Can I eat this? (Cat spit edition)

July 9, 2015 12:49 PM

So, fellow ask-mefites, it comes to this: Exactly what level of "a cat may have licked it" does a food item need to reach, pre-microwaving, before you would consider it inedible?

Hypothetically speaking, of course. On a scale of "cat was nearby on the counter, looking suspicious" to "cat was face-down in the bowl wearing a snorkel when I caught him," where is your personal line in the sand?

For this purely intellectual exercise, please:

1) Assume the soup will be microwaved on high for 3 minutes after possible biohazard exposure.

2) Assume a microsecond of exposure to a cat's tongue is highly suspected but not certain.

3) Assume the cat denies all responsibility.

4) Assume this is the last can of soup.

posted by kythuen to Food & Drink (49 answers total)

Eat it.
posted by something something at 12:50 PM on July 9, 2015 [11 favorites]

Best answer: The only time I would consider not eating it under these circumstances is if I knew the cat had just finished licking its butt.
posted by janey47 at 12:51 PM on July 9, 2015 [15 favorites]

What janey47 said, but include recently vomiting or hairballing.

Otherwise, I'd totally eat it.
posted by kimberussell at 12:52 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]

Uhm, I've voluntarily fed my cat ice cream/cheese/people food and then finished the rest. So not only would I eat it, I've eaten it.
posted by lydhre at 12:52 PM on July 9, 2015 [22 favorites]

Best answer: I would not eat it if the cat barfed in it. Otherwise I'd eat it. I'd kiss a cat on the lips, I'd eat soup that it had kissed.
posted by jessamyn at 12:53 PM on July 9, 2015 [38 favorites]

For a stranger's cat, I may have a different standard. If the soup weren't going to be microwaved, I may have a different standard. But for my own cat, with soup about to be nuked for three minutes? I'd fish out whatever cat hairs may have gotten in it and eat it with no qualms.
posted by meese at 12:56 PM on July 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

If you are totally sure the cat has not puked in it then go ahead and eat the soup.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:56 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: (This is assuming it is for my own consumption. I would not serve cat lick soup to someone else without full cat lick disclosure.)
posted by poffin boffin at 12:57 PM on July 9, 2015 [38 favorites]

I'm allergic to my cat (and all other cats) therefore I avoid his spit where possible. With all variables considered except the last, I would not eat it, but I would encourage others to. However, considering it's the last can of soup, I would just take a benedryl and eat it.

Then again I'm allergic to cats and let one live with me anyway, so I'm not the most rational thinker.
posted by teleri025 at 12:57 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: 5) Assume the cat always announces barfing with a triumphant pre-barf YARK that can be heard in the next county, and that said YARK did not occur!
posted by kythuen at 12:59 PM on July 9, 2015 [22 favorites]

Best answer: Cat waste would have to be in the food. My cat takes sniffs and licks of my food all the time. I try, not very hard, to limit this to when other people are not in the room.
posted by mchorn at 1:00 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]

My cat jumped on to the food table at a party and probably licked some of the cheese on the table. My friend helpfully shooed him away and put a bowl over it. All friends witnessed this and most of them went back to eating the cheese minutes later. We are all about the same as we were before the incident.
posted by mikeh at 1:04 PM on July 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

In my house the greatest risk of this is with cereal milk. And yeah, I've thrown out a batch of cereal when the cat had gotten to have his little snout in the milk for a while. (Of course, "last soup" + "will be cooked" are both points on the other side of the scale.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:05 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It it is good enough for my cat, it is good enough for me.
posted by nanook at 1:06 PM on July 9, 2015 [21 favorites]

Best answer: You should be fine, but please report back if you start meowing uncontrollably.
posted by Soliloquy at 1:08 PM on July 9, 2015 [31 favorites]

Best answer: My parents' cat would chew on my dad's toothbrush. My mother thought this was hilarious.

Eat it.
posted by jillithd at 1:10 PM on July 9, 2015 [5 favorites]

Unless you are immuno-compromised or elderly or a very small child, eat it.
posted by desjardins at 1:10 PM on July 9, 2015 [4 favorites]

Best answer: My own cat and no barfing/not too many visible hairs? Been there, done that, will do again. Somebody else's cat? Would probably eat it, but might at least have second thoughts beforehand.

And what Soliloquy says: report back of you start meowing and/or licking your own butt.
posted by easily confused at 1:12 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

While I was answering the door one day, the dog went face-first into my bowl of chili and got a solid quarter of it. I still ate it. I live.
posted by griphus at 1:13 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: And what Soliloquy says: report back of you start meowing and/or licking your own butt.

At least more or less than normal... ;-)
posted by jillithd at 1:13 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

For something I was going to microwave? I'd totally eat it.
posted by MsMolly at 1:13 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Healthy indoor cat in a reasonably clean house? No problem with them tasting it. Our cat is a butter fiend, and did you know that little raspy cat licks look just the way a butter knife swiped across a stick looks? We only remove some butter if there's a nose print.

Things I'd be less cool with: Outdoor/good indoor mouser with frequent/recent kills, putting paws in my cereal bowl (for my cat; she tracks litter everywhere).
posted by tchemgrrl at 1:17 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

::sets bowl of food on counter::
::turns back for one second::
::cat inserts whole head in bowl::
::unceremoniously shoves cat onto floor::
::eats food::
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:17 PM on July 9, 2015 [5 favorites]

If it was something super delicious, or more than half of my dinner , I would eat it.
If it'sjust the tail end of a wiener or something, I'd throw it away. I'm sure it's no health risk, just squeamish that way.
posted by Omnomnom at 1:18 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You should eat and pet the soup and cat, respectively.
posted by aubilenon at 1:24 PM on July 9, 2015 [9 favorites]

Best answer: If you are a human, go ahead.

If you are a dog, assume the cat was up to no good.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:39 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I would eat it. Unless I had a houseguest, in which case I would make a big show of pretending like I do not share all food with my cat because probably that's not what grownups do.
posted by Stacey at 1:44 PM on July 9, 2015 [40 favorites]

Best answer: I don't like fish, so I would add "would not eat if I knew the cat had just finished eating its fishy cat food" alongside of "cat just barfed" and "cat just licked itself" to my own personal no-fly list.

My dog has full-on sneezed in my dinner before and I've still eaten it, with the resignation that comes of many years of living with pets. I survived.
posted by DingoMutt at 1:50 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I am here to report the following!

1) kythuen ate the soup;

2) mere minutes later she discovered a small, furry, ex-rodent on the premises that was;

3) almost certainly dispatched by above said soup-culprit feline, since the others have never caught a rodent in their life;

4) watching the mental gymnastics as she attempts to convince herself this murder event happened after soup-licking, and not before, is incredibly entertaining.
posted by instead of three wishes at 2:03 PM on July 9, 2015 [53 favorites]

Response by poster: It HAD to happen after! I can account for his whereabouts, and the lack of rodent-corpses, between the hours of 1:30 and 3:30, which was when the ALLEGED soup-licking occurred!
posted by kythuen at 2:07 PM on July 9, 2015 [45 favorites]

Best answer: If the soup contains onions and/or garlic I would watch the cat carefully for signs that I have to rush to the emergency vet (with the soup getting cold in the microwave). If all was well, I would re-nuke and eat the soup.

But since I used to know and love a cat who would lick the water off freshly washed lettuce as it sat innocently in an unguarded salad bowl, my standards may be different.
posted by rtha at 2:15 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Just to address one facet of the issue....microwaves do kill cooties, but if there are a LOT of cooties (i.e. he licks it and you leave it out for a few hours), the cootie corpses and their excrement can present a toxin all their own. I.e. killing the cooties only makes things safe if there weren't tons of cooties to begin with.

A brief cat licking wouldn't make this an issue (unless you're allergic...which would be another danger not addressed by sterilization).
posted by Quisp Lover at 2:22 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

My cat sleeps on my face, so...eat it for sure.
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:29 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

If the cat licked a section where I could 100% identify the region and easily scoop it out + some margin, then I would scoop it out and eat it. So, like 1 dainty lick or nearby sniff of the bowl.

If the cat was face down in my soup, the soup gets tossed. I'm not saying it wouldn't be easy, nor that I wouldn't wonder "is it really THAT bad..." but in the end I would still toss it.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:31 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: three wishes please report back if kythuen has any interesting responses to a feather tied to a bit of string
posted by poffin boffin at 2:36 PM on July 9, 2015 [14 favorites]

Would not eat if I couldn't cut/scoop off the affected part. Our cat does so many disgusting things, and I do not want her mouth near my food. On the flip side, I grew up with siblings who would share popsicles back and forth with the dog (which also super grossed me out).
posted by ktkt at 2:56 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Maybe I'm a weirdo but I super wouldn't eat it.
posted by Aranquis at 3:18 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Many years ago I was on a camping trip with five other people. One of the couples involved were celebrating their first wedding anniversary. We had been canoeing all day and were having dinner around the campfire. Surprise, they had brought along the top of their wedding cake (it had been frozen for the past year), and cut it to share. For cake that had been frozen for a year, it really wasn't that bad, I did find that the frosting, a sort of clear glaze, was a bit odd, but, all in all, a pleasant end to the meal...

Until, the wife says... "yeah, we left it on the counter to thaw yesterday and found the cats licking off all the white frosting...."

So, year old cake, no refrigeration for two days, massive cat spit... we all made it to the end of the river...

I was humming dueling banjoes most of the way, figuring I was going to die on that river..

Go ahead and eat it...
posted by HuronBob at 3:51 PM on July 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

I'd eat it, in my current state of health, but:

I'd be wary of it if it wasn't a strictly indoor cat or I didn't know its history well;
I'd be wary of it if I were immunocompromised;
I'd probably decline to eat it if both were true.
posted by WasabiFlux at 4:47 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

I let cats eat off my plate as I am eating things -- ice cream, yogurt, cheese, hummus -- and I am still alive.
posted by jeather at 5:54 PM on July 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have let my big doofus Finnegan lick ice cream/ yogurt off my spoon and then eaten off said spoon. I still live.
posted by sarcasticah at 6:21 PM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I assume my cat has licked everything when I wasn't looking anyway, so it wouldn't make any difference.
posted by thefoxgod at 7:04 PM on July 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

Best answer: I have been laughing hysterically at this thread for the last five minutes

anyway, yes, eat it. do you kiss the cat? on the top of its downy soft little head? because that too, like all of a cat, is covered in a thin layer of cat spit at all times. no harm done.
posted by you're a kitty! at 7:07 PM on July 9, 2015 [21 favorites]

I love my cat so much but I would not eat this unless I could cut off the offending part (MAYBE) or there was literally nothing else to eat.
posted by sea change at 7:39 PM on July 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Misterben used to throw out entire bowls of food instantly if he caught the cat just starting to lick it. Then he evolved to thinking it was ok if it was solid food he could just cut the cat spit part off of, but he still thought of liquid foods as irreparably contaminated. Then we got Frank the Kitchen Ninja and he has pretty much resigned himself to the fact that the cat has walked on and licked everything in the kitchen and we are just fine. Which was my position all along.
posted by matildaben at 7:44 PM on July 9, 2015 [5 favorites]

Best answer: I am an epidemiologist, IANYE, this is not epidemiologic advice, especially because I am in a brain fog and not giving advice of any sort. Also because you already ate the soup.
For future reference, as observed, cats are covered in cat saliva, as are all the surfaces they touch. Given the cat is your household member and you're immediately boiling the soup, disease risk is minimal. (I wouldn't eat the soup but I mostly hate soup anyway. Ice cream, though...also, the added datum that Xander's in contact with wild rodents gives me pause (sorry). That carries some potential disease risks but those risks are associated with all contact, not just sharing soup.)
I would be more concerned that I always wiped down the counter with hot soapy water or bleach before food prep, or always used a cutting board, because cat feet are adorable but covered in at least microscopic and sometimes visible cat output. But I have eaten my share of meals in houses where I know this isn't the practice and just hoped for the best.
posted by gingerest at 11:32 PM on July 9, 2015 [12 favorites]

They don't call me 'cast iron stomach Thella' for nothing BUT...
I once left some covered ground beef on the counter to thaw and then forgot about it. Come dinner time, I found that our (outdoors, rabbit killing) cat had gnawed through the plastic and eaten some of it, perhaps an ounce. Nothing else was defrosted so I pan fried the remainder, slopped in some tomato and stuff, and dumped it on our pasta.

I wasn't SICK sick, but there was something about the beef, even after cooking, that wasn't quite right. Needless to say I was glad that we were a two toilet household the next day.

Moral of the story: there's a reason society created home delivered chinese food.
posted by Thella at 2:22 AM on July 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you, everyone, for your hilarious and wonderful anecdata! I am happy to learn I'm not alone in feeling that cat spit is just an immutable part of the background of life for those of us who live with the lovely little beasties; and insteadofthreewishes was happy to learn she was not COMPLETELY alone in believing me to be a savage heathen. Wins all around!

I admit, finding the rodent gave me EXTREME pause. Xander is a very healthy, smug 15 years old; we thought he was mostly past his rodent-killing days, but apparently the spirit of murder is still sometimes upon him. He still goes out to sun himself on our backyard deck sometimes, and apparently, he still sometimes rids the immediate deck area of rodents. But I had no way of knowing that at the time, and I intend to put this incident behind me by pretending furiously that I don't know it now.

I can't swear that he actually sampled the soup, and no matter how much I would LIKE to be, I'm not 100% certain the killing happened post-soup-sampling. However, I did eat the soup, and I have survived with no ill effects so far! From this point onward I'm going to just try REALLY HARD not to think about it (and even harder to protect my future lunches.)

Again, thanks for your answers - I'm off to find a jingly ball to chase, or maybe a nice feather on a string!
posted by kythuen at 5:10 AM on July 10, 2015 [11 favorites]

Call the vet if you experience mousie meowing or a profound interest in catnip.
posted by SillyShepherd at 10:25 AM on July 10, 2015 [5 favorites]