Personally I can’t dredge up much respect for anyone who would force their diet beliefs on an animal. I wouldn’t force a cat to become a vegan/vegetarian any more then I’d force a rabbit to eat mice.
I know some dogs are allergic to certain protein sources and sometimes have to resort to a carefully controlled vegetarian diet, but I’ve NEVER heard of a cat having an adverse reaction to meat.
So if you have issues with feeding meat to an animal that requires it then don’t own a cat. There are many other pet options out there.
Firstly, as some people have pointed out, plenty of vegetarians feed their cats meat. I’m vegetarian, and so are quite a few of my friends, and i don’t know anyone who feeds their cats a vegetarian diet. Some people just seem to be looking for an excuse to bash vegetarians. Well, if it makes you feel better, go ahead.
Secondly, to all those arguing about what is “natural” for cats: do you supply live animals for your cats to chase, kill and eat? Do you find carrion and leave it lying around the house for your cat to eat? Or do you buy cans or bags of processed food? And do you let your cat die “naturally” is it is hurt or injured? Or do you take it to a vet? Are your animals neutered and spayed, or do you let “nature” take its course, with the resulting spike in cat populations?
Let’s not kid ourselves that domestic cats live in some sort of natural, unspoiled state. As Maastricht has pointed out, even regular commercial cat food has a whole bunch of non-meat stuff in it. As long as the food has been prepared properly, and tested to confirm that it contains all the nutrients that a cat needs to survive, does it really matter exactly what’s in it?
Well, cats are also “designed” to be in the wild, as you suggest. Some vegans or vegetarians might argue that keeping them cooped up in houses and apartments is also cruel. I happen to disagree, and i think that cats and human make good companions for one another, but your argument about what is “natural” for a cat is silly given the distinctly unnatural way in which they live under human control.
As for what is “natural” for an animal, do you concern yourself at all about whether it is “natural” for millions of cows and chickens and pigs to be raised in brutal conditions, only to be placed in cat and dog food so that our cats can have a “natural” diet. As the Vegan Cats website says
As i suggested before, i have no problem with feeding cats meat, or regular cat food. But an argument based on what is “natural” leaves itself open to a whole bunch of logical contradictions.
Does your concern about animal cruelty stretch to farm animals and the way they are raised, or is it restricted to cute, furry house pets?
Yes it does, but that wasn’t part of the OP’s theme so I didn’t touch on that.
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I believe that I should raise my own meat to slaughtering stage, and slaughter it myself. This way I am aware as to how the animal was raised, what it was fed, what medical treatments were in the animal’s life and how it was slaughtered. Unfortunately I don’t have that option at the moment and presently buy my meat from a local.
This is also why I hunt. I like to be able to provide for myself and not have to depend on faceless farmers with questionable farming practices.
I like to know where my food is coming from. I also like to know where my cat food is coming from, which is why I feed them human grade quality cat food.
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Now, I have absolutely no problem with vegetarians or vegans. I just get riled up when they inflict their dietary beliefs on an animal that can’t speak up for itself.
What’s your rationale for saying that? Did you actually read the descriptions of the vegan cat food products mentioned on the sites? All of them are supplemented with taurine (derived from yeast) and the vitamins and fatty acids that cats can’t absorb from vegetable sources. Do you have one shred of evidence that cats do any worse eating this stuff than they do living on the muck that’s in regular commercial cat food?
(Note: I’m not advocating vegan cat food, just questioning the knee-jerk dismissals of it. I don’t know anyone who uses it.)
I also don’t see a lot of cats catching and eating cows, but nobody complains that feeding them beef is “imposing their personal values on a different species.”
From what I can see it does not provide them with animal fat, without this they’ll have many serious problems, neither can I see where it says it provides them with a source of vitamin A that they can digest.
What some of you seem to be missing is that some dietary choices & restrictions are nutritionally harmless. Trying to take a cat off meat is not. And furthermore, it derives from a complete misunderstanding of what a cat is or how the ecology works.
Carnivores serve a function as meat-eaters, just as decomposers serve a particular function, and ruminants, and phytoplankton, and the rest.
Jains/Vegans simply don’t understand eco-biology, so they believe in a “Peaceable Kingdom” model of the natural world that simply doesn’t, and can’t exist.
This argument might have a scintilla of relevance if domestic cats were roaming free as carnivores in the broader ecosystem. But most cats eat straight from a plastic dish filled by their owners.
Are the factory farms that supply the meat a natural part of the ecology, serving their designated function? Were cattle and pigs and chickens designed to be kept in tiny spaces, pumped full of antibiotics and synthesized hormones and processed food, then converted in massive factories into something to be eaten by people and animals?
Again, in case anyone missed it the first two times, i’m not particularly advocating a vegan or vegetarian diet for cats. But the arguments about what is “natural” that are being made in this thread are no less naive than the “Peaceable Kingdom” argument that you denounce. Discussing the function of carnivores and decomposers and phytoplankton in the wild has virtually no relevance to what we feed our domestic house pets. We have, for all intents and purposes, taken these animals out of their natural ecosystem.
It seems that the jury is still out on whether all cats can thrive on a vegan diet. Even the Vegan Cat website states that about 10-15% might develop urinary tract problems, and recommends frequent visits to the vet. But if a domestic cat can live on non-meat products, i see no reason to denounce people who use such products by arguing that they are defying “nature.” At least gulo gulo is consistent, and realizes that the way we raise farm animals is no more “natural” than feeding vegetarian food to cats.