Starbucks delivered their new “healthy choices” breakfast menu to The Consumerist this morning, and, falling blindly into their free breakfast trap, we all tried it out. A taste review will follow, but for now, just know that for some reason, my cat, Captain Duvel Moneycat, loves Starbucks new “Perfect Oatmeal.” Seriously,he was freakin’ on this bowl, it was disturbing. I took it away shortly after taking this exploitative photo.
More From Consumerist
-
Funeral Home Hopes A Starbucks Pick-Me-Up Will Provide A Nice Break From That Whole Mourning Thing
-
5 Ridiculously Impossible Customer Requests At Starbucks
-
Starbucks To Cut Price Of Bagged Coffee By $1 Next Month Because The Caffeine Gods Said So
-
Starbucks Has Discovered Street Corners Without One Of Its Stores, Set To Open 1,500 More
-
Starbucks Baristas Say New Reusable Cups Are Selling Well, But Will The Trend Last?
Ur brekfast
i haz it
We have a tortie and a gray tabby(both 4 months old) that get into everything. They love plastic bags. So did our last cat. The tortie also likes Gatorade and salsa. The tabby likes lettuce. LETTUCE! She must think she’s a rabbit or something. They’re still at that stage where they’re growing incredibly fast and eating like horses, so we were told to feed on demand, which winds up being 8-9 times a day. We haven’t tried oatmeal because no person in the house eats it, but I’m sure they’d eat that, too.
Cats are odd creatures. One day they’ll only eat one flavor of one exact brand of premium canned food, the next day they’re eating dead flies off the floor and trying to drink out of your lemonade glass. Weirdos.
@yevarechecha: Our siamese was eating lettuce I dropped on the floor the other day. Who knew?
I think that first picture just begs for the caption, “Thank you for this oatmeal. You have done well.”
That cat seems to be taking the oatmeal “very seriousely”.
Look at those claws coming out — kitty WILL have oatmeal!
Our two oldest cats don’t much care for people food with the exception of some dairy, but the youngest is a piglet in cat’s clothing.
Among the things he’ll eat are: tater tots, corn chips, collard greens (swineless, too), corn bread, any soy-based meat analogue, peanut butter, banana smoothies (vegan), vanilla wafers, potato chips, spaghetti squash, plenty of other things I can’t recall at the moment — and yes, oatmeal. He loves carbs. Hell, he loves food.
To keep him from jumping on the table and stealing food, we feed him tiny bites on a fork. He’ll eat as delicately as you please right off the fork, too, which reminds me that I need to get some video of that.
I’ll have to try oatmeal on my cats. Tron goes apeshit for any meat–beef, pork, chicken, turkey, whatever. We actually used a little dish of bacon to train Tron to use the cat door. He’d learn to read and write for bacon. Beaker loves olive brine, celery, cilantro, and BLEACH. You have to be careful with anything that smells chlorine-y or Beaker will be into it. (We’ve never had an incident, thankfully.) He mauls my hands if I’ve handled any of the above substances.
As far as weird licking habits, Tron licks laundry baskets and Beaker goes for the more pedestrian plastic bag option.
@Juliekins: Our Beaker kitty (who meeps like the muppet) will do anything for pork products. Including knocking over a toddler to get to some fried rice.
@TangDrinker: I knew a cat that would steal Popeye’s fried chicken right out of your hand. No other chicken…only Popeye’s. He was called MotherFu**** for that reason. As in “You M*****F*****! Bring back my chicken!”
@thelushie: Aww. Here’s my my Beaker. He “meeps” too–between that, the orange fur, and the spazzy manner he practically named himself.
Oh, I forgot–Beaker will cut a bitch for some vanilla ice cream. Also, Tron actively salivates (like it will run down his chin) for Doritos, Cheetos, ranch dressing…we think he may have been a stoner in a past life.
This basically makes my night seem a lot better than it has been. It’s like the cheesy story at the end of the evening news. I despise oatmeal, but I’ve never tried giving it to anyone but my rats, who would gnaw through their metal cage for a bowl. Kitty looks a lot like my Dude, claws and disturbing expression and all.
I think Starbucks just found a niche market for themselves. Shareholders rejoice!
fantastic, people pay for catfood at starbucks! then again I’ve kind of always wondered what pet food does really taste like…
May have to try this on our cat, he is very picky so I think he would just walk away.
Cannot be any worse for your cat than the normal grain filled junk they sell you at the supermarket. Cats eat meat, not grain!
The cat we had when I was a kid loved prunes. Mom gave him a couple little bits every morning and he went nuts. He also liked to lick photographs, which was almost certainly bad for him.
cute kitty. did you put tuna in that bowl to get him to show interest? fiber is good for bulking stools in people, does it work the same way for cats and if so, what can you expect in the litterbox? cats are obligate carnivores which need meat to avoid starvation.
@the-perfect-face-for-radio: Yep, it does. No joke, we need to put metamucil in our cat’s food. The vet suggested 1/2 tsp per day, but the cat weighs all of 8 lbs and that was a ton. We mix in 1/8 tsp every morning, and it keeps him … moving.
Yes, this cat is a huge pain in the ass, but he’s adorable so we deal with it.
@dwarf74: When you gave him a 1/2 tsp per day, HE had a huge pain in his ass.
Our three dachshunds beg for uncooked rolled oats every morning.
They scarf them like it was prime rib.
My cat loves cream but is absolutely flummoxed when I place him on a milking stool in front of a cow. No matter how artfully I pantomime.
My rabbit’s very fond of candy corn. I swear she can smell an open bag of it halfway across the house.
I LIKEZ TO HAZ GRANDAY FARPCHEENOZE.
This is the same reaction my older cat has around a Wendy’s Frosty. You were safe as long as the lid was on, but the minute the lid came off so you could stir it or scoop it out with a spoon, she’d stick her whole face in there.
Re: Plastic bags and cats – I’ve been told that many plastic bag types use fish oils in some measure, but not all. Hence, the cats seem to be attracted by the fish byproducts involved. My cat has the same thing, where she’s sometimes overly interested in random, different bags.
I can haz oatmeal?
4 cats: one eats nothing but people food (loves my wife’s chili), and goes bonkers with corn husks.
3 others: could care less about any people food, including chicken (well, one likes ham a bit), and only want dry crunchies.
Cats are funny.
My cat goes insane over dried apricots.
Several months ago, he was smelling them when I was eating them. I took off a small piece, and I believe he thought it was the best thing in the universe. He started trying to take them out of my hands and run away with the bag. It was really uncanny.
Sadly, he vomits anything he eats that’s not insanely hydrolized…
Spaghetti Cat: Meet Starbucks Oatmeal Cat.
Drop an ice cube on a floor… *BAM*BAM*BAM*BAM*BAM*BAM* OK get mop, clean up wet spots, drop another ice cube on floor for kitties to play hockey with. *BAM*BAM*BAM*BAM*BAM* Entertainment with no end and clean floors too.
That explains the disappearance of my cat and my Duetto card.
We just switched styles of cat food (chunks instead of puree) on our 3 cats. One of our cats now is leaving his stools planted upright in the catbox like tombstones. I’m not sure if he’s sending us a message.
My orange one goes berserk for cantaloupe and hot wings. My grey one likes lettuce. He is otherwise quite well-mannered, but will leap up on the table repeatedly and steal one leaf at a time until he gets caught, because he knows he gets to keep what he can steal before we see him. It’s very funny. They only have one eye each, but luckily it’s opposite eyes so they can still have a stare-down.
I grew up with a Siamese who LOVED coffee. I grew up thinking the little saucer that came with coffee cups and tea cups was specifically to put on TOP of the cup to keep the cat out of it.
OMG cute kitteh! My cat is an ice cream kind of girl though.
I have two kitties. Both like lettuce, but one will only eat fresh lettuce from my garden or organic baby field greens. The other likes the rehydrated Taco Bell lettuce from my tostada.
One our four cats LOVES hot food. She goes nuts over Mango Habanero sauce from BW-3, and was once seen fully inside a bag of flaming hot cheetos. I don’t think she’d go for oatmeal- too bland.
@Trai_Dep: Cheerios, asparagus, and parrot food. I have had two cats who are absolutely obsessed with all three.
Parrot food is expensive as heck and probably warrants its own Consumerist post about price gouging. But when our dumb birds fling their food across the room like children it’s worth the waste to watch the cat scramble over to it like mad nom on it.
I am so glad Consumerist is full of cat people.
I’m creating a database of all the funky foods (except Poinsettas) that your whacky cats go crazy over. It’ll be a very exciting weekend over at the Trai Dep house!
Awww kitteh!! My afternoon is now exponentially better!
One of my cats’ go-nuts people-food is angel food cake. Oh, she also is desperate to get her paws on my lip balm but I bribe her off with Vaseline.
As for the comments that cats are obligate carnivores and thus shouldn’t eat grain: in the wild cats consume all of their prey, not just the muscle mass. This includes the stomach contents, which often contain grain or seeds. It’s possible that cats might not even be healthy on a straight diet of human-butchered muscle meat.
A black cat crossed the road in front of me this morning, obviously on the way to Starbucks. So I guess I won’t worry about bad luck.
Does Ben’s cat have high cholesterol? Oatmeal will fix that. Otherwise, he may have to try Lipitor.
Once my cat (the one on the right in my picture) knocked over a box of cookies and then half-ate one before I got them away from her. I kept waiting for disaster in the litter box, but she was fine.
I had some yesterday with the dried fruit a huge dollop of honey and some whole milk (I like the fruit cooked so I dropped them in there for a few minutes before eating).
Tastes like oatmeal although not as strong a wheaty or nutty flavor as some.
For $3 and change, it’s a decent deal and you can pretty much not worry about it killing you.
@mom22bless: That’s giving Quaker instant oatmeal a bad name. Quakers
oatmeal is much better than Starbuck’s.
I had ordered one and the morning shift girl had filled the cup full of hot
water. When I asked if it was soup she sarcastically said “duh it’s oatmeal,
it takes 3 minutes to settle”.
So I had asked if she can replace it since the water was way past the dotted
line that it had stated on the bowl. She yanked the bowl out of my hand and
spilled hot water all over my hand.
The manager apologized and tried to give me “free coffee at that Starbucks”
coupons. All I wanted was the oatmeal, which wasn’t worth it in the end
anyways. It was horrible. I’ll just stick to Quakers instant bowls which
are cheaper and taste much better.
Donna
Is there milk in that oatmeal? I wonder if that’s what he went nuts for?
And to LOLCat the first picture: WANT
I hope this isn’t too much off-topic but the talk of kitties playing with (licking) the plastic bags got me worried. On two separate occasions we’ve had cats playing with shopping bags get their head through the handle, and then get the bag stuck around their shoulders (like a cape). They then go running around the house in absolute terror because there is a GIANT RATTLING MONSTER chasing them, and no matter how fast they run they can’t get away. Once the cat was so scared she peed on the carpet. The other time kitty #2, who was merely spectating, was so terrified that her tail was still bushed-up when we returned to the house 6 hours after the incident.
All plastic shopping bags that get emptied in our house are immediately stored away or have their handles cut with scissors–an action we call “disarming the shopping bags.”
@Garbanzo: That is a hilarious story!
@Garbanzo: That is hilarious. And it reminds me of how one of my cats will pick up the toy attached to a string and pole (meant for people to play with the cats with) and drag it around the house while another cat will chase the pole that is now being dragged all over the house.
@samurailynn: One of mine likes to lick blankets as well, especially the microfiber ones… He’s also taken a liking to the arms of the office chair. Same thing there, his tongue sticks to it. Crazy kitties.
@Garbanzo: Oh my god, I would LOVE a video of that. SUPERCAT!!! Running in fear from… Himself!!! Priceless!
@BrianDaBrain: It’s also good to know that we all love the cat more than the oatmeal!
@Garbanzo: One of my cats did that with a paper shopping bag once. Her hair literally stood on end at the sight of the giant brown monster that she couldn’t seem to escape.
The other time her hair stood on end like that was after she’d been begging for jalapenos. I didn’t give her any (she begs for everything, just on the off chance she might like it) but I must have dropped a seed, which she scarfed. She didn’t like it. Ran around panting with hair standing on end, drank a bunch of water and ran around some more. She has epilepsy, and if I hadn’t seen her trying to get at the peppers, I might have thought it was the onset of a seizure.
@Garbanzo: I was laughing my butt off over this.
My new cat is really lazy and laid back 99% of the time… but if I open a can of Shoestring Potatos he will run from wherever he is, to where I am and not leave me alone until he gets atleast one. I made the mistake of opening one when I was laying down and he jumped on top of me and made me surrender the salty potato goodness.
My other cat is the same way about dinner rolls. The rolls we have at Thanksgiving are his most favorite.
Hey, someone (read:something) has to like their oatmeal…they (it) may as well be your kitty!
Red (my black cat) is nuts for mint chocolate chip ice cream. He won’t touch any other ice cream but will try to flip the bowl out of my hands if I have some.
He is also obsessed with my hair. Every day he sits on my shoulder and noms my hair while purring.
My Kitteh is teh wacky.
I usually don’t let my kitty actually have oatmeal (MINE) but she will sit there and meow until I ball up the little brown paper packet for her. She likes it far more than a standard wad of paper, so I figure there has to be something about the oatmeal that she loves!
My black-haired, golden-eyed kitty LOVES granola. I bet she’d love this crap too.
I love how he’s actually grabbing the bowl with his paws!
One of my kitties likes rum cake and various other treats. If we are sitting on the couch eating, he will get in your face to try and get some. He also often uses his paw (with claws retracted, what a sweetheart) to try and bring the hand holding the food closer to his face.
A different kitty likes to lick blankets. They stick to his tongue so he pulls his head slowly away from the blanket, which stretches out his tongue until it finally pulls free from the blanket. He just sits there doing it over and over.
Our red tabby likes to eat crackers (or anything else that’s salty) and will occasionally take a few bites of pizza crusts and cookies if they are left out. He also loves to gnaw on paper – books, magazines, mail – it’s all fair game.
Our black cat seems to like licking photographs, and on a few occasions, I’ve woken up to him licking or gnawing on my hair after I’ve had it colored.
Both seem to be like Pavlov’s dogs when it comes to pop-top cans. They hear a can being opened and come rushing into the kitchen – even if it’s just a can of pineapple!
@scarletvirtue: Re: licking hair
My kitty girl Diana also does that, though I don’t get my hair colored. Particularly when I had short hair (less than 1.5 in.), she would sit on my desk for 20 minutes at a time and “clean” any part of my hair she could get to. My hair is halfway down my back now, so when she tries to clean it, she ends up with strands down her throat – I always grab it back from her before she gets into danger though.
She also has a thing for fleece texture & anything mentholated. I have these little pain relief patches with some kind of topical menthol gel in them, and I will sometimes wear them to bed on my hands/wrists if I don’t want to take oral pain medications. In probably 75+% of cases, I will wake up to Diana licking the patch on my hand, for both the texture and the scent of menthol. If I try to pull my hand away, she will plant her claws very lightly into my arm to keep me still.
@ladypoetess: That’s funny! Hopefully they don’t harm her in any way.
@Triborough: Easy on the Haterade, there. Not all of us smart people can have dogs!
Speaking of strange obsessions with odd items. My cat will need my memory pillow orgasmically. He purrs and just kneads it with front and back paws. If you touch him, he meows shortly at you. And yes, he has been nipped. Sometimes he ends it with some trembling. It is the freakiest thing in the world to watch. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
Oh and one human food that I forgot about earlier that Casey will eat: Dairy Queen Soft Serve. And only from Dairy Queen. He will climb on my head to get to it.
@thelushie: We have a cat that does something similar – she (yes, female) will knead this squishy, furry pillow thing and thrust her hips as she does it. When she stops, she always acts like she has just had sex, so my best theory is that it is a pseudo-sexual action and the kitty is getting some, ah, relief from it.
This same cat of ours will try to do this to one of my larger teddy bears – something I call “molesting my bear” – so I tend to keep it hidden. I’d rather she not, uh, get anything on it. >.>
Let’s see… I had a cat at one point that would eat Strawberry Pop Rocks (yes, the flavor was important), and I have 2 cats that absolutely *demand* a taste if I am eating tomato soup.
My boy kitty Apollo probably has the strangest tastes – he will steal my salad if I have romaine lettuce and I don’t give him substantial amounts of it. He will beg for pizza, but ONLY the crusts, never the toppings. And he will beg piteously for McDonald’s french fries, but will not touch the beef or cheese (then again, he will NEVER eat beef or cheese, but will gingerly take pork or chicken on occasion). Oh, and potato chips of almost any flavor – he loves those.
This only proves how stupid cats and cat owners are.
A smart person would not go to Starbucks and have a dog.
@Triborough: Woah, there! Let’s dial down the hate a bit.
I think those photos are hilarious!
Those pictures are hilarious!
I miss having kittehs around
I miss my kitty… he was a strange one though. Deathly afraid of the outdoors, had a thing for licking nipples (don’t ask…), and had interesting choices in women. He didn’t like my ex girlfriend or my crush, but seemed to get along well with every other girl that came over. Then again, the cat was definitely an attention whore…
as for strange food habits… I kept his diet pretty straight forward, though when he was with my parents he was one of the family sitting in a chair at the dinner table. You can tell he wanted to jump up and grab something, but instead he just peeked his head over to edge of the table watched the food until we gave him something to eat.
My cat (the one in my picture) loves The Baker brand bread. He will climb on the kitchen counter and step over my fiance’s bread to eat it! I bet he would join your cat in eating the Starbuck’s oatmeal.
I might test it tonight.
I also want to know the name of your cat. I have cat that looks just like yours. I like to pretend all blacks cats know each other and belong to a secret society. I hope they are benevolent.