For those of you who do not know what raisins are, these foods are just dried grapes. Raisins are sweet and contain a high amount of calories.
Raisins are dangerous for our cats because this food can cause kidney failure to our loved felines friends. Studies have shown that raisins can make your cat sick, even cause vomiting, and could also poison your cat.
Some of us have had experiences with our cats being poisoned by different foods they ate. A cat’s digestive system is really different compared to a human’s digestive system.
Food can be processed in a cat’s digestive system between half a day and a day. Depending on the food, this could be faster or slower. We can say it won’t take the same time to process meat compared to Purina.
It is a good thing that the digestive system of a cat can pinpoint any health issues it may have, including diseases and illnesses. The symptoms of diarrhea or vomiting that accompany food-borne illnesses in cats are always present.
What should I do after my cat ate some raisins? This is one of the questions you’ve heard from other readers. Is it a good idea to give my cat something to vomit? Is there anything I should do, or should I do nothing? The answer will depend on the number of raisins your cat ate. Anything exceeding 1.54 pounds is considered threatening to your cat’s health.
Raisins History
There is no exact information on how raisins were discovered, but there are many assumptions that these were discovered when wine was being made. As our ancestors noticed green grapes were drying and started to become raisins, they felt the curiosity to taste them. These became one of the famous ingredients of some of our food recipes.
It is possible to date raisins back to 1,400 or 1,500 BC. Most of the raisins sold in the US are cultivated in California, USA. In addition, raisins are also grown and processed in Australia, Turkey, and Greece.
Before we move on to understand how bad raisins are for our cats, we want to bring you some exciting facts about raisins.
- Raisins are obtaining from only 1 fruit, which is the grape
- Raisins are high in sugar and calories.
- Almost 50 percent of the raising sold worldwide are cultivated in Fresno, California,
- A large amount of raisins are produced in Fresno, which is considered the Raisins’ Capital.
There are many interesting facts about raisins we will not be able to cover during these articles. However, we hope we have covered some interesting facts you didn’t know about the dried grapes.
Treats For Your Cats
You need to understand that treats are not essentially healthy food. Instead, a treat is a food you want to give your cats, probably to show love or to reward them for something good they did.
Treats usually contain high levels of sugar, but not to mention calories. The high amount of these 2 factors is the reason why we do not want to feed our cats with a lot of treats.
People love to give treats to their pets, and our felines friends are not the exception to the rule. But raisins are not the best treats for your cats, and we will show you the reasons why.
Even if raisins provide your cat with a high energy boost for a few hours due to the high sugar levels. The consequences of giving a high level of sugar treats are not worth its risk-reward ratio.
Are Raisins Toxic To Cats?
With all the good benefits and side effects, we have found. We can assure raisins can cause your cats to get sick. Based on the studies made to determine that raisins can even poison your cats if eaten on a more elevated portion.
If you feed your cat with raisins it is most likely that your cat could be vomiting within 12-10 hours of eating. If you want to treat your cats well, you should give them another food that does not harm or make them sick.
I know how it is to spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing food and snacks for your daily meals. In some instances we’ve been unaware of our cats while preparing food. And we are even giving some “snacks” of the ingredients to our pets when they are nearby.
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This is not good behavior because depending on the ingredient, we can harm our pets. One great example is raisins. We use raising for a lot of recipes such as oatmeal, cookies, cake, etc. If, by any chance, you see your cat with 1 of the following behaviors or changes in its daily routine, your pet might be poisoned.
The changes can be:
- A lot of vomiting and diarrhea.
- Your cat is not following their eating routine, resulting in a loss of appetite.
- Your cat is drinking more water than usual, causing this to produce more urine.
- Changes in your cat’s daily routine.
If you notice any of these changes in your cat’s behavior, you should schedule an appointment with your vets and confirm it is not something worse.
How Many Raisins Will Kill A Cat?
We need to take into consideration that we do not have the same biological body as cats. Something that could be harmful or dangerous for cats could be for us. Based on studies, we can assure in the short term that raisins cannot kill cats. The worst-case scenario is vomiting. But if we talk about long-term consequences, the constant behavior of providing raisins to your cats can cause kidney failures leading to death.
Depending on the cat’s weight, the number of raisins to kill a cat will change. It is a correlation between both. For each cat’s KG, the number of raisins given should not exceed 0.7 ounces.
Measures Taken to Prevent Your Cat to Get Poisoned
You want to make sure you take care of your feline pet. Some measures you can take at the moment of preventing any poison of your cats are the following:
You can have all your food stored and saved in a place out of the reach of your cats.
Make sure if you are cooking to clean everything you drop on the floor. This is to avoid the situation where your cat eats any raisin you may have dropped.
You can also have a diet plan for your cat’s food, the same as you do it for yourself. Including removing raisins from their diet.
I know you have seen or heard of cats jumping to the counter while people are cooking and grabbing anything that is on the table. For these types of issues, you need to pay attention to your cats while cooking.
Avoid leaving dirty dishes in the sink at the reach of your cat, especially with the leftovers of foods containing raisins.
Make sure you feed your cat when needed to avoid hunger because hunger will make your cat start searching for food.
Conclusion
Thanks to all the information we have gathered, we can say raisins are not the cat’s best friend as snacks. We should never provide raisins to our cats if we can to take care of them and not cause them any harm.
Anyone would think that raisins could be an excellent snack for cats for their taste and the benefits raisins provide to us. But we could not be more wrong from the truth. It is fair to say raisins are harmful to our feline friends because of all the issues and diseases such as diarrhea and vomiting.

Shawn Manaher is a serial entrepreneur but when he isn’t working, he loves dogs. He’s owned different pets over the years, and always gives a part of his heart to each pet.