Cats Lack a Sweet Fang?

My brother has been taking care of the neighbor's cat this week. Cats have been somewhat of a mystery to me over the years, mostly because I have been allergic to them - and thus can not spend much time observing or interacting with them. One of the main areas of confusion to me have been the finicky nature of cats - how they sometimes refuse to eat even when they need to in order to survive. Well, CNN has up an article that may have the answer: cat's lack the ability to taste "sweetness."

"Because cats can't taste sweets, they're cranky," joked Joseph Brand, Monell's associate director and an author of the paper being published Sunday in the inaugural issue of the Public Library of Science's journal Genetics...Brand said the "pseudogene" in cats is probably a big reason why they are carnivores that get by on a high-protein, "Atkin's-like" diet.
"Its sense of taste has driven it to become a meat eater," Brand said. "Losing their sweet receptor has probably changed their dietary habits."

Strangely, this makes sense to me. It especially explains why dogs love people-food, and cats generally only care about milk or fish.