Can My Pet Eat It? Every Food, and What Is Published

This page is not veterinary advice. Paw Multiverse is not a veterinary practice. We cannot examine, diagnose or treat your animal. There are no doses here, no portion sizes, no feeding amounts and no treatment steps, on purpose. If your pet has eaten something you are worried about, or has changed in a way you cannot explain, ring your vet or your nearest emergency clinic and let them decide. Full disclaimer.

Somebody is holding a piece of food and a hopeful animal is watching them. That is the situation this page is for, and it deserves a better answer than the one the internet usually gives it.

The usual answer is a confident yes or no followed by a portion size. We do not give portion sizes, and on most foods we do not think a confident yes or no is honest. What we can do is show you the published record, food by food, and be clear about where that record runs out. On this site the record running out is written down rather than filled in.

This page carries every food the site has a page for, what a named veterinary publisher actually says about it, and the date we read that publisher. Where nothing is published, it says so in those words.

The published list is shorter than almost anybody expects

The Merck Veterinary Manual keeps a chapter called Food Hazards. Read on 5 August 2026, that chapter contains seven entries, and this is all of them:

Garlic and Onion (Allium spp) Toxicosis in Animals
Avocado (Persea spp) Toxicosis in Animals
Bread Dough Toxicosis in Animals
Chocolate Toxicosis in Animals
Macadamia Nut Toxicosis in Dogs
Grape, Raisin and Tamarind (Vitis spp, Tamarindus spp) Toxicosis in Dogs
Xylitol Toxicosis in Dogs

Seven. That is the whole chapter. Source: Merck Veterinary Manual, Food Hazards (read 5 Aug 2026).

The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center publishes a longer consumer list. Read the same day, it adds alcohol, yeast dough, coffee and caffeine, citrus, milk and dairy, nuts other than macadamia, coconut and coconut oil, raw meat and eggs, raw bones, and salt. Source: ASPCA Animal Poison Control, People Foods to Avoid Feeding Your Pets (read 5 Aug 2026).

Put the two together and you have the published record for companion animal food toxicology as two of the most consulted publishers in the field state it. It is a short list, and almost everything anybody ever asks about is not on it.

What the two lists do not contain

Not one of the following appears as a toxicosis entry in either source: apple, banana, blueberry, broccoli, carrot, celery, cucumber, green bean, kale, mango, oat, parsley, pineapple, pumpkin, raspberry, rice, spinach, strawberry, sweet potato, turkey, watermelon.

This is the part that gets reported badly. An absence from a toxicology chapter is not a clearance. It means no publisher has established a toxic dose, a mechanism or a syndrome for that food in that species. That can be because the food is genuinely uninteresting to a toxicologist, or because nobody has looked, or because the cases exist and have never been written up. From the outside those three look identical, and anybody who tells you which one applies is guessing.

So on the pages below you will read the sentence no published toxicology found a great many times. It is not padding. It is the finding.

Three hazards that are real and are not toxicology

Most of what actually goes wrong with food and pets is not poisoning. It is one of three things, and all three are documented properly.

Obstruction

MSD writes that foreign bodies are “usually objects that cannot be digested (eg, plastic, rocks), are slowly digested (eg, bones), or are too large to pass through the GI tract”. It adds that “young cats and young large-breed dogs are more likely to develop foreign body obstruction than older animals”, and that cats more typically swallow linear objects such as string, where “one end of the foreign body often gets stuck” while the other migrates, so that the intestine bunches and the object saws through the wall. Source: MSD Veterinary Manual, Gastrointestinal Obstruction in Small Animals (read 5 Aug 2026).

That is why the answer to a fruit question is so often about the stone rather than the fruit, and why the answer to a turkey question is about the bone rather than the meat.

Pancreatitis

MSD states plainly that “dietary indiscretion is believed to be a common risk factor in dogs”. It also reports that Miniature Schnauzers “have been reported to be dramatically overrepresented”, with increased prevalence also reported in Yorkshire Terriers, Cocker Spaniels, Dachshunds, Poodles and sled dogs. Source: MSD Veterinary Manual, Pancreatitis in Dogs and Cats (read 5 Aug 2026).

Note what that does and does not say. It names a risk factor and some breeds. It does not give you a fat threshold for a given animal, and neither will we.

Bacteria

The ASPCA names raw meat and eggs because they “can contain bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli”. The FDA ran a two year study of raw pet food, October 2010 to July 2012, testing 196 samples: “15 were positive for Salmonella and 32 were positive for L. monocytogenes”. Source: US FDA, Get the Facts! Raw Pet Food Diets Can Be Dangerous (read 5 Aug 2026).

Those are the numbers, with the sample size attached, which is the only way a proportion means anything.

The species changes the answer more than the food does

Cats

International Cat Care states that “cats are what’s known as obligate carnivores, meaning they are dependent on a meat diet and can’t thrive or survive without it”, and that “as obligate carnivores, cats are less able to digest and use carbohydrates”. Elsewhere the same charity writes that cats evolved as obligate carnivores and so “are unable to survive or thrive without the nutritional components found in meat”, and that “cats cannot be vegetarians or vegans”. Sources: International Cat Care, Feeding your cat or kitten (read 5 Aug 2026) and International Cat Care, What is a cat (read 5 Aug 2026).

MSD gives the biochemistry behind that. Cats have a dietary requirement for taurine, and “taurine deficiency can cause dilated cardiomyopathy and central retinal degeneration in cats”. Cats “cannot convert beta-carotene to vitamin A because they lack the intestinal dioxygenase enzyme”, so they need preformed vitamin A. They need arachidonic acid, “which is absent in vegetable oils and fats but found in fat from meat, poultry, and eggs”. And they “cannot synthesize substantial amounts of niacin from tryptophan”, which dogs can. Source: MSD Veterinary Manual, Nutritional Requirements of Small Animals (read 5 Aug 2026).

This is why a plate of rice is a different question for a cat than for a dog. Nothing in rice poisons a cat. It simply is not what the animal is built to run on, and every mouthful of it displaces one of something that is.

Rabbits

The RSPCA writes that hay or grass “should be the main part of their diet”, and PDSA puts fresh greens alongside it rather than instead of it. Both charities also print a quantity, one for hay and one for greens. We do not reproduce either figure. A quantity for a rabbit depends on the rabbit, and a reader who takes a number off a third party page and stops thinking has been made worse off, not better. The structural point is the useful part and it carries no number: hay is the bulk of a rabbit, fresh food is an addition to it, and a food that displaces hay is a problem however harmless the food is. Sources: RSPCA, Feeding your pet rabbit a healthy diet (read 5 Aug 2026) and PDSA, The ideal diet for rabbits (read 5 Aug 2026).

On the food people actually ask about, PDSA is blunt: “although rabbits love carrots, they contain a lot of sugar and calories but not any good fibre”, and “carrots are OK but only occasionally as a treat”. On fruit it says “it’s OK to feed your rabbits a little fruit every now and again as a treat, but remember that it’s high in sugar”. The RSPCA agrees, saying to give “only small amounts of root vegetables and fruit, such as carrots and apples, as an occasional treat”.

So the honest answer to can rabbits eat carrots is yes, and also that the picture of a rabbit holding a carrot is the most misleading image in pet keeping. Both charities are more worried about muesli style mixes than about any vegetable: the RSPCA says they “can lead to serious dental disease and digestive problems and can cause rabbits to put on excessive weight, even becoming obese”.

Dogs

Dogs are the species most of the published toxicology is about, which is partly a fact about dogs and partly a fact about who takes animals to emergency clinics. Five of Merck’s seven entries name dogs in the title. That skew is worth holding in mind when you read a list and conclude that cats and rabbits are safer. What the list shows is where the case reports are.

Look up a food

Every food page on this site is in the table below, with what is published and who published it. The search box narrows the table. If it does nothing, your browser has blocked the script and the full table is still there underneath, which is the way round we prefer it.

Find a food

Showing all 92 entries. The table below is the whole reference and works with or without the search box.

Food	Species	Published status	What is actually published
Avocado	cats	Documented	Same Merck entry. ASPCA names birds and rabbits as its biggest concern.
Bananas	cats	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Bread	cats	Documented	Same distinction. The published hazard is raw dough, not baked bread.
Catnip	cats	Documented	ASPCA lists Nepeta cataria as toxic to cats, with vomiting and diarrhoea among the signs.
Cheese	cats	Documented	Same ASPCA dairy entry, against an obligate carnivore diet.
Chicken	cats	Documented, not a poison	Same raw handling evidence, against an obligate carnivore diet.
Chocolate	cats	Documented	Covered by the same Merck chapter entry.
Dog food	cats	No published toxicology found	MSD sets out the nutrients cats need that dogs do not.
Eggs	cats	Documented, not a poison	Same, against a cat requirement for preformed nutrients found in animal tissue.
Garlic	cats	Documented	Same Merck Allium entry.
Grapes	cats	Documented	ASPCA states exposure can lead to kidney damage. Merck titles its entry for dogs only.
Ham	cats	Documented, not a poison	MSD documents salt toxicosis. Cured ham is a salted food.
Milk	cats	Documented	Same ASPCA dairy entry.
Onions	cats	Documented	Same Merck entry, which covers animals rather than one species.
Rice	cats	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Salmon	cats	No published toxicology found	Merck titles salmon poisoning disease for dogs. No feline counterpart in that source.
Shrimp	cats	Documented, not a poison	Same.
Strawberries	cats	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Tuna	cats	No published toxicology found	No toxicology entry. The published concern is a diet built on one food.
Watermelon	cats	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Yogurt	cats	Documented	Same ASPCA dairy entry.
(index)	cats	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Almonds	dogs	Documented	ASPCA, other nuts: vomiting, diarrhoea and potentially pancreatitis.
Apples	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Avocado	dogs	Documented	Merck chapter entry, Avocado (Persea spp) Toxicosis in Animals.
Bacon	dogs	Documented, not a poison	Same two MSD entries, salt and dietary indiscretion.
Bananas	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Blueberries	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Bread	dogs	Documented	Merck has an entry for Bread Dough Toxicosis. Baked bread is not that entry.
Broccoli	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Carrots	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Cashews	dogs	Documented	Same ASPCA entry for nuts other than macadamia.
Celery	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Cheese	dogs	Documented	Same ASPCA dairy entry.
Cherries	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Chocolate	dogs	Documented	Merck keeps a chapter entry, Chocolate Toxicosis in Animals.
Coconut	dogs	Documented	ASPCA: small amounts not likely to cause serious harm, larger amounts stomach upset and diarrhoea.
Coffee	dogs	Documented	ASPCA names coffee and caffeine, with seizures and death among the signs listed.
Corn	dogs	Documented, not a poison	MSD names objects too large to pass. The cob is the published shape of that risk.
Cucumber	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Eggs	dogs	Documented, not a poison	ASPCA names raw meat and eggs. FDA found Salmonella and Listeria in raw pet food samples.
Garlic	dogs	Documented	Same Merck Allium entry.
Grapes	dogs	Documented	Merck chapter entry, Grape, Raisin and Tamarind Toxicosis in Dogs.
Green beans	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Ham	dogs	Documented, not a poison	MSD documents salt toxicosis, and MSD names dietary indiscretion in pancreatitis.
Honey	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Ice cream	dogs	Documented	ASPCA, milk and dairy: can cause diarrhoea or other digestive upset.
Macadamia nuts	dogs	Documented	Merck chapter entry, Macadamia Nut Toxicosis in Dogs.
Mango	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Mushrooms	dogs	Documented	Wild species. The site page carries the detail.
Oatmeal	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Onions	dogs	Documented	Merck chapter entry, Garlic and Onion (Allium spp) Toxicosis in Animals.
Oranges	dogs	Documented	ASPCA, citrus: small ingestions not likely to present problems beyond minor stomach upset.
Peanut butter	dogs	Documented	Merck names peanut butter among the products that carry xylitol.
Peanuts	dogs	Documented	Same ASPCA entry for nuts other than macadamia.
Pineapple	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Popcorn	dogs	Documented, not a poison	Unpopped kernels and salt. MSD documents both classes of hazard separately.
Pork	dogs	Documented, not a poison	MSD names dietary indiscretion as a common risk factor for pancreatitis in dogs.
Potatoes	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter.
Pumpkin	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Raspberries	dogs	No published toxicology found	Merck names no fruit or berry as a xylitol source. The common claim is not in that source.
Rice	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Salmon	dogs	Documented	Merck documents salmon poisoning disease in dogs from raw or undercooked salmonids.
Shrimp	dogs	Documented, not a poison	Raw shellfish sits under the same ASPCA and FDA raw food heading.
Spinach	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Strawberries	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Sweet potato	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Tomatoes	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter.
Tuna	dogs	No published toxicology found	No toxicology entry in either list. The published concern is diet balance, not poison.
Turkey	dogs	Documented, not a poison	MSD names bones among the objects that obstruct the gastrointestinal tract.
Watermelon	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Xylitol	dogs	Documented	Merck chapter entry, Xylitol Toxicosis in Dogs.
Yogurt	dogs	Documented	Same ASPCA dairy entry.
(index)	dogs	No published toxicology found	No entry in the Merck food hazards chapter and none in the ASPCA list.
Complete food safety guide	guinea pigs	No published toxicology found	No guinea pig entries in the food hazards chapter.
Apples	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Bananas	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Blueberries	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Bread	rabbits	Documented	Same distinction, plus the hay first position taken by PDSA and the RSPCA.
Broccoli	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Carrots	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Celery	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Chocolate	rabbits	Documented	Same Merck chapter entry, which is written for animals rather than one species.
Cucumber	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Grapes	rabbits	No published toxicology found	No toxicology entry for rabbits in either list. Treated as fruit, which PDSA calls an occasional treat.
Kale	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Lettuce	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Parsley	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Spinach	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Strawberries	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.
Tomatoes	rabbits	No published toxicology found	No entry. Treated as a fresh food alongside hay.
(index)	rabbits	Documented, not a poison	No toxicology entry. PDSA and the RSPCA put hay first and fresh food second.

Three words are used in that middle column and they mean three different things. Documented means a named publisher has a toxicosis entry for it. Documented, not a poison means the hazard is real and published but is obstruction, pancreatitis, salt or bacteria rather than poisoning. No published toxicology found means exactly what it says, and it is the most common result on this page.

The figures we will not print, and why

Several of the sources above publish numbers we could reproduce and have chosen not to. We would rather name them than quietly leave a hole.

MSD publishes an oral toxic dose for sodium in dogs, in grams per kilogram, on its salt toxicosis page. We do not reproduce it. A dose in grams per kilogram is only usable by somebody who can weigh the animal, weigh the food, know the salt content of the food and decide what to do with the answer. A reader who has that number and none of the rest of it is likelier to wait than to ring. Source, unquoted: MSD Veterinary Manual, Salt Toxicosis in Animals (read 5 Aug 2026).
MSD publishes a grape to bodyweight ratio for dogs. It lives on our grape checker with the sentence from Cornell that sits beside it, saying the exact toxic dose is not entirely known. It is not repeated here, because a threshold without its caveat is worse than no threshold.
We publish no portion size, no percentage of daily calories, no calorie figure and no feeding amount anywhere, for any food, for any species. The old versions of these food pages did, and it was wrong of them. Twenty three of them carried a portion, a percentage or a calorie figure, none of it sourced. It has gone.
We publish no price for anything.

If you want a number for your animal, the person who should give it to you has weighed your animal.

Chocolate is covered separately, because the published record on it is long enough to need its own page: Chocolate and dogs: what the published record shows.

What we could not source

Written down rather than papered over. Everything below was attempted on 5 August 2026.

The Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund publishes detailed vegetable and herb lists for rabbits. Its robots handling refused our fetch on both attempts, so nothing from it is quoted here. The PDSA and RSPCA pages stand in its place.
Blue Cross, what food is poisonous to dogs: the address returned 404.
PDSA, what dogs cannot eat: the address returned 404.
International Cat Care, cats and milk: the address returned 404, so the lactose claim that everybody repeats is not sourced on this site. The ASPCA dairy entry is what we have, and it says digestive upset rather than anything about lactase.
MSD, trichinellosis in small animals: the address returned 404, so the raw pork parasite claim is not made here.
No publisher we could reach gives a lactose tolerance figure for adult dogs or adult cats.
MSD lists Prunus species among plants containing cyanogenic glycosides, which covers cherry and peach, but the page does not say where in the plant they concentrate and does not mention amygdalin, apple pips or a quantity. So this site does not tell you how many apple pips matter, because we could not find out. Source: MSD Veterinary Manual, Cyanide Poisoning in Animals (read 5 Aug 2026).
Merck names the sources of xylitol as gums, candies, mints, peanut butter, baked goods and a list of non food products. It names no fruit and no berry. The widely repeated claim that raspberries contain enough xylitol to matter is not supported by that page, and we could not source it anywhere else. Source: Merck Veterinary Manual, Xylitol Toxicosis in Dogs (read 5 Aug 2026).
No published toxicology of any kind for 35 of the 92 food and species pairs on this site.

Every food page on this site

Dogs. Almonds · Apples · Avocado · Bacon · Bananas · Blueberries · Bread · Broccoli · Carrots · Cashews · Celery · Cheese · Cherries · Chocolate · Coconut · Coffee · Corn · Cucumber · Eggs · Garlic · Grapes · Green beans · Ham · Honey · Ice cream · Macadamia nuts · Mango · Mushrooms · Oatmeal · Onions · Oranges · Peanut butter · Peanuts · Pineapple · Popcorn · Pork · Potatoes · Pumpkin · Raspberries · Rice · Salmon · Shrimp · Spinach · Strawberries · Sweet potato · Tomatoes · Tuna · Turkey · Watermelon · Xylitol · Yogurt

Cats. Avocado · Bananas · Bread · Catnip · Cheese · Chicken · Chocolate · Dog food · Eggs · Garlic · Grapes · Ham · Milk · Onions · Rice · Salmon · Shrimp · Strawberries · Tuna · Watermelon · Yogurt

Rabbits. Apples · Bananas · Blueberries · Bread · Broccoli · Carrots · Celery · Chocolate · Cucumber · Grapes · Kale · Lettuce · Parsley · Spinach · Strawberries · Tomatoes

Guinea pigs. Complete food safety guide

The species hubs are can dogs eat, can cats eat and can rabbits eat. If something has already been eaten, the pages you want are my dog ate something, my cat ate something, the poison control directory and pet emergency. The plant equivalent of this page is the poison control directory, and the printable version is the poison control directory.