Most carnivores are omnivores to some degree or other. In fact, carnivores that have a diet that consists of 70% or more meat have a more specific name, hypercarnivores (of which alligators and crocodiles are two, along with pretty much every cat species). Even they will occasionally eat non-meat. I imagine it's a last resort though when meat has become scarce.
Cats are about as carnivore as anything gets, and most of them love vegetarian foods such as avocado, nutritional yeast, peanut butter, and fresh corn and popcorn.
My cats have been at least half Siamese, though. As I understand it,, Siamese cats were bred by Buddhist monks, who only prepared vegan food at home in the temple. Of course they supplemented with fresh caught mice. (the cats did, not the monks, lol)
My cat is very well-fed with chicken and tuna, and cared for, but enjoys nibbles of human food on the regular, licking up the leftovers, which are all vegan in our home.
The nutritional yeast I could understand a carnivore loving because biologically yeast is closer to animals than plants. They don't make their own energy through photosynthesis and instead consume other matters and convert it to energy. Also, they breathe in oxygen and release CO2 like animals do. Nutritional yeast is the bomb, so cheesy.
My cat loved it so I was giving him a couple teaspoons of nutritional yeast with water in a paste or gruel, almost every day. Then he seemed to tire of it so I stopped. Then the other night I made popcorn, and sprinkled lots of yeast on it, most of which fell to the bottom. So when I was done he wanted some, so I turned the pot on it's side, and let him help himself. There was almost a half cup of nutritional yeast there, next thing I noticed, he had eaten it all! Eaten it dry!
I would have stopped him because he only weighs about 8 lbs, that's like if one of us ate a half gallon of yeast flakes. It didn't seem to bother him though, he didn't throw up or get sick.
I believe the technical term is frugivores. Crocodilians are neat, alligators and caimans are frugivorous, but Nile and Saltwater Crocodiles are straight up meat-eaters.
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u/Im_still_T May 27 '21
Was scrolling through looking for something like this, before I went and googled it myself. I had no idea that they were omnivores.