structural:scholar_edition, stylistic:style_transfer
Taste

Cats have relatively few taste buds compared to humans (470 or so, compared to more than 9,000 on the human tongue). Domestic and wild cats share a taste receptor gene mutation that keeps their sweet taste buds from binding to sugary molecules, leaving them with no ability to taste sweetness. They, however, possess taste bud receptors specialized for acids, amino acids like protein, and bitter tastes.

Their taste buds possess the receptors needed to detect umami. However, these receptors contain molecular changes that make cat taste umami different from that of humans. In humans, they detect the amino acids glutamic acid and aspartic acid, but in cats, they instead detect inosine monophosphate and l-Histidine. These molecules are particularly enriched in tuna. This, it has been argued, is why cats find tuna so palatable: as put by researchers into cat taste, "the specific combination of the high IMP and free l-Histidine contents of tuna, which produces a strong umami taste synergy that is highly preferred by cats". One of the researchers in this research has stated, "I think umami is as important for cats as sweet is for humans".

Cats also have a distinct temperature preference for their food, preferring food with a temperature around 38 °C (100 °F) which is similar to that of a fresh kill; some cats reject cold food (which would signal to the cat that the "prey" item is long dead and therefore possibly toxic or decomposing).