Vegans who own carnivores

stillalive88

adrenalinjunkie wrote: »

I've gone back to mid-December on that group stay alive 88. You had to go back a full month to find that picture and the owner only says it's a vegan cat, nothing about how long its on that diet. 80% of the posts are from people either thinking about changing or have recently started changin. The remainder are about skin issues, unsatisfactory urine tests etc. On your way to that photo you passed one of a white cat stretched out that looks very malnourished and unhealthy to me, which I won't post as I very much doubt the owner would give me permission to replicate here.

Well that is all I wanted really, just for you to open it and check out for real. I hope you will stick around and speak to those people.
There are 109 pictures of almost all different cats just in the main album, plus a good amount of pictures posted in the timeline. The story of a lot of them is reported.

Not sure why you spelunked for that specific image of that one cat, I posted it cause it's just so awesome, it's an example amongst many, I was flicking through a lot of them as you noticed. But no there was no further reason to it, I just love the colours on that particular cat. Looks like the first cat I had. Still, the concept of the group is beautiful cause you can contact the owner and ask her directly

Yes there is a lot of people asking for advice and thinking about it, as well as so so many giving advice back and showing their stories, just look at all the responses. Also there's a lot of flaming from people mentioning the obligate carnivore rationale and pretty much everything that has been said so far here.

I did not see the unsatisfactory posts you are talking about but maybe I didn't go far back enough? I do remember something about one person that didn't manage to do it and gave up.
By the way this is important: nobody will or should ever FORCE the diet on the animal. You monitor the diet, you tweak it, you try it. If it doesn't work you leave it and that's what we do. No forcing happening. At any time. I can guarantee every single one of us is strongly against it and would never ever risk the life of a FRIEND. Same goes for humans experimenting on themselves. Nutrition is important.

Now if you give me clues about that one unhealhty looking cat I can give it a look. Just cause I'm curious. I'm not a veterinary so I'd hardly say I can judge if a cat is healthy from a picture with 100% accuracy.

@Senna

No one forced a vegan to get a cat, so why get one and force it on an un-natural diet that may not kill it straight away and may not shorten it's live but the important words are "may not", why risk its life? That's not a rhetorical question.

Look on my previous 2-3 posts there is a reply to this argumentation.
Also, most vegans don't "get" a cat, we don't "have" pets. Long explanation, I won't get into it now.
But long story short: usually we offer a home to cats that would otherwise be left to die or to a very miserable life.
Most cats sheltered by vegans are the result of a missing sterilization from other cat owners, usually abandoned kittens.

@Awanderer

Sorry if my reply seemed aggressive but I genuinely thought I was being taken for a fool as the question was very strange and so unrelated to everything going on right now. What is the relevance of the difficulty of having so many cats? There are people on this planet managing 15 or more cats, they are not generally looked in a good light, but I thought it was something of common knowledge?

I know of sanctuaries, I know of people giving a house to strays, I know some people that just cannot bear to have that one more kitty on the street and would rather offer him a home and protection than leave them there... it happens.
Do you really want me to contact her in private and ask her? I don't mind, I kinda have stuff to do but if you really don't want to look into it I'll do it for you and give you the reply. Will take me some time cause am in the middle of a lot of things, but I do care about this.

Cherry Blossom

I just looked up that ami cat food they are talking about, the first four ingredients are corn, corn gluten, corn oil and rice - these are all these terrible cereals you are talking about.

ganmo

stillalive88 wrote: »

Now if you give me clues about that one unhealhty looking cat I can give it a look. Just cause I'm curious. I'm not a veterinary so I'd hardly say I can judge if a cat is healthy from a picture with 100% accuracy.

This paragraph is the root of the argument.
You are not a vet, vets have given advice not to follow a vegan diet
You can't tell if a cat is healthy from a picture so there is a need for a proper scientific study with controls and proper blood/urine samples

SillyMangoX

stillalive88 wrote: »

And on top of it lots of them put cereals, which everybody should know, are almost always so hard to digest for them and should therefore be avoided

And what's in these vegan foods? Looking at one of the most popular brands on that group, first ingredient is corn, followed by corn gluten, corn oil and rice.
Another of the most popular: soya, wheat, Maize gluten, corn, rice.

So cereals = bad in normal meat based food, but okay in vegan food?
I'd much rather feed mine a high meat content grain free food rather that suffer through the itch and allergies that such high grain levels can bring to sensitive animals.

SillyMangoX

adrenalinjunkie wrote: »

I just looked up that ami cat food they are talking about, the first four ingredients are corn, corn gluten, corn oil and rice - these are all these terrible cereals you are talking about.

Lol snap!

stillalive88

"Corn, Corn gluten, corn oil, rice, pea protein, pea fiber, Brewer's yeast, dicalcium phosphate, linseed, hydrolysed vegetable protein, potato protein, sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, rapeseed oil."

You are right on this. I will do further research, I had taken for granted time ago that cereals were to be avoided, I might be wrong on this, or maybe not. I will not blindly stand in denial on one side, I do take things under consideration.

I must though insist on the fact that researching this is difficult and none of us is a vet. (is any of us a vet?)
And even the vets, some of them will advise towards solution A and others toward solution B and that should tell you that the science on this is still very wobbly. I know of terrible stories with bad vets as well as good ones, I know of vegan vets and non vegan vets (for obvious reason, the majority will be non vegan as we are wildly a minority yet), as I know of vegan phisician and non vegan phisicians. I still know of doctors in Italy that will tell you without meat you will die certainly...

My main point is and remains that these cats exist, they are alive, and they are in good health even according to veterinarian exams.
That is proof enough for me, and I know very well how "studies" are so often mistaken, have a second goal or are funded by the very same people that needs them to prove a point for them, so that is not where I put my trust. It's not conspiracy theories, there just have been way too many scandals in the last decades to trust them so blindly.

@SillyMango you might be right but do look more closely into what really is in those foods though. Do research on rendered meat, I beg of you. I remember when taking canned foods I would always take the grain free options... Even the meat for humans has serious problems. I do not know if pet food in europe contains euthanized pets as it does in the US. I'm ready to bet there are exporters from the US though selling here?

@Ganmo
As I have already said of course one should monitor the progress while trying these kind of things. Yes the way to monitor progress is to keep doing urine and blood exams to the cat while doing the new diet. The way you do that, is through a vet.
Every post I have read in the group so far mentioned satisfactory results after 1 month, 2 months, 6 months, 2 years...

MileyReilly

TG1 wrote: »

I was never a vegan but was a vegitarian for years while I had Bob, and also while I had two other short term dogs staying in the house I lived in.

I wouldn't even have thought of depriving them of meat, I was making a choice for myself knowing what the consequences of it were going to be but I couldn't make that choice for lives I was responsible for without knowing what the consequences were for them. They got meat and plenty of it!

What do you think the consequences of not eating meat would be? For you a human.

stillalive88

MileyReilly wrote: »

What do you think the consequences of not eating meat would be? For you a human.

I have been vegetarian 3 years and vegan for 1.
Didn't switch before just because I never met any vegetarian before then and I was firmly convinced you couldn't survive without the meat. Then I met the first vegetarian on my path and switched in a week, never went back.

Consequences for now are better mood, leaner phisique, increase in strength, better sleep quality and increased memory (I used to forget everything) but I think that is just a consequence of better sleep.
During the switch to vegan my digestion was weird for a few weeks, then it went back to normal.
Also I discovered a lot of foods I didn't know existed and have a much more varied diet. I'm eating stuff that is sooo much tastier now, you'd never believe me. Oh and about the tofu, I never tried it.

SillyMangoX

stillalive88 wrote: »

@SillyMango you might be right but do look more closely into what really is in those foods though. Do research on rendered meat, I beg of you. I remember when taking canned foods I would always take the grain free options... Even the meat for humans has serious problems. I do not know if pet food in europe contains euthanized pets as it does in the US. I'm ready to bet there are exporters from the US though selling here?

I've done quite a bit of research into pet foods, because of working an industry where I come across them a lot, as well as having a certain amount of training in nutrition and different brands of food, and generally Europe would have higher standards of regulation involved in these processes (from what I've come across anyway!) than the USA or Asian countries, even in regards to human food (Growth hormone, battery farms etc). Fair enough if a food states ''meat and animal derivatives'' it COULD contain euthanized pets, but without DNA testing on each batch or inspecting all ingredients on the manufacturing lot then it's a bit of a Schrodinger;s cat situation.
Even though I wouldn't feed a vegan diet, it's really important to me what goes into my cats, and I would only feed a food with stated ingredients. Therefore if it says fresh chicken, dehydrated chicken, chicken meat meal, you know it's coming from a chicken and not a dog!
Also the fact that the particular brand I feed states that it's all local produce in the FAQ's section, local being UK to them, I would be happy enough with the welfare standards (as they stand at the moment, of course animal welfare in general could always always stand to improve.) http://applaws.co.uk/about-us/faqs/

Ave Sodalis

stillalive88 wrote:

I must though insist on the fact that researching this is difficult and none of us is a vet. (is any of us a vet?) And even the vets, some of them will advise towards solution A and others toward solution B and that should tell you that the science on this is still very wobbly. I know of terrible stories with bad vets as well as good ones, I know of vegan vets and non vegan vets (for obvious reason, the majority will be non vegan as we are wildly a minority yet), as I know of vegan phisician and non vegan phisicians. I still know of doctors in Italy that will tell you without meat you will die certainly...

Can I just point out, most vets don't do the research? There are animal scientists who specialise in animal nutrition who do the vast majority of the research, and work with vets/feed companies etc.

Now I haven't done cat based nutrition, but I have done equine science which included multiple nutrition modules. What I can tell you is that you have not produced one credible shred of evidence which would stand up to scrutiny. Not one. You're argument is based on ancedotal evidence alone and that is simply not good enough. That woman you claim to have 19 cats... it doesn't matter if she has 100. If the cats are not all kept under similar, non-biased conditions, and nearly all other factors can be eliminated... then she may as well have none from a science point of view. If you're going to insist on arguing for a vegan cat diet, please stop trying to base it off science because you haven't produced a scientic argument. You have barely produced an evidenced argument. Your argument can be wittled down to "I believe", and personally, I don't find that a good enough reason to put any cat through a vegan diet.

Cherry Blossom

Stillalive88 you have contradicted your self several times now on this thread. The more it goes on the more apparent it is that you have actually done no research yourself. You have been praising the benefits of vegan cat food when you didn't even read the ingredients and have never actually fed it to a cat yourself. You are also singing the praises of that Facebook and in all honesty you are reading it through rose tinted glasses. You are only seeing what you want to see and are not looking at it objectively. Despite telling the rest of us several times to approach the topic with an open mind, you yourself could not possibly be any more closed minded.

In summary, you have nothing solid at all behind your argument. I've nothing more to say on the topic. I've no interest in feeding grains and lettuce to carnivorous pets (There is actually a photo on that group of a cat with a container of salad leaves). Imho this is verging on ridiculous now and I'm out.

stillalive88

sup_dude wrote: »

Can I just point out, most vets don't do the research? There are animal scientists who specialise in animal nutrition who do the vast majority of the research, and work with vets/feed companies etc.

Now I haven't done cat based nutrition, but I have done equine science which included multiple nutrition modules. What I can tell you is that you have not produced one credible shred of evidence which would stand up to scrutiny. Not one. You're argument is based on ancedotal evidence alone and that is simply not good enough. That woman you claim to have 19 cats... it doesn't matter if she has 100. If the cats are not all kept under similar, non-biased conditions, and nearly all other factors can be eliminated... then she may as well have none from a science point of view. If you're going to insist on arguing for a vegan cat diet, please stop trying to base it off science because you haven't produced a scientic argument. You have barely produced an evidenced argument. Your argument can be wittled down to "I believe", and personally, I don't find that a good enough reason to put any cat through a vegan diet.

I agree with you in part, but I don't understand the bias of the 19 cats lady. If they are healthy, what is the bias? Where is the trick? Do you mean controlling if they are predating and therefore eating other animals, or do you mean something else?
Anyway if hunting was the, it would still be ok for a vegan, our concern is not to exploit animals so it is simply painful for us to buy the canned meaty foods as they fund an industry that we find unethical top to bottom.
I doubt that all these successes are just depending on the animals themselves hunting, but it's hard to check.
There have been unsuccessful tries as well, I have red of few but there have been. It seems that (just based on my own and others' experiences) about 90% of cats thrive on it but a 10% just can't. So you switch them back to meat and that's it... no forcing, no torture, no letting them die. Of course. And they don't risk it either, all the people I've heard having no success dropped it at the first sign of a problem. They really didn't want to risk it.

I don't have the money to produce a study and every time I research this animal nutrition topics I end up finding barely 4-5 papers of which some favourable some not. And not that recent either unfortunately. Scientifically what it seems to me is that the research is pretty much absent. Like we're not there yet at all. I know a few site where to look for research papers, but on this subject I really am coming up with so little.

Anecdotal evidence and "I believe" are very veeeery different positions.
I can believe I can survive without meat. Or I can do it and phisically prove that it is possible myself. With my own body. Is that the same thing as just believing it?

"Science" has told us for years milk was ohhhh so good, now there has been a massive U turn (did you notice?) in the last year and you will see an even stronger resonance in the future.

But yes, if we were to discuss about science and papers, you couldn't say there is CONCLUSIVE PROOF for a vegan cat diet being applicable. As there is no conclusive proof it isn't applicable.
There is just bits and pieces of information, tiny and very incomplete studies. We are stuck on that side, there just isn't enough research of the traditional kind. And there won't be for a long time unfortunately I'm afraid.
So I find it useless to discuss it on that site. I didn't see anything convincing against it as I didn't see anything sufficient for it either.

I never even mentioned that favourable study from 2006 on this topic because what would be the point. It has too small of a sample and only takes into accounts some substances and some factors, not all of it, as do the counter studies etc...

I am not replying or discussing on that site simply because I am not finding much real information for or against it.

P.s.: Yes of course vets don't do the research, they study on them though. And why would you trust researchers paid directly by feed companies? That is called conflict of interest in my country

@adrenalinjunkie
You'd be surprised at the amount of videos of cats eating anything between salad, broccoly, leaves of various kind... and they get pretty angry if you try to take it away from them. I honestly found that extremely weird myself, couldn't really believe it. I know it doesn't prove much and I know I cannot demostrate this SOLIDLY through science, but that's just cause there isn't much of it.
I myself have to go on critical sense and power observation, what else can I rely on? Can only do as much as give you solid proof though. Those vegan cats are real, eat a vegan diet, and are healthy so that's as much of a solid proof as I can give you. It's reality. You want the confirmation in theory I cannot give it to you, I only have confirmation through practice. It is enough for me, but I understand if you keep skeptical. After all, as I said, it does sound bonkers.

Dubl07

stillalive88 wrote: »

I have been vegetarian 3 years and vegan for 1.
Didn't switch before just because I never met any vegetarian before then and I was firmly convinced you couldn't survive without the meat. Then I met the first vegetarian on my path and switched in a week, never went back.

Consequences for now are better mood, leaner phisique, increase in strength, better sleep quality and increased memory (I used to forget everything) but I think that is just a consequence of better sleep.
During the switch to vegan my digestion was weird for a few weeks, then it went back to normal.
Also I discovered a lot of foods I didn't know existed and have a much more varied diet. I'm eating stuff that is sooo much tastier now, you'd never believe me. Oh and about the tofu, I never tried it.

Just wait till you meet a Breatharian. You'll never look back. :rolleyes:

stillalive88

Dubl07 wrote: »

Just wait till you meet a Breatharian. You'll never look back. :rolleyes:

Now that is just uncalled for. Btw, if anybody is wondering, my nickname doesn't come from the fact that I went vegan and survived

awanderer

stillalive88 wrote: »

@Awanderer

Sorry if my reply seemed aggressive but I genuinely thought I was being taken for a fool as the question was very strange and so unrelated to everything going on right now. What is the relevance of the difficulty of having so many cats? There are people on this planet managing 15 or more cats, they are not generally looked in a good light, but I thought it was something of common knowledge?

I know of sanctuaries, I know of people giving a house to strays, I know some people that just cannot bear to have that one more kitty on the street and would rather offer him a home and protection than leave them there... it happens.
Do you really want me to contact her in private and ask her? I don't mind, I kinda have stuff to do but if you really don't want to look into it I'll do it for you and give you the reply. Will take me some time cause am in the middle of a lot of things, but I do care about this.

No, you don't have to ask for me. As I said, I just asked because I thought you would know the answer.

My questions are never more than that. I do not believe in debates on the internet. Of course, I would like to know the answer to my question but it is certainly not a priority. As far as animals are concerned, my priority at the moment is how to make my unexpected foster dog as healthy and happy as possible without depriving my own dog of the attention he needs/deserves.

And yes, I do of course know about shelters, sanctuaries where lots of cats are kept in the same building but it is always a temporary solution while they look for a forever home for those cats.

Gael23

A dogs diet has to be based on meat being the key ingredient. Simple.

stillalive88

awanderer wrote: »

No, you don't have to ask for me. As I said, I just asked because I thought you would know the answer.

My questions are never more than that. I do not believe in debates on the internet. Of course, I would like to know the answer to my question but it is certainly not a priority. As far as animals are concerned, my priority at the moment is how to make my unexpected foster dog as healthy and happy as possible without depriving my own dog of the attention he needs/deserves.

And yes, I do of course know about shelters, sanctuaries where lots of cats are kept in the same building but it is always a temporary solution while they look for a forever home for those cats.

True.
Well I have to say when I had 6 cats we simply had a few shelters for them outside of the house, to keep them warm, we would let them come in and out if they wanted (small house in the countryside), and had bowls outside for them... food and clean water. That was all they needed, and they ran around all day in the countryside, would follow us on walk, etc.

With 19 you'd just need more bowls, more shelter, and quite a crowded house but it is definitely possible... after the first 1-2 cats. And of course is more expensive and would require more vet visits.
But put that same thing in an apartment, no I really don't think that would be possible at all.

@Gael23
PetMD -Vegetarian dogs?
Simple.
The vegan option
In the last link you'll find the only study that was basically ever really done on this... I haven't quoted it so far cause it doesn't feel strong enough, but might as well. No harm in sharing information.
Direct link
Quite small, but so is the rest. We are working on breadcrumbs cause there is not much monetary interest for it, so it's hard that it's going to happen. Would definitely be a disadvantage to most feed industries existing.

kylith

stillalive88 wrote: »

I have been vegetarian 3 years and vegan for 1.
Didn't switch before just because I never met any vegetarian before then and I was firmly convinced you couldn't survive without the meat. Then I met the first vegetarian on my path and switched in a week, never went back.

Well, then you know how much care a human, an omnivore, needs to take to ensure that their nutritional needs are met on a vegetarian diet. So extrapolate from that how much more care they need to take to ensure that they get their nutritional needs met on a vegan diet. Now extrapolate how much, much more care would need to be taken in order to try to ensure that an animal which hasn't evolved to eat any plant matter at all, ever, apart from when actually starving as a last-ditch attempt to not die, has its needs met.

Not to mention that you're assuming that a) the vegan food is actually vegan and that b) the people posting pictures of their vegan pets are actually feeding a vegan diet at all. People do lie after all. There's nothing to stop me starting a Facebook page about Thunder, the horse I feed kittens to, despite the fact that I don't have a horse and if I did I wouldn't feed it kittens.

Ave Sodalis

stillalive88 wrote:

I agree with you in part, but I don't understand the bias of the 19 cats lady. If they are healthy, what is the bias? Where is the trick? Do you mean controlling if they are predating and therefore eating other animals, or do you mean something else?

Bias in a study is when you do a study expecting or wanting a certain result.

stillalive88 wrote:

I don't have the money to produce a study and every time I research this animal nutrition topics I end up finding barely 4-5 papers of which some favourable some not. And not that recent either unfortunately. Scientifically what it seems to me is that the research is pretty much absent. Like we're not there yet at all. I know a few site where to look for research papers, but on this subject I really am coming up with so little.

I'm not asking you to make a study happen. One singular study doesn't stand for much anyway.
You're still completely ignoring the animal's physiology.

stillalive88 wrote:

Anecdotal evidence and "I believe" are very veeeery different positions. I can believe I can survive without meat. Or I can do it and phisically prove that it is possible myself. With my own body. Is that the same thing as just believing it?

Yes, in this context, they're the same.

stillalive88 wrote:

"Science" has told us for years milk was ohhhh so good, now there has been a massive U turn (did you notice?) in the last year and you will see an even stronger resonance in the future.

No, I haven't noticed. Where does science say milk is not good for you?

stillalive88 wrote:

But yes, if we were to discuss about science and papers, you couldn't say there is CONCLUSIVE PROOF for a vegan cat diet being applicable. As there is no conclusive proof it isn't applicable. There is just bits and pieces of information, tiny and very incomplete studies. We are stuck on that side, there just isn't enough research of the traditional kind. And there won't be for a long time unfortunately I'm afraid. So I find it useless to discuss it on that site. I didn't see anything convincing against it as I didn't see anything sufficient for it either.

There's very few studies to say horses can't eat meat. Do you know why? You should. I've already told you. Twice.

stillalive88 wrote:

P.s.: Yes of course vets don't do the research, they study on them though. And why would you trust researchers paid directly by feed companies? That is called conflict of interest in my country

So you won't trust researchers but you will trust random people on Facebook with absolutely no scientific data to back up what they're saying?

Senna

So the people who post on that Facebook page are vegan, they are proud of it and just a wild stab in the dark here but if one of their cats were sick or sick looking, do you think they would put up pictures of their sick vegan cat? Not a chance in hell.

Dubl07

kylith wrote: »

Well, then you know how much care a human, an omnivore, needs to take to ensure that their nutritional needs are met on a vegetarian diet. So extrapolate from that how much more care they need to take to ensure that they get their nutritional needs met on a vegan diet. Now extrapolate how much, much more care would need to be taken in order to try to ensure that an animal which hasn't evolved to eat any plant matter at all, ever, apart from when actually starving as a last-ditch attempt to not die, has its needs met.

Not to mention that you're assuming that a) the vegan food is actually vegan and that b) the people posting pictures of their vegan pets are actually feeding a vegan diet at all. People do lie after all. There's nothing to stop me starting a Facebook page about Thunder, the horse I feed kittens to, despite the fact that I don't have a horse and if I did I wouldn't feed it kittens.

Now, now. The cat has been told about animal rights and is committed to a vegan diet. Even if a frail baby bird lands in front of it, or if a tiny, juicy little mouse unfurls from a bundle of leaves, that cat will remain strong, stoic and vegan. Or it won't write about it in its diary. It did not have culinary relations with that crittur.

ganmo

I give you Science!
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11259-005-0009-1

There are more papers than I expected, plenty on owner behaviour...
But I've had to research items before and found less papers than that

stillalive88

sup_dude wrote: »

So you won't trust researchers but you will trust random people on Facebook with absolutely no scientific data to back up what they're saying?

I trust the reality of multiple cats being alive and well over fake studies, yes.

@DUbl07 We have no problem with cats hunting, but vegans will not feed them meat whenever possible. And they won't feel that good either when forced to, but it's their choice of rescuing the animal anyway and it's better than letting a kitten die.

@Senna Yes, we are religious fanatics and we will absolutely let all the animals die in name of our ideology, that says to respect and care for animals and not kill them, but letting them die in our care is of course completely A-Ok! That's exactly what you can expect from a vegan!

@Ganmo Should would be nice to be able to read it! Yes I have heard of this study before. I'm not sure I remember correctly but I think it might be aganist. Then there's one from 2006 that I linked, another from 2011 and another couple. That's more or less all I find every time.

Dubl07

stillalive88 wrote: »

I trust the reality of multiple cats being alive and well over fake studies, yes.

@DUbl07 We have no problem with cats hunting, but vegans will not feed them meat whenever possible. And they won't feel that good either when forced to, but it's their choice of rescuing the animal anyway and it's better than letting a kitten die.

You don't need an @ - this isn't twitter. Look: It should be clear that a natural diet for a cat is meat. You're filling them with garbage calories on a vegan diet. Just give them shelter and affection and put them out to hunt if you really think that's a good idea. I think it's Cadbury's fruit and nuts but each to their own. Crap. Now I have an earworm for the next three days.

Ave Sodalis

stillalive88 wrote:

I trust the reality of multiple cats being alive and well over fake studies, yes.

What fake studies?
With respect, I don't think anyone who doesn't understand what a bias is, or what ancedotal evidence is, is in any position to determine the quality of a study.

ganmo

Email the author he might oblige by sending you a copy

It's a review paper so it's more open to the authors opinion than a research paper but you have the references to see if you come to the same conclusions

kylith

stillalive88 wrote: »

I trust the reality of multiple cats being alive and well over fake studies, yes.

You trust anecdotal, unverifiable, possibly fraudulent claims over peer reviewed studies?

stillalive88 wrote: »

@DUbl07 We have no problem with cats hunting, but vegans will not feed them meat whenever possible. And they won't feel that good either when forced to, but it's their choice of rescuing the animal anyway and it's better than letting a kitten die.

If they are allowed out to hunt then they are, de facto, not being fed a vegan diet. In order to have a 'vegan' cat they would have to be kept in and fed solely on vegan food. If they are hunting then they are eating meat and any claims of healthy vegan cats can be summarily dismissed.

stillalive88

Dubl07 wrote: »

You don't need an @ - this isn't twitter. Look: It should be clear that a natural diet for a cat is meat. You're filling them with garbage calories on a vegan diet. Just give them shelter and affection and put them out to hunt if you really think that's a good idea. I think it's Cadbury's fruit and nuts but each to their own. Crap. Now I have an earworm for the next three days.

I'm using @ as in I'm responding "at" someone... this is an old practice that came well before twitter and is also doable in facebook. Just feeling too lazy to use the mutiple quotes to multiple people though that would probably be quicker. Eh.

A natural diet for a cat is hunting their pray.
You guys should really see this point as it is plain and simple. Feeding them beef in a can is not a cat's natural diet. Nothing coming out of a can is ever their natural diet. No, not even that delicious filet that you saved for him cause you are so generous, or a piece of a juicy steak. Not their natural diet.
Can we please drop this point please, are you seeing the contradiction?

Canned food is very low quality meat with empty calories. Vegan food is formulated to look at all possible deficiencies, exactly cause it's its purpose, and what is usually done is that you use an integrator for those deficiencies and arrange the rest of the meal yourself following some guidelines. You are looking for the right aminoacids and a few selected substances, you are of course adding some synthetic taurine (Exactly as in the canned food) and some B12. You are getting the protein from a vegetable source and as weird that sounds, it turns out they can take the protein from it and they do.

Yes, personally given the choice I would just give them shelter as in structure to repair them from bad weather, clean water and lots of love and let them to hunt, but that is only possible in certain conditions. This is also not that great if there are lots of cats killing wildlife but then again so is man's presence doing the same, and the alternative is letting the kittens to die or even worse feeding them low quality meat byproducts from the meat industry.

@Kylith Depends if they really are peer reviewed, how, etc. If I see that a study takes cats that are NOT on a real vegan diet but just deprived of meat and the study turns out to say they get ill, well thank you very much for the flawed premises but I'll leave it alone, right? Which is what happened with the other studies out there, at least the ones accessible to read. Those studies just took away the meat and did nothing to compensate for any nutritional lack. How is that fair? How is that a study that makes sense? Do the same on humans. I'll feed you uncooked GMO soybeans for 6 months, that's a complete vegan diet no???

Your point on the vegan-ness is a bit of a nitpick. We say vegan cat for convenience, but YES a cat cannot technically be vegan. It doesn't have the ability to choose a lifestyle in that sense, so it's more accurately described as a plant-based cat. If they are hunting outside or not doesn't change much, it's the owner that is making an ethical choice in trying, as much as possible, not to fund an industry that exploits animals.

Dubl07

stillalive88 wrote: »

Your point on the vegan-ness is a bit of a nitpick. We say vegan cat for convenience, but YES a cat cannot technically be vegan. It doesn't have the ability to choose a lifestyle in that sense, so it's more accurately described as a plant-based cat. If they are hunting outside or not doesn't change much, it's the owner that is making an ethical choice in trying, as much as possible, not to fund an industry that exploits animals.

If humans stop caring for pigs, what will happen to the porcine population? If humans cease breeding cattle, no one will milk the cows, make the cheese, supervise the grazing of the slopes and meadows. If people desist from shearing wool, angora, cashmere, who will feed the sheep and other animals? The varied human dependency on animals ensures viability for a number of species. It's not always ideal but it can be a comfortable codependency.

stillalive88

Dubl07 wrote: »

If humans stop caring for pigs, what will happen to the porcine population? If humans cease breeding cattle, no one will milk the cows, make the cheese, supervise the grazing of the slopes and meadows. If people desist from shearing wool, angora, cashmere, who will feed the sheep and other animals? The varied human dependency on animals ensures viability for a number of species. It's not always ideal but it can be a comfortable codependency.

If non vegans suddendly stopped using this argument, what would happen to the planet?

I had to explain this thing like... well basically every time I spoke to any non vegan ever, this is a very flawed premise and I kinda heard it way too many times. But here I go again.

We breed animals to exploit them and they never get any chance for a fair life.

What will happen, for simple ecological mere necessity (long explanation and off topic so I am skipping it) as we don't have enough resources to go on for long with meat consumption, is that the trade will gradually die out. There will be less and less caged cows and chicken and eventually, hopefully, this kind of exploitation will be gone and only be a very dark dark memory from the past. We'll stop caging them and we'll stop treating them as commodities.

If you study agriculture in universities you will find them referenced as "units". A unit is "discarded" when it is no longer "profitable". Sounds like a co-dependency?

IF we suddendly dropped out of it right now, which is impossible, there would be chaos on a general level, especialy on a market level as the farmers would have no time to convert to something else.

What in reality you would be left with is a lot of land that could be reforested for real wildlife again, as animal farming uses more or less ten times more resources than vegetable farming for a similar nutritional output for humans. Long explanation, I'll skip on this one but you can easily find it everywhere.

Yes we will lose all the tortured animals and gain some free ones. But that would be amazing, no???

It has been a comfortable dependancy (not co) for centuries as we did not have the means to sustain ourselves in the winter through only vegetables (although some civilization may have been vegan and some were, turns out), now we can afford to leave it behind and produce the same food with way less land. Sounds like a win win. Less of a win win to who does animal farming, but there is time to re-convert as this will take time.