usual food of all young mammals. Nature acted reasonably, developing dairy secretions from the glands, because this step provided the opportunity to feed offspring with the least risk, providing him with a nutritious product that promotes rapid growth, without compromising the safety of the babies themselves. Initially, mammary glands in animals were not expressed - duckbills and echidna, primitive mammals, no nipples, but there are grooves and grooves from which the cubs can drink milk. Growing up, they abandon this habit, betting on more coarse food. But why do cats remain attached to milk, can consume it throughout their lives?
The question is really of interest, because when most mammals grow up, milk becomes not only useless, but also a harmful product - if you do not take into account sour milk. However, it does no harm to cats - only pleasure.
Natural features of feline
In nature, representatives of the feline family are not actually given the opportunity to drink milk in an adult form - it only goes to kittens. This is also true for mammals of other species. The fact is that lactase is necessary for the digestion of milk - an enzyme produced by the body in childhood. Growing up, the cub encounters at some point with the inability to digest milk - lactase ceases to be produced.This becomes a signal for the transition to adult food.
Nature is wise - suppressing at a certain moment the possibility of feeding milk for young offspring of litter, it gives the mother the opportunity to again acquire offspring, feed him without overloading the body. Milk goes to the youngest - and the elders simply cannot digest it, they feel bad if they drink it, and therefore do not compete in nutritional terms with younger sisters and brothers. Without experiencing the need for milk, they move away from the mother, can begin an independent life. The mechanism is so adjusted that it became relevant in a certain period for a person.
Interesting fact: literally 4-6 millennia ago, milk (not fermented milk products) was indicated in medical treatises as a laxative, people could not digest it. The mutation that allowed us to eat this product occurred about 4 thousand years ago. It is relevant primarily for northerners who needed additional food resources for survival. The Mongoloid race is still "not able" to digest whole milk, in China and Japan it is not even sold.
Lactose production in cats
Unlike the vast majority of mammals, cats can process lactose throughout life. It is not known whether this has always been so. Perhaps a mutation of this kind occurred due to the domestication of small useful predators, freeing housing, human barns from rodents. Having domesticated goats, cows, sheep, a man began to receive daily surplus of milk, which could be appropriated by cats. A tasty, healthy product became generally available to them, the deficit disappeared - both younger and older individuals could count on delicacy.Perhaps a man lured cats to barns, barns with milk, domesticating precisely those individuals who sought to feast on them.
The possibility of digestion of the crude product could give minimal genetic abnormalities, then fixed in the population. Today, all cats can drink milk, regardless of breed, habitat. Rare animals of this species suffer from digestive problems by choosing a traditional treat. Even humanity has not mastered this product as much as cats deal with it - people have digestive problems after drinking fresh milk much more often than they do. However, everything is very individual.
In addition to the fresh product, most cats do not give up fermented milk. Interest in it, the digestibility of the product is natural - it is a protein in an accessible form. In addition to humans and cats, dogs love milk, and almost all other predators, omnivores.
Thus, cats love milk, successfully digest it in adulthood due to the fact that their body constantly produces lactose. Perhaps its development is an anomaly entrenched in the genome of animals due to domestication.
