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Cats can thrive on a vegan diet. The only thing that they can’t get directly from plants is taurine, but synthetic taurine is extremely common and well studied (most non-vegan cat food is supplimented with synthetic taurine).
There are some scammy and not nutritionally complete vegan cat foods or there, so it’s important to do a bit of extra research, but there are also some excellent offerings that have everything a cat needs to thrive.
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Cats can absolutely live on a vegan diet. Cats, like all animals, need specific nutrients rather than specific ingredients Source. The source you provided pointed out 3 specific nutrients to be concerned about, so let’s go through them.
Taurine is the first, and most obvious nutrient to focus on. I’m the natural environment, it is only available in animal sources. Thankfully, we do not live in the natural works, and we have developed ways to synthesise taurine. This is very important because the processing on commercial cat foods remove taurine from the meat they use Source. We can use this synthetic taurine to make cat food that doesn’t need to harm other animals to make.
Next up is protein. Cats have a short digestive system that is specialised for digesting protein and fat. Thankfully, we humans also need protein, so we have figured or some very good ways to extract protein from various sources and concentrate it. The dry cat food I use is 32% protein, and is sourced from fungus. It has the same amino acid profile as chicken. I have seen meat based dry food with more protein, but from my research 32% is pretty decent. I have seen some meat based cat food with less.
Then, carbohydrates. They are not good for cats in general. As far as I’ve seen with commercial cat food, the cheap stuff is full of filler carbs and the more expensive stuff had higher protein and fat content. This trend follows for vegan cat foods, so be sure to check the label.
Like I said before, there are commercially available vegan cat foods that are suitable to feeding your cat. There is also vegan cat foods that is no good, so it’s important to do the research to make sure you get something good. I think we can agree that homemade vegan diets for cats are an extremely bad idea for the reasons mentioned in the article you mentioned. Cat nutrition is too complicated to be trying to make at home.
If there is some other factor I haven’t considered please let me know. I’m just trying to do what I can for my cat and morals.
Man the modlog about this post is crazy.
I’m glad it got restored because you make some good points.
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Posting the same link to the ASPCA isn’t as compelling as you think it is. They don’t touch on synthetic taurine at all, even though it’s used in most commercial pet foods. Did they just forget?
I completely agree that a whole food vegan diet is terrible for cats, which is why cat foods are supplimented with the necessary nutrients. Your Blue Cross link agrees with me, where they say:
These needs cannot be met by a vegan diet without synthetic supplements.
These synthetic suppliments are the while reason vegan cat food is possible. I’m not sure why the ASPCA is just ignoring the existence of synthetic taurine. Is there some issue with synthetic taurine that only the ASPCA knows about?
The issues brought up in all the articles boil down to unprocessed plants having low levels of necessary nutrients, but the plants are processed to extract these nutrients to bring them to acceptable levels.
There are definitely issues with vegan cat foods, but to put a blanket statement that they are not possible requires a bit better evidence than one group saying so, without acknowledging the key ingredient that makes vegan cat foods feasible.
I’m not all that interested in arguing beyond this point either. Your appeals to authority are unconvincing when the authority disagrees with you, or when they neglect to mention the primary counterpoint to their argument.
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Science says that creatures of all types need nutrients, not ingredients. That’s why the more scientifically minded sources you have linked don’t say outright that vegan cat food is impossible, they point out specific nutrients that may be hard to source in vegan foods.
The other articles seem obsessed with the idea that vegans are going to feed their cat a carrot and some broccoli, which is obviously wrong and inadequate. I’d like to compare like to like, so let’s look at what most people feed their cats, dry kibble.
One of the main important nutrients that is present in meat and not plants is taurine. Some of the taurine in meat is destroyed when it is cooked, so they suppliment the meat with synthetic taurine. Both types of kibble have synthetic taurine, and this taurine had been studied extensively and is the same as the naturally occurring stuff.
A lot of these articles say a vegan diet is unnatural for cats and thus wrong. Your linked article on cats.com brings up a good point that cats whole lives as pets is unnatural. Cats natural habitat is in the wild, eating only what they catch when they catch it. Eating kibble or wet food on a schedule in a house is completely unnatural regardless of the makeup of that kibble. The makeup of the meat kibble is also not a cats natural diet, they would be eating small birds and rodents, not tuna and salmon.
If you have a scientific article that says otherwise is be happy to hear it. I’m happy to say that a meat based diet will be easier and simpler to give your cat, but science doesn’t agree that meat is strictly necessary
Edit: I am sorry, about my emotional decision i reinstated @Eevoltic and @[email protected] as mods After researching myself, many non scientific sites say its not healthy and some say its unethical, one (1) research paper says it is at least NOT unhealthy, but it has few points of data and i didnt found any other scientific paper about this…
Synthetic taurine is a thing and is widely used in formulated food. Cats are sometimes taken off meat based diets due to medical complications. The posts you removed were reasonable and explained why in good faith, the other poster made wild asertions not based on modern evidence and made anti-reality claims such as synthetic nutrients not being equivalent and ‘meat’ needs being scientific fact.
They violate the rules of this comm and you are overreaching by interfering.
All companion animals should recieve regular health checks by vets, and any major dietary changes should be done with medical oversight but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. Obviously a wfpbd will kill a cat, as the poster you censored pointed out. Your closeness is affecting your judgement here, and you cannot ‘own’ a sentient being.
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Wow I’m not impressed with the removal of a moderator’s response.
