something something vegan cat food, something something discourse about cats and food, something something head mod yeeted the entire thread and called it a day, something something lemmy.world TOS updated to reflect the decision positively.
Hence, why we’re here now. I think i kinda agree with the vegans, depends on the thread itself, i wasnt there, but someone who yelled at me in dms makes me think it wasn’t super spicy, and if it wasn’t then who cares.
something something vegan cat food
think i kinda agree with the vegans
are you kidding me?
https://www.bluecross.org.uk/advice/cat/food-and-weight/can-cats-be-vegan
Cats are obligate carnivores and cannot obtain all the nutrients they need from plants alone.
Cats have specific nutritional needs, including protein requirements and amino acids (such as taurine and arachidonic acid). These needs cannot be met by a vegan diet without synthetic supplements.
Additionally, taurine, (an amino acid, which is needed for many of your cat’s vital tissues and organs including their heart, eyesight, and immune system) is an essential part of a cat’s diet. Cats cannot make their own taurine so they must have it in their diet. Natural taurine can only be found in animal-based proteins.
Cats can become very ill if given a plant-based diet which has not been supplemented with these nutrients. If you are still considering feeding your cat a vegan diet, please speak to your vet beforehand.
The whole conversation from the vegan side has been that those proteins and other substances essential to cats are already commonly synthesized for things like animal feed or even human energy drinks. Your own source says it’s impossible without synthetic supplementation, but the deleted comments from that dumpster fire were specifically about synthetic supplementation.
I’m not an expert in this stuff but I can see when comments aren’t actually engaging with arguments from the other side, which is why I think that the vegans have the better argument in this whole saga.
From your source:
There are some commercial vegan diets available which have synthetically made nutrients to replace those found only in animal based ingredients.
The discussion is about commercial vegan cat food, which had the nutrients cats need, just sourced without killing other animals. The science on these diets is still relatively new, but early studies are looking pretty good.
They banned an admin and reinstated a bunch of deleted comments.
I don’t know what else they expected.
“we taught a lion to eat tofu!”
I’ll never not up-lemm Futurama.
That being said, I think some (most?) were talking about nutritionally complete feed with synthetically created nutrients to fill gaps in a plant-based diet for cats.
I’d never do it to my kitties because I’m a FiLtHy CaRnIsT, but with proper supervision from a vet it sounds doable. At least not worse than Great Value cat food that’s grain forward.
TL;DR idk why Admins are censoring discussion. This is how things are learned and I thought Lemmy might be a place for that.
*coughs weakly
Apropos of nothing - a few months ago I was looking at one of the sites that curated Fediverse block lists. (Can’t remember which one.)
Now some of the blocks were quite reasonable. If a hundred site admins look at your site and go “wait a second, these guys are Nazis” and block the site, that’s not so controversial, OK?
But some of the blocks were, uh, how do I put this…?
Individual drama between site admins and their cliques.
Beef.
So much beef.
So much beef that I immediately thought “gee, how can c/vegan even safely exist in Lemmy? There’s so much beef everywhere.”Well played
Never would have happened with a capy!
People started arguing about whether cats can eat vegan, mods on c!vegan got involved, then an admin got involved. People’s personal feelings about veganism overtook any actual discussion about when it is or isn’t inappropriate for Admins/mods to step in, hence the pinned post on the front page.
Hello, blood mouth here checking in.
I just had a look over there, every post bar one in the last week is about vegan cats.
They’re not handling this well at all.
What the hell? If a human decides to go vegan, then great! But forcing a CARNIVOROUS animal into it is just animal abuse.
They have multiple text wall posts rambling on about Taurine and B12 they think will prove you wrong.
They’re probably going to fuck off to one of the pariah subs like Hexbear, by the sound of it. They don’t like their views being challenged.
Vegan cats is such a weird hill to die on for vegans. Mostly, because it isn’t a hill. Hills give you tactical advantage. The position with the vegan cats is basically indefensible. I can’t say for sure that it’s impossible to feed cats a vegan diet that’s healthy for them.
I’ve googled ‘vegan cats’ and the first thing I found was an article from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/13/cats-may-get-health-benefits-from-vegan-diet-study-suggests. However, a problem I have with the article, and the study linked (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0284132) is that the methodology was for the pet owners to report the cats health status. I feel that this doesn’t produce a reliable result. The most important factor is that it’s not a controlled environment. The cats may be allowed outside, which means that they would supplement their diet through hunting. My standard for evidence is a study were the cats are fed a vegan diet in a controlled setting.
The second artice found (https://theconversation.com/is-it-really-safe-to-feed-your-cat-a-vegan-diet-213356) Also mentions the same study, which doesn’t meet my standard of evidence. (Cats are fed a vegan diet in a controlled setting where they can’t supplement their diet)
The third result (https://www.bluecross.org.uk/advice/cat/food-and-weight/can-cats-be-vegan) Says that cats can’t be vegan, but then says that some vegan cat foods do exist. No article link as to the veracity of claims.
The fourth result, from the university of Winchester, refers to the aforementioned study (https://www.winchester.ac.uk/news-and-events/press-centre/media-articles/vegan-diet-healthier-for-cats-than-meat-according-to-new-survey.php).
The fifth result, a site called Vegan Outreach (https://veganoutreach.org/vegan-diets-cats/) seems to provide a nuanced take, I skimmed the article, and their conclusion says that more research is needed. They mention another study which tested two vegan diets for cats found them lacking in key nutrients.
Sixth result is the study most of these articles refer to (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0284132).
Seventh is an article by PETA. I don’t consider these guys trustworthy.
Anyway, those are basically research notes from a short googling session.
